The blog has been a little slow over the last week as I am in preparation to go away. There is always more work the week before I go away, not just with organisation for the trip but also with getting all my regular work complete. This week, we have also had house guests and if that were not enough, I am in rehearsals for a stage performance tomorrow night!
This time on Saturday I’ll be on my way to the airport to get my flight to Australia. My family is on the East Coast, in and near Sydney and Brisbane. The first two weeks are a holiday, which I am greatly looking forward to. Then the second half of the trip is work, spanning multiple destinations from Tasmania to Cambodia. I’ll be travelling with a photographer and working on four or five stories for various publications.
It’s a long flight to Australia – about 24 hours. London and Sydney are almost exactly opposite ends of the earth and you can buy flights that go via Asia or North America for very little difference in price or duration. I’m flying via Bangkok, as I am stopping over there on the way back. (Also, if you fly via the US, transit passengers must still collect their luggage and clear customs and immigration in the US, even though they have to immediately check back in).
Here are a few tricks to the trade to how to survive flying long haul.
1. Entertainment
If I can’t sleep I’ll watch movies or read a book if I can’t. I am normally a big reader but the selection of movies on most airlines these days is very good. It’s a good chance to see movies that I missed at the cinema (or that are too much of a guilty pleasure to inflict on my partner). I especially love it when airlines have video on demand as it is so important to be able to pause, fast-forward and rewind. Sometimes there are games to play as well, which is always fun. I have occasionally flown with cheap airlines (China Eastern from London to Sydney via Shanghai, for example) and while you can save money that way, it really does drag on when it’s anything longer than an eight-hour flight. Comfort is important.
2. Sleep
I’m not worried about being bored on the flight but I should try to sleep to beat the jet lag, since I arrive in Australia in the morning and I’m having dinner with some of my cousins that night. To sleep, I pack ear plugs and an inflatable neck pillow and I use the blankets and eye patch provided in the airline pack. I don’t tend to use sleeping pills as I am not a big pill popper anyway and I don’t like the idea of being too groggy to react properly if I need to get off the plane quickly in an emergency. I am hopeful that I will have enough frequent flyer points for an upgrade to business class on the Bangkok-Sydney leg – having the space to stretch out comfortably would really help.
3. Jet lag strategies
Jet lag, like hangovers, seems to get worse the older I get. Since I’m still relatively young, that means that I could be suffering some pretty serious jet lag by the time I’m 60! (If inter-continental travel still exists by then). Some people say that the trick is to set your watch to the destination time zone the moment you board the plane and then try to sleep and wake according to that. However, my belief is that you should sleep as much as possible on the plane. It’s rare that you will sleep so much and so well on the plane that you won’t be able to sleep that night. However, if you stay awake on the plane and then stay awake all day (a struggle but possible) then it takes days to recover because your body has lost an entire night’s sleep. Funnily enough, my body seems to adjust more quickly when I’m going all the way to the other side of the world, like the UK to Australia, than it does flying London to New York and then being consistently an hour or two out of kilter for up to a week.
4. Eating and drinking
I try to eat lightly on the plane because I sleep more comfortably and feel better when I disembark if I am not laden down with a heavy meal. This is difficult because they like to load you up with the calories and salt. I have been know to buy a salad or sushi at the airport to take on the plane, but usually I request a vegetarian meal and avoid the dessert. I love dessert but the airline desserts are never worth it – they are just there to keep you quiet and cure boredom. Sometimes I’ll take one of those free bottles of wine to have with my dinner because a little bit of alcohol helps me sleep. But I’ll also drink loads of water.
5. Water, exercise and the aisle seat
Flying can be very dehydrating and this is bad not only for your health and skin tone but also it worsens any jet lag. I drink a lot of water on flights – two or three litres on a flight to Australia – to stay hydrated and because the forced toilet breaks are a good prompt to get up and stretch and do exercises to beat deep vein thrombosis. (If you are worried about DVT, the compression socks are also a good idea). Since I’m likely to be up quite a lot, I’ll always try to check in early and get an aisle seat. You can never see much from the windows of trans-continental jets anyway. This does mean I sleep a little less but finding the golden balance between sleep and water intake is the trick to feeling good when you get off the plane.
* What are your tips for flying long haul? Do you sleep on the plane? How do you do it? How do you beat jet lag?
I have such a hard time sleeping on planes, that’s why I try not to take red-eyes. Do the neck pillows really work? I usually travel alone and my biggest fear about falling asleep is accidentally tipping over onto the person next to me.
Thanks for your comment. I find the neck pillows helpful because they stop me getting a stiff neck from lying at a funny angle. They move with you so will not stop you falling onto the person next to you! However, on most planes the seats have headrest flaps that you can put up to keep you in place – it’s worth a try! – Caitlin.