How to Survive a 24-hour-Flight

Greetings from 37,000 feet in the air! In preparation for my departure for Melbourne, Australia, I had a huge mix of excitement and anxiety. Besides a fear of becoming homesick, the only thing I was really dreading about my trip was the 24-hour-long flight broken into three segments going from New York to San Francisco to New Zealand to our final destination of Melbourne. The length of my travels beats any other flight I had taken by about 18 hours. Not to mention how uneasy I am with flying in the first place, I had no idea how I was supposed to spend all that time in the air. Now that I am up here I thought I’d share my tips on how I efficiently passed a long amount of time in an internet-less, very confined space.

1.) Don’t rely on airplane movies. Most long international flights come equipped with a built in screen on every passenger seat. There is usually a nice variety of movies that have recently come out and TV series to watch. But what if you’re already an avid movie-goer and have seen them all or just aren’t fond of any of the new movies? This happened to a friend of mine who recently traveled to Australia. She watched eight movies on the plane ride there, five of which she had no interest in watching whatsoever, and two she turned off thirty minutes into it. Half of the movies provided for us on this trip seem to be foreign movies. Why not bring some movies or seasons of TV series from home that you’ve been wanting to see that will actually entertain you to watch on your laptop?

2.) Bring snacks! This is a very important point for someone like me. Most national flights, such as our seven hour flight from New York to San Francisco, do not supply passengers with meals. They might offer to sell some sort of snack box or maybe even a sandwich, but they’re often quite pricey, and you can only pay with credit card. For international flights they most likely will serve you at least one meal, but let’s face it, airplane food doesn’t have it’s negative reputation without good reason. The worst situation you could face on this long of a flight is not only being extremely bored, but also starving. Or, in our situation, you could just be served breakfast twice in one day and be left extremely confused.

3.) Save all work for the flight. Look at me, for instance, writing this blog entry from my window seat. After waking up from my nap and not quite ready to watch yet another movie, I decided to get cracking on the work I had set aside to save to do on the flight. Any sort of written work will always pass the time beautifully. Just remember to pull any research and information you'd need from the internet offline beforehand. During one layover, I also copy and pasted several emails I had been meaning to respond to into a word document and typed out their responses to send upon landing. What better work environment than being trapped in an airplane for a day?

4.) Get up, Walk around, Chit Chat. Making airline friends might not make sense in the long run, but having conversations with those around you not only passes the time, but helps you to keep your sanity. The most important factor to this, though, is that you have to get the circulation moving in your body. I suppose I slept too long, but by the end of our flight from New York City to San Francisco I had to forcefully stuff my swollen sausages of feet into my boots. I would assume this isn't healthy, and it certainly isn't comfortable. And, hey, crazier things have happened than meeting a potential best friend or spouse on an airplane, so, be social. 

5.) There's no such thing as too much reading material. Before boarding the plane make sure you bring a wide plethora of things to read. I made sure to bring the book I am currently reading, time magazine, two fluff magazines and downloaded several books to my kindle, just in case I really got on a reading kick. By bringing several types and genres of reading materials, once you get tired of reading your book, switching to a lighter magazine will help keep you interested and help to pass the agonizing time.

6.) Prescription drugs. If you are one of the lucky ones, like I am, I would strongly recommend taking any sort of sleeping aid you may have been prescribed. What passes time faster than sleeping for eight hours? That’s more than half of the trip from California to New Zealand! If you do not suffer from insomnia like I do and therefore do not have any sleeping medications, melatonin or Tylenol PM will suffice just fine. Anyone that did not sleep during the longest leg of the journey thought it was a nightmare, whereas those of us that snoozed found it to be completely bearable.  

We are finally landing now in Melbourne, Australia, and I have made it through the flights with much more ease than most. For the friend of mine that did not sleep on the flight but instead watched eight airline provided movies she had little interest in, she spent a week extremely jet-lagged and missed out on a lot of the initial activities and excitement. The way I went about things I would say is more practical and I wouldn't hesitate to fly that long again and reccommend others make the voyage at some point.