Things To Do: How To Survive a Long Haul Flights

Booking your next vacation is fun! The excitement of going to a faraway place, seeking adventure and leaving your life and problems behind, is probably one of the main reasons why people love traveling so much.

You’ve packed up your bags, said your farewell to your loved ones and it’s finally time to head to the airport. On the drive there you start asking yourself, “What the hell am I going to do for the next 14hrs on this flight!? How am I going to survive the next couple of hours?” Here is how…

I took my first long haul international flight at the age of 8, when I first moved to Los Angeles from Israel. The first flight seemed exciting, the second time was also pretty cool and somewhere between the 3rd and the 4th, I started to go crazy and lose my mind. I’m sure it wasn’t so exciting to my mom having to deal with me and my little brother fighting over stickers and color pencils.

At the age of 11, I made that same 17hrs flight all by myself, when I went to Israel alone to visit my grandma for my birthday. My mom was smart enough at this point to start sending us off with a bag full of things to do.

When you become an adult, those coloring books and stickers aren’t much of use. So you gotta depend on “grown up” things to do.

Here are a few tips and ideas on how to keep yourself entertained on long haul flights.

• Taking care of your health

To start, I can’t stretch out enough how important it is to take care of yourself on long haul flights, I have gotten sick 349358 million times from flights. There are so many germs being past from flight to flight. People are traveling from all around the world with different kinds of viruses and the thing I hate to hear on a flight, is people coughing next to me because I know chances are I’m going to get sick. To prevent that and to insure that you have a good and healthy flight, take vitamins. A lot of people like to take Airborne, but any vitamin C is good for you. Also remember to stay hydrated, flights can be very dry for your skin, bring lotion and hand sanitizer.

• Watch a movie!

This is by far the best way to make time past by faster! Half the reason I get so excited about long haul flights is for the movies I get to catch up on! The moment I find my seat, the first thing I do is find out what movies are playing and figure out what I want to see. Think about it, 3 movies can be anywhere from 5hrs-10hrs of entertainment! Pick longer movies that you normally don’t have time for when you’re at home. You can also download a movie or a TV show on your iPad, laptop or phone.

• A glass of wine = nap time

If you are one of those people that has problems sleeping on flights, how about a glass of red wine! Red wine is good for the heart and will make you sleepy. Some international flights offer free wine with your dinner meal. If not, it’s normally $6-$8 for a small bottle that can usually be used for 2 glasses.

• Sleep

In order to insure some sleep on a long haul flight, I like to fly during the early-bird flights or on red eye flights (middle of the night). If I fly in the early morning, I normally tend to stay up all night, so that I’m exhausted by the time I get on the plane or I simply catch a late night flight, where I know I’m guaranteed to fall asleep.

• Window seating please

There are just so many benefits to a window seat, #1 you get a pretty sick view, #2 it helps with motion sickness, #3 you can grab a pillow and comfortable sleep on it and #4 you get more room.

• Make a friend!

I can’t even begin to tell you, how many AMAZING people I have met on the long haul flights and shared hours of long deep conversations with. All you gotta do is just smile and say hi to the person sitting next to you. I guarantee you time will past by faster.

• Podcast

There are some pretty badass podcasts to listen to in every subject imaginable. So download yourself a few things you’re interesting in learning about.

• E-Book or Real Book

Download or buy that one book you have been talking about reading for a long time now. This is the time. If you didn’t have time to download an e-book, get a book at the airport. Almost every airport has a store that sells books and even if you’re in a foreign country, they always have a English section.

• Make a playlist

There is nothing like a good playlist for a long haul flight! My little sister has over 50,000 songs on her iPod and listens to music the whole flight. You can also check out the radio channels on the flight with each station having a different theme. In some airlines like Virgin America you can actually make your own playlist from the song gallery.

• Sudoku

I can’t begin to tell you how many hours I spent on trying to solve different Sudoku puzzles. It’s a great time passer. Some of the magazines inside your front pocket already have them and there are usually 3 of them to solve. I also have the Sudoku app which is free and comes with many problems to solve.

• Get some work done

On my long haul flights I like to use this time to edit videos and work on future blog post. If your job allows you to get some work done so that you can have more playing time when you get to your destination DO IT.

• Bring a notebook and reflect

One of my favorite things to do on flights for years, even before I was a blogger was to write and reflect. I would write goals for myself, things to do list, things to buy list or just randomly write out my thoughts and feelings and reflect on life. Sometimes I’d spend 3hrs writing without even realizing how fast time has past.

• Edit photos

Play with your filters and photo editing apps, we all love photos.

Hope these tips and tricks help for your upcoming flights! anddd over to you! How do you like to spend your time on long haul flights? 

Florence is consistently flooded with tourists year round, but not many of them know about Scarperia, a small Italian town 32 kilometres north in the stunning Mugello valley. Founded in 1306 as an important outpost during the early Florentine Renaissance period, this settlement was in a strategic position, located directly in the path of the only route from Florence and the north. A day trip to this charming historical town will have you leave the tourists behind and make you feel as though you’ve stepped back in time.