If you’ve ever flown on an eight, 10 or 15 hour transatlantic flight, you know that boredom can creep up on you easily. As excited as I get about my trips, let’s get real here, there is a limit to how many movies or television shows I can watch back-to-back. That’s my reality in spite of Netflix’s ardent desire to convert us all into binge-watching addicts.
Besides, laughing animatedly with my travel buddy or even diving deep into an engaging conversation with the passenger sandwiched next to me is not very appealing when everybody within a four-seat radius can hear what we’re saying. And, for most (myself not included), there are only so many book chapters a person can read in one sitting.
So what can we do to avoid pulling our hair on those arduous, long-haul flights? Try one of these suggestions.
Research and practice key words and phrases in the language of the country you will be visiting.
You can do it the old-fashioned way with a pocket dictionary and notepad. Or, you can learn the basics like “hello”, “where is the bathroom”, “how much does this cost”, and “I’d like to order [insert your favorite meals here] via an audio tutorial or with an app – if you have inflight Wi-Fi. No idea which translation app to use? DuoLingo seems to be a popular option.
Fine-tune your on-the-ground itinerary.
While it’s always good to leave room for spontaneity, I’ve found that some of my best vacations were the ones where I had a clear blueprint of what I wanted to see and do in the destination.
Structured activity plans, with room for adjustment, are priceless gems. Guidebooks, bookmarked blog posts, destination websites and TripAdvisor comments are good starting points. They’ll give you multiple ideas for ways to get the most out of your trip.
Complete a few puzzles or play a board game.
Thankfully, we now have many types of puzzles and board games to choose from. There are sliding puzzles, word-search puzzles, anagrams, numerical puzzles and logic puzzles. And my board game lovers, a quick search on Amazon will yield results showing more than 1700 ways to playfully pass your time during a flight. Also, I just heard about the launch of a new math-based puzzle called Numbrcise that is laid out like a crossword but it doesn’t use words or phrases as clues. It’s 100 percent number driven. If you’re a math buff, their brain-teasers could keep you occupied for hours.
Organize the photo gallery on your smartphone to get it ready for your sure-to-happen Instagram and Facebook trip snaps.
As a travel blogger, I take random shots all the time because I never know when I’ll need an image for a Twitter chat or a Facebook and Instagram post. Believe me, I always end up with a storage problem.
Yes, I know I can store images in the cloud but I prefer to upload them to my laptop or an external hard drive. The problem is, I hardly ever get around to doing that. That’s why sitting on a plane is perfect for cleaning house. Not only do I have time to delete the images I’ll never really use but I also get to sort and enhance existing photos. Oh, and on the return flight I recommend editing and curating images for sharing with friends and family, or with your online community. My photo editing software of choice is Snapseed. It works for both iOS and Android phones.
Try airplane yoga!
Until recently, I never even knew that such a thing as a Cat-cow pose at 30,000 feet existed. But according to CNN Travel it does. I found several online articles about the subject and a ton of YouTube instructional videos that show you exactly what to do.
See which of these 18 Exercises For Healthy Flying will work for you – and your seatmates. I’m all for avoiding deep vein thrombosis (blood clots) but I sure am NOT down with my neighbor busting out a downward dog in the aisle next to my seat. I’d be like,”Excuse me, please!”
When all else fails, get some sleep.
Have a great flight on your next lift off!
