Airline Travel Tips

Strategy

• No 30-minute connections through major hubs that have crazy winter weather! My husband was left unsupervised when he booked our flights from the west coast to the east, and he defaulted to the cheapest flight that would get us there the fastest.   Sometimes it's not worth the stress.  Yes, we missed the first of two connecting flights. That set us up for a not so fun game of airline dominoes.  Fortunately, we made it to the cruise ship on time.  That leads me to my next strategy...
  
  
• Fly in a day early for "once in a lifetime" events whenever possible.  This is especially important if you are using airline miles to travel.  Options for those flights tend to take longer, with more connections. (See above tip.) When everyone around you is spiking their stress-o-meter, you can take a breath and roll with the surprises a lot easier.   As an added bonus, your immune system will thank you.  

Food

• Remember you have to eat.  Should your spouse get excited about a great deal on a multi-leg, cross country route that gets you to your destination fast, check this important detail before you book!  Those 30-60 minute connections don't give you time to eat.  There may not even have time for a bathroom break if your next gate isn't close by.  If you have a lot of short, connecting flights, you may find yourself participating in the popular travel diet known as "pretzel fasting."  If you end up with an "amazing race" itinerary, bring along some meal replacement bars and TSA-friendly snacks. 
  
  
• I like to travel with a wide mouth stainless steel insulated water bottle, empty of course, until I get past security screening.  In-flight, I'll take all the ice water they will give me and dump it in there.  I'll flavor my water with immune supporting tablets.  Unless you need extra entertainment, don't use the ones that are fizzy and put the lid on real tight.  There are tons of liquid water flavor drops, but those are just extra liquids to deal with at TSA and may possibly leak, so I get the tablets that come in tubes.  When the tubes are empty, I peel the labels off my big supplement jars and reuse them for travel-sized vitamins and supplement containers.  

  
  

Comfort

• In case you haven't flown in a while, airlines don't give out pillows unless you are in first class.  Enter the poofy coat.  Have you seen those coats that squish down into a stuff sack?  They make great pillows for your low back or neck.  They also double as a lap blanket, or folded a few times, they add a bit of cushion to a hard seat.  Just make sure to tie the stuff sack to the hanging loop at the neckline so they don't go their separate ways.  
  
  
• It can be a bit tough to get a good night's sleep on an overnight flight.  Our flight from California to Australia was 14 hours and left at 11:30pm.  Four hours into our flight, after I was asleep, they turned on the lights to give us sandwiches!  So here's my tip: bring an eye mask on flights where you want to sleep.  On the return flight, the people in front of me watched movies on their seat back screen all night long.  The flickering lights would have kept me awake if it wasn't for the souvenir sleep mask I picked up on my trip.  Too late to pick up a sleep mask?  Try sunglasses.  As a matter of fact, sunglasses go great with my next tip:
  
  
• Dry air on planes is so uncomfortable.  On long flights when I'm sleeping or listening to music or an audiobook, I'll dip a napkin, paper towel, or washcloth, in water and lay it over my face, and put my sunglasses on over it to keep it in place.  The moisture helps prevent chapped lips and the skin inside my nose from drying out.