The Long Way There

In a play off of the lyrics from a song by one of my daddy's favorite bands (Take the Long Way Home, Supertramp), this post is brought to you by my lovely husband, Alex.  He recently returned from a work trip to Hawaii, in which I asked him to compile a list of tips or suggestions for surviving long plane rides.  With lots of folks heading out on long trips to visit family for the holidays, I thought this might be something worth sharing (that, and my internet time has been consumed by baby registry research/Christmas-Anniversary shopping, so I needed something to fill the space here!).  And without further ado, read on!

5 Ways to Entertain Yourself … On a 12-hour Plane Ride 

When on a chartered flight from Monroe to San Francisco to Honolulu, you have to find ways to pass the time as total flying time is about 10-10.5 hours and then add in another 1.5 hours of a layover to refuel.

What is one to do on a flight of that length?  Below are the things that I did to help pass the time.

1 – Listen to music.

I got a bunch of new CDs for my birthday which was just about 10 days earlier, so I loaded them all up on my phone and jammed out. Everything from Lady Antebellum and Brad Paisley to American Authors and Imagine Dragons. Listening to all of that got me about 2.5 hours or so, so that was a tremendous help.

2 – Read a book.

I had been working on a book for most of the football season but I finally got around to finishing The Closer by Mariano Rivera. Not a NY Yankee fan by any stretch of the imagination, but he was one of the greatest pitchers ever and a class act of a guy. It is a great book, definitely worth the read. Anyway, finishing out about the last third of the book or so got me on the ground in San Fran. So leg one of the trip was in the books.

3 – See what others are doing / stand up.

Some of the athletic training staff that I was seated near used Snapchat to play hangman, it was rather entertaining to watch. Also, don’t sit the entire time, you have to get up and move around – pending no turbulence obviously.

During our layover, we were able to get off the plane and stretch our legs on the jetway, just to give us a break. After refueling and putting meals on the plane we headed off for Honolulu.

4 – Eat.

After take off and once the seat belt sign went off, I grabbed my food box which was nothing more than a ham sandwich, chips and an apple. Regardless it was much needed and combined with my snack bag that I had brought on the plane, I was all set for leg two of the trip.

5 – Movies.

Thanks to a Google Play card from my wife for my birthday, I rented some movies to watch on my tablet to help pass the time. I watched The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (a comedy) and Southpaw (action/drama). The first was funny, to me at least, and I had meant to watch it several years ago, but just now got around to it. The second movie was great, if you haven’t seen Southpaw then you need to do so ASAP! It has some rather sad and dark parts, but it is a great movie.

Watching two movies (I watched Horrible Bosses on the return trip) and talking to those around me took most of the trip to Hawaii; so there you have it, what do to on a plane for 10-12 hours.

I hope this helps to jump start ideas entertainment on any upcoming flights you have! 

Alex

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Notes from the wife: 

A few weeks before Alex's trip, I came across this post that included some great ideas for getting him set up for the long flights.  Wet wipes, medication, neck pillow (yes, the one they mentioned) and snacks...I made sure Alex had everything he might possibly need to stay comfortable on the trip.  I also started a (private) Pinterest board for travel ideas, so be sure to let me know if you'd like to see it.

-Lauren