As a native Argentinean living in the US and also because my wife and I love experiencing new things and places, we spend long hours on planes, so we are usually testing and trying new gadgets and techniques to improve our flight experience.
I like to split things in to a couple different categories, preparation, setup, trip and the actual experience in the new place.
Preparation: This is all the planning for the trip, from where to go, any specific things you want to do, eat or see to less exciting things such as booking plane tickets and hotels, I have to say my wife is the master here, from my conversations there always one person in a couple that is best at pulling the trigger and buying tickets and things even if the other person is the dreamer thinkining about where to go. My personal recommendations here are :
- Booking Flights and Hotels: Book it as much in advance as possible, flights and hotels might have sales or promos but 99% of the time you end paying a higher fare if you wait. If you are open to moving your trip around, sure, wait but if you have a specific date, give yourself as much time in advance as possible.
- Layovers: When looking for flights, look for very long layovers, sometimes splitting an LA to Sidney trip with 1 or 2 days in Fiji can be a dream at no extra flight cost.
- Planning: I used to hate having a schedule, but even if there are just 2 things you want to do, schedule it that way you are freeing up time to enjoy all the other things you want to do without a plan instead of thinking of when can you do that thing you actually want to do. If you are planning a trip with lots of experiences, excel or google sheets can be a great option if you are an old soul like me or using an app if you enjoy that.
Setup: This is the process of checking if passports are good to go, weather, how many bags are you taking, etc.
Travelling: This is the core of this article, what gadgets and things and techniques we have found that actually work and things that suck.
- Gadgets and things we think you should try.
- Headphones: There are two main options here, over the head or earbuds:
- Over the head: these are your big and bulky headphones, my wife swears by them, and a lot of other people do, the Bose Quiet Comfort are my wife’s to go, they sound great, they are very comfortable, no problems if you have small or big ears. The thing I don’t like about them is that I can’t support my head comfortably, there are some cheaper options that are still very good such as the JBL 770 or a brand I swear by if you just care about audio and comfort is Soundcore
- Earbuds or in ears, I love the small footprint they have, that I can take them to a trip and use them on the plane or for a run, I love my Bose QuietComfort Earbuds when I’m home, but I have a tendency to forget my earbuds at the gym or leave them somewhere after it so when travelling I take my Soundcore Liberty 4, they sound great, they have a long battery life, they just don’t look as good and the mic is not as great.
- Cushion: I have lower back pain and sciatica often, so after 4 or 5 hours on a plane seat I start pacing, so a while back I started testing a couple of these, I do enjoy some of them.
- Small and cheap: I actually enjoyed this one, it’s very small and light, it’s very small to pack so sometimes I use it as pillow if the seat is comfortable, but it’s not my first option for the my tushy, I take this one when my flight is around 8 hours.
- For very long trips: Very similar in design to the cheaper option but tailored to your bottom, it gives a better and more stable seating with some a cooler experience.
- Leg hamock: Some people love them, we haven’t really used them much after a couple tests, they are cool if you have some food in your bag but they are only useful if you have enough space. Our son enjoyed it when he was younger because he could support his legs.
- Headphones: There are two main options here, over the head or earbuds:
Actual Trip: As for the actual trip other than saying just enjoy there are two main things we swear by:
- Managing Jetlag: Go to bed at around 10 pm the first night and use an alarm clock, this will help your body get back into a regular schedule as quick as possible, this is actually something a touring musician told me they used to do.
- Try to be as local as possible, get away from big chains and tourist places, it’s like trying to see what New York is about but just staying around Times Square.
- Extra! If you love ice cream as much as we do, don’t buy colorful ice creams, buy from shops where you can’t actually see the ice cream
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