Secrets of a well-equipped traveller

Fresh from a six week European adventure (booked entirely via lastminute.com.au, of course), guest blogger Lyndal shares her insights on surviving the often dreaded long-haul flight.

It takes a special kind of person to be a “well-equipped” traveller. I unfortunately admit I’m no such trekker. Sure I have a few stamps in my passport and amazing memories of places I’ve been and stories of people I’ve met there but I’m talking about the champions of travel. You know the ones, those passengers who can board a forty hour flight looking like a model straight out of pages of a heavily airbrushed magazine and get off still looking incredible.

Well-equipped travellers (let’s refer to them as ‘WE Travellers’ shall we), are easily identified. They have confidently found their seat, stowed their light-weight, regulation size carry-on and have begun to unpack onto their tray table.

Like a mother that goes through the nesting phase of a pregnancy, WE Travellers will ensure things like art house magazines, eye-masks and industrial-strength ear plugs are within reach at all times. They might start blowing up an inflatable neck pillow and cornering the flight attendant for a glass of water so they can swallow their sleeping pill.

I’m always left looking on completely amazed. Truthfully, it’s more like amazingly envious (I don’t envy not having a neck pillow those things make me look like I have more chins than Pavarotti). I inevitably start kicking myself for not being more prepared and begin plotting to steal their shiny magazines when they get up to use the toilet.

Thankfully, over the years I have improved my planning ways for long flights. I guess you could say I have been rendered competent though trial (long flights with a toddler crying) and error (my lack of ear plugs) so below is my list of long haul flight non-negotiables. You’re welcome.

1. Music
I like music a lot. Music’s ability to keep me level headed on long flights with scary engine noises, babies crying, loud and obnoxious accents talking much too loudly is truly wonderful.

My iPod and a good playlist is my own personal preferred brand of ear plug and being a bit of a sentimental fool that misses the days of exchanging mix tapes, I will ask friends to make me a playlist of their current favourite songs.

This is also a good time to separate the wheat-from-the-chaff, friend wise for example if a bestie makes you a list of entirely One Direction songs… well you’re going on holidays so no better place to meet new people and make some new friends 😉

2. Quality books and magazines
Sometimes in my hectic life, some of the magazines I subscribe to go unread for months. It’s the same with the small library of books I haven’t read. No better alone time with a good book then those long flights. When you get to your holiday destination, find a book exchange and trade the old in for the new.

3. A good perfume
Planes have the ability to accumulate all kinds of wonderful smells. Not to get too graphic but a hundred or so human beings, packed tightly into a cabin can in the sky, all eating mysterious airline food and sometimes sweating anxiously when hitting turbulence can create a ‘unique’ aroma.

I like to spray a little perfume on a scarf or pillow as the scent of the familiar and wonderful can relax you incredibly. For me, ‘Summer’ by Burberry must be some sort of black magic: it’s hypnotic effect takes me to a different place, a place where I am hugging my baby niece for the first time or a wonderful week in Sydney I spent with some of my oldest friends and to the beautiful winking, blue eyes of a guy I like. Oh the bliss.

And one final tip
Of course, the most important thing to take with you on those long flights is a patient mind and a sense of the bigger picture. How often do you get to sit back and watch movies or read trashy magazines with food and drink delivered to you?

The flight will end eventually and you will go on to have a wonderful holiday, perhaps to a place you have never explored before just waiting to teach you something new. So take a deep breath, relax and try not to laugh too loudly when WE traveller wakes from a lovely, long sleep livid to find they have accidentally slept though dinner 😉