<p>I just got back from Africa. Return trip involved 5 flights - two of them over 8 hours in length - and over 40 hours of travel time. </p>
<p>Thoughts:
- Don’t wear your contacts. Bring glasses - easier on the eyes, easier to sleep.
- I freeze on planes, and those flimsy, staticky blankets they give you on economy just don’t do it. I bring a wool throw and warm socks since I take off my shoes as soon as I get on board.
- Give yourself refreshing min- facials. Feels great! I had St. Ives apricot scrub to wash my face - very refreshing and cleans well - and lots of moisturizer. For extra luxurious moisturizers, head to airport duty free shops: at many, you can use their tester tubes to moisturize with expensive creams you might otherwise avoid due to the high costs.
- Bring some fresh fruit on the plane. A good orange, a crisp apple, a filling banana all taste so much better, so deliciously fresh, on airplanes.<br>
- Try to sleep. Take melatonin if you need to. It will make arrival/1st day easier, it will make sleeping the next night easier.
- Noise cancelling headphones are a blessing. I hook mine to mellow classical music and tune out the world. Helps getting decent rest, too.<br>
- If you’re not a plane sleeper, bring different types of reading material to avoid boredom: from light fiction to attention-grabbing non-fiction. This also is a good time to get though that pile of New Yorkers you’ve been accumulating. And when you’re done with each magazine, you can leave it at the airport.<br>
- I’m a knitter, and nothing feels better than to knit on a long flight. Certainly makes those dumb airplane movies more tolerable. I never had a problem bringing knitting needles onboard – until this return flight. Knitting isn’t a tradition in Africa, they treated the needles with suspicion, declared them sharp (they weren’t) and confiscated them. Major bummer. So knitters, beware of Nairobi.</p>