Flying anywhere, whether it’s a 40-minute flight or a 15-hour one, can cause anxiety, stress, and confusion if the flyer doesn’t prepare properly. When planning your next trip, we recommend incorporating these seven tips into your plan prior to heading to the airport:
7 Tips Prior to Heading to the Airport
- Book Your Accommodations
Whether you are heading to a business conference, class reunion, or on vacation, it is always advised to book your accommodations in advance. We recommend booking a comfortable place, with excellent reviews, as close to your central destination as possible.
Even for those free spirits who move from place to place throughout their travels, we still recommend booking for at least the first night. If you get delayed, this will prevent you from wandering the streets at night, hoping that you can find a place that still has beds available.
- Schedule Airport Transfers
Getting to and from the airport can be a nightmare. Dealing with public transportation, shuttles, taxis, and rideshares can be unreliable, expensive, and take forever. We recommend booking airport transfers to get you to and from the airport. You can rest assured they will arrive on time to pick you up, gently handle your luggage, get you where you need to be on time, and wait for you should there be delays.
- Print Your Itinerary
Apps can fail, and phones can run out of battery, but you can easily slip good ole’ paper into your pocket. We advise printing out a copy of your itinerary to keep on hand in case technology fails you. Of course, you should also send a copy to your email so you can access it from anywhere.
- Don’t Overpack
Many people tend to overpack, thinking of absurd situations where they will need three times as many clothes, shoes, and accessories as they could ever possibly wear. Rather than packing everything, pack just what you need and buy anything else should the need arise. We love the NY Times idea of the 5,4,3,2,1 rule for a weeklong trip. “Limit yourself to no more than five sets of socks and underwear, four tops, three bottoms, two pairs of shoes and one hat.”
- Pack Snacks
Let’s face it; airports are expensive, and airplane food is rarely categorized as “delicious.” Rather than spending your money on subpar snacks, we recommend packing snacks for yourself and your family. The best airplane snacks include protein bars, apples, bananas, carrots, dried fruit, crackers, cookies, and the classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Plus, make sure to pack empty water bottles that you can fill up once you are through TSA.
Note: A few unacceptable snacks include tuna, soup, egg anything, salad, and nuts! (is the reference to nuts because of food allergies?)
- Bring Entertainment
Whenever you fly, you’re likely adding three hours of additional time to your flight hours, with transportation to the airport, going through security, waiting for your flight, and transportation to your final destination. Therefore, a 1-hour flight can turn into a 4-hour journey and a 7-hour flight can equate to a 10-hour journey. That is a lot of downtime and definitely requires entertainment. We recommend bringing along a book, tablet, movie, game, puzzle, or anything else that will keep you engaged. We suggest one activity per two hours of travel, as you will likely get bored eventually.
- Don’t Forget Chargers
Lastly, don’t forget your chargers! We are talking phone, watch, computer, tablet, game system, headphones, Kindle, and anything else that needs to be plugged in. The last thing you want is to have to go out and buy an extra charger because they can be expensive and hard to find.
