- Essential oils are great for those smelly seat neighbors. You can roll it on your wrist, your neck, or right under your nose if it gets really bad. Just make sure to not get one too pungent so you can be polite to those around you. Some strong smells can make people nauseous, and you don’t want to be that person on the plane.
- Earplugs are amazing when you need to block out the snorers and screaming babies.
- Sleep Masks prove useful when the lights on the plane are too bright and you just want to sleep. Even if I’m not that tired, these tend to put me straight to sleep.
- Beanies can take the place of sleep masks. I love wearing beanies on planes because they serve as a sleep mask, a (very thin) pillow, and if you’re hot blooded like me, it allows you to keep the air vent on you without the annoyance of it just blowing directly onto your head. Extra bonus for when you just don’t wanna deal with your hair. Just remember, if you do plan on wearing a beanie to avoid having to do your hair, you have to take it off during TSA. This is an embarrassing thing I have forgotten many times.
- Face Masks (for your skin, not N-95’s) make your face feel so nice and taken care of during that horrid air quality in a plane. Due to the low humidity and recycled air, airplanes dehydrate your skin which can cause increased oil production. Excess oil = acne. To keep your skin glowing and blemish free, I highly recommended using your regular skin care products and/or a hydrating face mask during your ride.
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- Braid Your Hair I don’t know about you, but when I get off a plane, my hair looks like I was riding on the wing. To solve this problem, I like to braid my hair before, to keep it from getting knotty from all my tossing and turning. It also keeps my hair from getting oily. Plus, it makes for purdy waves when you take them out. If you have fine straight hair like me, this tip is a game changer.
- Mini Shots are cheap and are small enough to bring onto a plane. This will save you a bunch of money if you get nervous on planes and need something to take the edge off, or just like to indulge in some drinking. They cost significantly less at liquor stores then on the airplane, and since you usually get complimentary fountain drinks on planes, you have yourself a super affordable cocktail! Just make sure to not flaunt it, this trick is frowned upon on most if not all airlines. Just make sure to pace yourself, because your tolerance on the ground is not your tolerance miles high into the sky. Drink at your own desertion, because rumor has it that alcohol can make it harder for your body to adjust to being airborne and can aggravate your anxiety. It can also dehydrate you even more than being on a plane already does, as mentioned before.
- Tripods for phones are handy dandy for placing your phone at a comfortable viewing height for movies, while also freeing up your hands and space for other activities on your seat back tray. If you have one of those tripods that have bendy legs to latch onto anything, I like to latch it onto the metal bar behind the seat back tray so I have the entire tray to use.
- Reusable Water Bottle Bringing one to the airport, empty of course by the time you reach TSA, is essential for hydrating for free! Flying is known to dehydrate you, so it’s important to drink lots of water on planes (sit in the aisle seat if you plan on drinking a hefty dose of water, for pee purposes). Everything in airports tends to be more expensive then usual, even water, and the food places generally refuse to give out free water cups. Starbucks is the only vendor I have found that gives out free water (yay!), but those lines tend to be the longest. If you have time to wait in line, you can ask them to refill your personal bottle. I haven’t been denied so far. Although, due to new safety measures put in place by the CDC during COVID-19, this might be a thing of the past. However, more and more airports are starting to install water bottle refill stations, which is so much better then normal water fountains that people touch all day with their mouths and hands and it usually is such foggy water with an odd taste.
- Homemade Food This is a huge money-saving game-changer! Not until recently did I realize that you can be your own food into the airport, just not liquids. As stated earlier, airport/plane prices are jacked up high, it will save you so much money to pack your own. Even if you are at your maximum luggage allowance, you can still bring a disposable bag of food to eat while waiting for your flight and on the plane, as long as it’s not like days worth of food. Remember: don’t be a butt and bring smelly food like tuna. Your entire plane will despise you.
- Wireless Headphones give you more freedom than corded ones. I hate when I’m already uncomfortable on an airplane, and every time I readjust my position I have to be mindful of the headphones. They pull out, strangle me, get tangled, etc. and it can be an annoyance. Wireless is also great if you are following my tip about using a tripod for your phone. If you are like me and don’t want to buy very expensive AirPods, you can find cheap bluetooth headphones at stores like Ross, Marshalls, and Amazon. I found mine in the sports section at Ross.
- Wear Your Bulkiest Clothes I like to wear my bulkiest clothing items on the plane, like a big jacket, jeans, and my chunkiest shoes. It gives me much more room in my suitcase when I do so. Just think Joey on Friends wearing all of Chandler’s clothes, and that’s pretty much a spitting image of me at an airport. I wear my bulkiest jacket no matter the weather, because I can just take it off and carry it, because it doesn’t count as a personal item. I’ve even been known to wear a jacket and carry a jacket, because I’m a mess of a human being. Wearing my comfiest clothes would be nicer, sure, but I am one of those people that overpacks, such as bringing a fancy dress I never wear just in case I get asked to a ball because that happens so often…. No matter how much I fly, I just can’t seem to get my packing down, so wearing my bulkiest clothes helps me a lot. Pro tip: wear a long shirt so you can unbutton your pants for maximum comfort during your flight.
- Hand Sanitizer and Disinfectant Wipes I feel like no more needs to be said, especially post global pandemic, BUT even COVID didn’t change a lot of people’s nasty habits so I’ll say it anyway. Airplanes are germ infested cesspools. When you sit down, I highly recommend wiping down the seat back tray, the headrest (the dirtiest surface on a plane), armrest, seatbelt, seat pocket, window, and window shade. Basically, wipe down anything you are going to touch.
- Reusable Grocery Tote These pack down small so they don’t take up space in luggage and are useful when your luggage is over the weight limit and you need to unload some items from your checked bag to avoid paying a hefty overweight-fee, which often is…$100! You can simply throw those items and your personal item into this one bag. It’s a weird loop hole but it works. I have only ever gotten my personal item weighed with my checked baggage once, and that was in Europe, but those airports are a whole different ball game. They are S T R I C T. All of this obviously depends on size restrictions, but this should work on most US airlines. It has saved me a few times and I will never travel without one.
- Charge! Charge! Charge! Never enter an airport without your devices at 100% battery. Your boredom will kill those batteries fast. San Diego Airport is the best airport I have ever been to when it comes to availability of outlets, but this is a special case. So many airports have so little outlets, and if they do have any, they seem to always be taken. You basically have the stalk the outlet and everyone using it and grab it the second they abandon ship, hoping they didn’t already promise it to someone else doing the same thing. I have only been on a handful of planes that have outlets, and that is always a major major bummer. The super long flights I took in and out of Europe both had no outlets! It is always hit or miss, so always make sure to charge your devices before getting to the airport, or you will be disappointed. Or you will be happy you finally have to read that book you’ve been dying to read for years but have done nothing to actually to do so.
- Download Movies Many flights lack WiFi or charge for WiFi, so I recommend downloading movies beforehand. This is possible on streaming apps on your smart phone. Or if you live a life of crime and download movies illegally onto your laptop. Even if your flight does have WiFi, they are not powerful enough to stream movies. Most, if not all, airlines have apps that let you log onto their WiFi, and have select movies and tv shows to watch. Make sure to download these airline apps before boarding the plane, because you won’t be able to download it while in the air. The most common one is gogoentertainment.
- For those who still shoot film, like me, NEVER EVER EVER PUT YOUR FILM INTO YOUR CHECKED, or it will be ruined. Put your film in a ziplock bag and place it in an easy-to-grab pocket and before going through the scanner, hand it to a TSA agent and ask them for a “hand check.” This keeps it from going into the scanner and getting ruined. Most scanners indicate that film with an ISO 800 and below won’t be effected by the scanner, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. HOWEVER, there is a new TSA scanners being installed in airports all over the US that are absolutely detrimental to your film. In every European airport I have been in, they have been insanely rude about hand checks no matter how adamant I was and they absolutely refused to hand check my film every time. I was confident one scanner wouldn’t affect my film, but they ended up having to go through like 5 scanners throughout my trip. Luckily, all my film came out beautiful and I was just being dramatic and overly cautious, but hey I’m passionate about my film.
THE GOLDEN RULE: The middle seat gets both armrests!