Saturday, February 6, 2016

Travel tips on how to stay fresh on long flights

OK so you may not actually look fresh as a daisy after a transatlantic flight spanning many time zones, but hopefully these nifty tips will reduce the chances of you looking and feeling like a crumpled rag doll.
Travel is the new lifestyle mantra, it helps broaden horizons, gain new perspectives and experiences, but I find that half a day is spent just recovering from the journey to our travel destinations itself.
So I decided to gather all my tips on staying fresh during long flights.
1.       Fly as expensive as you can: Many people scrounge on the flight tickets, in a chance to spend more on the holiday destination itself. But, think of your holiday starting the minute you leave home, and then arriving at your destination is also part of your amazing holiday. Travelling business class with the great inflight food, services, and extra leg room is bound to keep you frsher and happier when you arrive in your destination rather than being cramped on a 14 hour flight between snoring gentlemen and crying babies.
2.       Choose your seats in advance: not all of us are lucky or rich enough to travel business or even first class. Nothing puts a dampner than realising you got the worst deal as far as economy seats go. A common victim to the ‘seat exchanges’ are single travellers, especially guys. People automatically presume that you will move/adjust so that the lovely couple can sit together or a gregarious family of seven can all camp together. Book your seat in advance, use seatguru.com to make an informed choice. Window seats if you plan on getting that first view of the himalyas or the alps, and an Aisle seat if you are going to be walking a lot to the rest room, more about that later.
3.       Prep your face at duty free: This is my all time favourite travel ritual. Now we board mostly from Mumbai International airport, but almost all international airports have a beauty store, with the best of estee lauder, shiesdo,clarins and Clinique products. Plump up your face with the night serums, and under eye creams, lather up your hands in luxurious hand lotions, spritz on your favourite perfumes. I generally use the night products on long flights since they are richer and heavier and pack more bang for your buck. But , if you have just a four hour flight and land in the day, feel free to use spf crèmes, a little glitter lotion, that funky lip balm. Buying a travel kit at these counters is a good thing too.
4.       Hydrate: drinking lots of water during the flight may make you rush to the washroom often, but think of it as a beauty cleanse, and also the short walks, keep your blood circulation in your limbs going as well. you will board of feeling a lot more limber and fresh.
5.       Take of your shoes on the flight, but be sure you have clean socks!: allowing your feet space to swell and also being able to do a few toe wriggles, and ankle twirling and foot flexion extension  exercises will keep you from that heavy leaden feeling after a long flight. Try and stretch and flex as often as you can. Some even suggest a change of foot wear and socks prior to disembarking to make you feel like you just changed your entire wardrobe. Change into a slinky heel instead of your travel loafers prior to disembarking and you go from frumpy to diva!
6.       Wear a scarf: no matter how great my journey has been, my hair manges to look like a bedraggled mess. I prefer to tie a braid, even though it doesn’t look as fashionable. Carrying a wide tooth comb, a scarf and a shine serum may help. I like to take style tips from my airhostesses sometimes when I see one of them with a particularly well made French knot.
7.       Enjoy inflight entertainment: a 12 hour flight means atleast three great movies to watch for me. Animated films are a sure shot winner with a guaranteed happy ending, some funny dialogues and plenty of good cheer. I am not much on infotainment but sometimes there are great travel documentaries on the places you might be visiting; I watched a great one on the history of Istanbul on my flight to Istanbul, which kind of helped me write my istanbul blog.
8.       Sleep it off: you know the best solution to jet lag? Sleep! As a new mom, I find that I can sleep any time anyhow anywhere, guess I just have to test it one a flight now. The relaxing music onboard may help! I hate it when kids are wailing though, but imagining the poor plight of the moms who can’t even walk and rock their kids on board makes me empathise.
9.       Wear an eye mask: As a follow up on the above point, wearing an eye mask can really help get some snooze. I would carry a gel eye mask, which can do the double work of preventing dark circles and puffiness while onboard. Another nifty tip, ask for two teas, drain out the tea bags and use on your eyes, DIY eye mask on board! P.s. don’t drink the teas if you don’t want to be running to the washroom! Another eye care tip is to always carry an eye lubricating eye drop, or what we call tear substitute. Eyes tend to get very dry , itchy and red on these ‘red eye ‘flights. Take it from an ophthalmologist travel blogger, these tiny bottles of tear substitutes are the secret to bright and shiny eyes.


Hope you enjoyed these tips, for more on how to be a responsible traveller read here, and on the life lessons that I learnt on my travels read here.