Tips for Airplane Travel

If you enjoy traveling, especially abroad, then you are probably going to spend more time than you would wish waiting in airport terminals.  Sometimes you get delayed and other times you know going in that you have a long layover between flights.

I just returned to France.  While the trip was much less stressful than my trip home during the holiday busyness, I did end up with a 6 hour layover in the Charlotte airport.  Luckily, I managed to find a place to plug in my computer.  However, since I didn’t want to rudely hog the electrical outlets, I still had to entertain myself for several hours.  Not exactly fun.  I made it, but I should have done certain things to prepare for the long wait.  Here's a short list of travel tips to prepare for a long wait in an airport while before your flight.

- Brought a magazine.  You could bring a book, of course, but magazines tend to be less heavy and that’s a good thing if you’re already carrying about as much as you can handle.

- Printed off several pages of Sudoku puzzles.  A few pages would weigh almost nothing, but would have occupied me for probably a good hour.

- Printed off a crossword puzzle or two.  For the same reasons as the above.  Just don’t peek at the answers.

- Brought a coloring book and colors.  Actually I probably wouldn’t bring this, but I have a friend who does.  She usually seems happily occupied during the wait so I always consider bringing some.  (I have been tempted to buy one of Rosie Flo's coloring books coloring  and a pack to coloring pencil.  I haven't yet though.)

- Brought either a snickers or a bag of peanut m&ms.  So that I wouldn’t have had to go in search of chocolate about 4 hours into the wait.  I only found kind that says “to share” on the wrapper—as if anyone shares chocolate—and “king-size” bars.  More calories than I had anticipated consuming and more expensive than I would have liked.

On my flight back, I’ll make sure that I have all of these (except probably the coloring book.)   

Bonus note:  The airport in Charleston is my favorite so far.  It’s not so large that you get lost, and it seemed very clean.  Plus, there are rocking chairs scattered throughout where you can sit and watch planes take off.  That definitely gets some extra airport points.