10-05-2025
This is the ultimate hack for getting through a long flight
It's a little awkward to admit, given that I do it a lot for work, but I hate flying. I get twitchy when there's turbulence, spend an inordinate amount of time greedily craning my neck to check when the food and drink is arriving and sweat about the overhead baggage situation. Let's call flying what it is: boring. It's even worse when you're travelling with small children; each minute feels infernal.
My customary strategy has been to 'time block', creating a strict routine divided into hours so that I know exactly what I'll be doing at any point during the journey — recently touted as the latest expert way to hack your flight experience. For people such as me who thrive on structure, I'd argue that it's the only way to get through a long flight.
Here's how it works for, say, a flight from London to Hong Kong — a 12-hour stint, typically overnight.
I divide the journey into hour-long blocks and allocate a task to each. If I'm flying alone I usually spend the first hour reading or napping to ease into the journey (and what the travel influencer BeachyKJ calls the 'vibes').
The second hour is for eating, glugging those tiny bottles of red wine and watching something mindless — reruns of Friends or Modern Family, usually.
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Depending on the time or level of turbulence, I'll either spend the third, fourth and fifth hours working, tidying up emails or documents (if it's bumpy this is the best distraction), or sleeping (if it's smooth or I've had enough mini merlots to anaesthetise an elephant).
After that I might reward myself with a film or a box set.
By the time I've checked off 12 different tasks: ding! — I've landed at my destination. And maybe I've even enjoyed myself.
This time-blocking strategy kicks up a gear when I travel with my family. I parent in the same way I fly, with an iron fist, so every journey I've taken with my son has been structured as rigorously as his school days. The difference is that the flight is broken down into 30-minute segments and my husband and I will take turns to entertain our son so we can each watch that new blockbuster in stages.
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Take, for example, the nine-hour daytime flight to Barbados when our son was 18 months old — the most difficult-aged child to travel with, as I know from bitter experience. I came up with a schedule that would make Gina Ford weep: a roll call of activities from eating apples (this takes time) to a session on the iPad — and even playing football in the aisles. He never got bored; neither did we. And as for the moment when he fell asleep right on schedule and napped for three hours while my husband and I sat in shellshocked silence, well, that felt like being in first class.
European flights are much easier, of course. On a recent visit to the Algarve I allocated my son two 30-minute blocks for watching the iPad, another for colouring, another for Uno and the last for snacks. For a flight to Athens, Malaga or Rome, for example, I wouldn't deviate much from that.
It sounds militant and boring, but it works, with the added benefit of keeping us all sane until we touch down.
As you read this we'll be in Sri Lanka, having smashed a ten-hour journey that will have involved a frightening number of snacks, Peppa Pig episodes, stickers and games of Mind the Gap. Take it from this frazzled frequent-flying mother — it's worth it.
Do you have a strategy to get through long flights? Let us know how in the comments
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