Three tips to surviving your long haul flight.

When travelling to one of our long haul destinations in America or China you will be faced with a flight that isn't just long but also travels through numerous timezones. These three tips should help make that process a little easier for you!

Get used to the timezone BEFORE you arrive:

When travelling to any destination that requires a timezone change your body can suffer from jetlag, which affects people differently. The effects are heightened when travelling East so if you're off to China this is something to look out for.

But how to combat it? Our advice is to do your best to align your body clock with the destination timezone a couple of days before. When it's night in China for example, try to get some rest if you can here in England, and set your watch to the local time in the airport and if it's night in your destination whilst on the plane then try to get some sleep too.

Exercise on the plane:

We know you won't be able to get jogging but make sure to get up from your seat often and walk up and down the plane as much as you can. If you can't manage to leave your seat (for example, during turbulence, landing or take off) then do some exercises and stretching in your seat to make sure you keep the blood flowing.

Keep your entertainment close to hand:

Long haul flights are as the name implies - long! And sometimes the in-flight entertainment is far from entertaining so making sure you have your own entertainment is a must. Whether it's movies on an iPad or books on your kindle (or the more traditional paper versions!) make sure you have plenty to do and don't forget to keep it to hand.

You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you need to get your things but you have to keep squeezing past your neighbours to get into the overhead locker.

Any more tips?

Travelled long haul before? If so we'd love to hear your own tips to surviving that flight, why not tweet us @NSTGeography

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