Tips to Survive Long Travel Days

Sometimes you just can’t avoid long travel days, but you can do your best to start your trip on the right foot with these survival tips. While your long travel day probably isn’t going to be your best day of vacation, it doesn’t have to be miserable either. Here are our tips in order we find them most destructive to a long travel day.

Avoid early wake-up times and flights

Nothing starts your day out worse than having to get up at 3 am to start heading to the airport. Even if you’re a morning person, no one is that early of a morning person. Take a look at all the options because it’s really not worth starting your trip exhausted just to save a few bucks. The cheapest flights often have the worst times and connections. Sometimes paying a bit more to have better flight times or fewer connections may save your trip.

Don’t Get Hangry, Pack Good Travel Snacks

The second biggest problem we run into on long travel days is hanger (being angry due to excessive hunger). Between early alarm clocks tight connections, and everything else that goes into a travel day you may forget to eat or just not have time. Since you can’t count on decent food options while traveling we always pack our own.

Our new go to travel day snacks are RXBAR. They travel well, taste great, and are actually healthy for you. Made from real whole foods (unlike just about everything else served in an airport) these bars are a snack you don’t have to feel guilty eating. Our favorites are the mixed berry and blueberry bars, but honestly, there isn’t a bad flavor.

Don’t get bored – Entertain yourself

Don’t count on in-seat entertainment on all of your flights, and just because your last flight with that airline had them doesn’t mean the next will. We always check to see if our long haul flights will have movies or an entertainment system. Have a long haul flight coming up? Check here to see if your plane will keep you entertained.

Whether or not we have an LCD in the headrest in front of us, one of our favorite things we pack to keep ourselves busy is guide books for the destination we are headed to. All too often guidebooks bought with the best of intentions aren’t even cracked open at home because everyday life gets in the way. However, on the plane, you have no excuse but to find all of the must do things in the city you’re heading to.

Lounge away long layovers

Build in some comfort on your long travel day with a lounge pass. Until this year we suffered through all day layovers in uncomfortable airport chairs without any wifi. We never really thought about going to a lounge because we thought they were expensive and we much prefer keeping our money for more traveling. That all changed, when we got a lounge pass this year. We no longer fear the long layovers or hate the thought of going to the airport. The best part is, it barely cost anything to get one. There are tons of ways to score lounge passes either through airline rewards programs or travel cards, find one that works for you and it will seriously change the way you look at an airport.

Set Realistic Expectations for Your Long Travel Day

Let’s face it, a long travel day is going to kinda suck. If you know that going into it will help you mentally handle the day. Just remember some of the longest travel days are for some of the world’s best destinations. Hopefully, there’s a great destination on the other end of your next long travel day!

**This post was sponsored by RXBAR but all opinions are our own. Their bars are legit!**