Air Travel Tips For Making It Easy And Smooth

Observing fellow passengers on my recent flight, I noticed several mistakes and evidence of poor planning that caused the travelers unnecessary distress.

Traveling by airplane and through airports is stressful enough as it is. Why not do everything you can to make it easy on yourself?

Here are seven simple suggestions of what you can do to make your next flight more comfortable and pleasant.

1. Set your intention. Sounds weird, but it works. Arrive at the airport with the mindset that all is going to go smoothly and that you are going to meet helpful people. Pleasing conditions are much more likely to occur if you expect them than if you are expecting hassles.

2. Wear slip-on shoes. Face it, getting through security these days involves partially undressing in front of a lot of strangers who just want you to hurry up and get out of the way. You always have to take off your shoes, so make it easy on yourself by wearing slides.

3. Use a carryon with wheels. Think of it as your airport supply kit. Even if you are checking luggage, you still want to have a small wheeled carryon bag, and here's why: carrying the odds and ends in a bag over your shoulder is tiring and limits your freedom of movement. Instead, a wheeled carryon can act as a sort of cart for any additional items you pick up along the way: food, water, magazines, etc.

4. Bring food. Buy it at the airport if that's easiest, but be sure to bring healthier choices than offered by the snack boxes you can buy on the airplane -- unless you like snacks virtually absent of nutrition and high in fat and carbs.

5. Hydrate. You will feel so much better if you drink plenty of water. The air on the planes is very dry, and since the cabin is a contained, pressurized environment, the air is recycled during the flight. You're breathing in a lot of crud, and water helps your body deal with it.

6. Wear noise-canceling headphones in flight. What more can I say? Wow. They are totally worth the investment if you fly very often at all. Planes are extremely noisy. The powerful engines, the crying babies, the talkative neighbors. All of the grinding and rumbling and whining and blasting become mere background whispers when you're wearing noise canceling headphones.

7. Bring disposable entertainment. During flight and on layovers, there are a multitude of things you can do to pass the time, ranging from working on your laptop to filling in the newspaper crossword puzzle. But you need a pen to do the puzzle, a plug-in to work on the laptop for long, a credit card to sit in a lounge and watch TV... you get the idea. Think ahead about what entertainment you might like to have on hand that is portable and convenient to interrupt during the many phases of your passage from one location to the next. Easiest is a magazine because if you space out and leave it behind, it is readily replaced.

When you have these seven suggestions in place and you keep your overall airport supply kit (the handy wheeled carryon) lightly but thoroughly equipped, your air travel experience becomes more manageable and effortless.