While long-haul flights can be intimidating, here are some tips to make these flights a little more bearable so you can exit the plane ready to take on an adventure of a lifetime.  Trust me, you don’t want to show up in Europe and spend your first day falling asleep at 2 pm, or be too grumpy to enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime chance to visit your dream destination.

• Hold off on using your iPod, iPad, iPhone at the beginning of the trip. You will appreciate it more toward the end of the flight, and your batteries will still have life in them.  Plus, most long-haul flights have fairly decent selections of music, tv, and movies available on your personal entertainment console.
• Bring a quality set of headphones. Even if you aren’t listening to music or watching a movie, they can help with noise cancellation when you are trying to sleep.
• Make a “Sleep Playlist” on your iPod of your 20 most “snooze-worthy” songs.
• Sleep! There are plenty of things to distract you in the airplane, but it’s important to adjust to your destination’s time schedule as quickly as possible. As soon as you get settled on the plane, put yourself on your destination’s time zone and try to sleep when you know it’s night-time there.
• Get up and move. Whenever you get up to visit the bathroom, take some extra time to stand in the back of the plane and stretch out for a bit. Or just stand at your seat for a while. Remember to take time during your flight to keep the blood flowing.

These are just a few of the tips that will help you make those long flights more comfortable.  Enjoy the experience, and don’t forget to get those frequent flier miles!