Imagine the following scenario: you are late to your gate, your phone’s battery is 19% and your laptop is completely shut down. All you care about is to be able to get to the gate and be able to use the last seconds of your dying battery to show your boarding pass from your digital wallet.

Of course, you know the second you are on the plane, you will use the in-flight entertainment to watch FRIENDS…that if you are lucky and you have a long flight, otherwise, you need to figure out what you will do for 3-4 hours!

To be completely honest with you, dear reader, I have got so well used to technology being available on flights and I prepare always to have everything fully charges that I feel one of the laziest travelers in the world. While my parents were used to travel with their travel wallets and Sudoku books and I don’t do that at all, the only thing I have prepared always is my phone to be fully charged. I sometimes even forget to download music on Spotify or movies on Netflix. I can only hope for the best. Therefore, this year I decided to test a few tricks and now I am finally ready to share them all with you. So, don’t worry much if your entertainment system is broken (as it happened to my boyfriend on our way back from Punta Cana on a 10 hours flight) – I have everything to keep you busy.

Do You Want:

To Be Distracted

• Bring a book. Whether you decide at home to bring your Kindle with a carefully chosen action book or you just buy Michelle Obama’s first book “Becoming” like I did, any of these two options will keep you distracted during the flight and you will not notice when time passes.

• Watch a new TV series. There are so many new TV shows nowadays, that if you decide to download the first season on your laptop, Ipad or even your phone you will have another option to be distracted.

• Listen to a podcast. What I like the most is to listen to Ted Talks, I find them a good way to learn new things and keep up with developing ideas. You can enjoy listening to some funny smart people as you rest your eyes on those beautiful fluffy clouds outside your window.

• Plan your trip. If you didn’t have time to plan your trip, you can always use Google Trips as a last resource and you can decide what you want to do during the trip and arrange an itinerary per day.

To Be More Productive

• Learn a language. Heading to a country where you don't speak the language? Take your flight time to learn a few keywords and phrases. I refreshed my Spanish during the flight to the Dominican Republic, and oh boy, was it good that I did. My boyfriend was driving like a “maniac” with 100 km/h in an area where the speed limit is 80 km/h and with my great charm and good Spanish skills, I managed to get him out of a ticket and…also avoided bribing the officer.

• Organize your bag. I am never able to find anything after I leave the house. It’s almost impossible for me not to turn my bag upside down a few times to find my passport or my headsets or my phone, or the worse of my fears – the keys from the luggage. Take the time to “Konmari” the contents of your bag and get everything organized.

• Edit your photos or videos. If you took hundreds of photos on your trip, edit them and make them picture-perfect. I usually do this so I get all my grid to arrange from the holidays and I know sometimes I get so busy that I just forget and post them a few months later, but you can read all about the trips on my blog anyway.

• Try journaling. Write down your thoughts from the trip and keep these memories forever. I used this time to write my feeling and my emotions from the trips, which helps in the end with a draft of the travel blog post.

To Stay Healthy

• Give yourself a mask. I’ve seen a lot of girls doing this lately and especially with long flights, why not? I tried it myself a few times, and it worked wonders because my skin gets very dehydrated while flying, so this is the perfect way to look rested when I step out of the plane.

• Stretch your legs. Get up and take a walk around the plane to avoid all sorts of health issues that arise from being seated for long periods of time.  

• Write a heartfelt letter or email. Emotions are intensified when I am high up in the air, so I take the opportunity to express myself and write my blog posts or draft my emails, so once I have an internet connection, I can just be sure I have no more work to do. 

• Eat a healthy snack. I always bring something with me since my flight to Hong Kong 3 years ago. You never know when you will get something you don’t like from the food cart, so by having your own snacks, you are prepared for anything.

• If all else fails, sleep. Have a white noise playlist ready and put in use those awesome noise-canceling headphones, wrap yourself up in a blanket or your woolen scarf, and drift off to dreamland. You'll be happy you did so when your jet lag is almost non-existent at the destination.