Visiting distant places tends to be fun and exciting, but the flights to get there might be more of a chore to many. The troubles one might face aren't always just how slow or annoying it can be to get through security; sometimes it's the 12 to 15 hours of flying, or long boring transits.
The longest travel duration that I've personally been on was probably my trip to St Maarten, in the Caribbean, in 2013. I was flying in from Sydney, and that trip involved not just extremely long flights, but also two transit stops, one of which was an overnight stay at Newark Liberty (First time for everything, eh?). I had to stay at the airport, and not in a hotel, as it was one of those long transits that were just slightly too short to make getting a room practical. It didn't help that I had arrived late at night (when everything was closed), and had a connecting flight at 7am in the morning.
The one upside to that transit though, was getting to see this great sunrise:
Watching the sunrise after a long night at Newark Airport
I know, to many it's probably nothing, but to me, after a long night of little sleep (which was after a flight from San Francisco and a preceding flight from Sydney - so about 20 hours of flying plus transit), it was awesome to see, and probably gave me the boost of energy I needed to get on my next flight.
The return flights were somewhat better, as I had a short layover that gave me sufficient time to get some sleep in a hotel in the LAX area, and spend half a day watching planes (And eating In-n-Out burgers). The thing I learnt from this? If you've got to have a long transit/layover, make sure it's long enough for you to get some rest somewhere proper. It'll help a lot.
My attempt at photographing planes from my room
My attempt at photographing the planes flying overhead while I was eating at In-n-Out
Apart from the above, pretty much all the other of the longest flights/travel duration that I've been on are from Singapore to somewhere in North America, since it's one of the further places to reach from Singapore (I have not been to South America as yet, so those long flights await)
Flying to/from the US involves such long flights (and at least one transit)
One of those were the ones on my family trip to Canada. The flights there (SIN - NRT - SEA - YVR) was long, but alright. It was the journey back (YVR - SFO - NRT - SIN) that was more interesting, as we were hit by a flight delay, which lead to us missing our connecting flight and a 'forced' layover, as we couldn't get another flight till the next day - you can read more in this blog post here. The main lesson from that? Don't transit through San Francisco if you can avoid it. Morning fog problems are frequent.
Did not expect to see the Golden Gate Bridge on that trip, but we did, due to delays caused by that infamous fog
There are many things one can do to reduce the drag of these long flights, transits, and even delays.
Personally, I'd charge up every electronic device so I could use them while waiting. If one is lucky, you can find places to charge them while at the airport (or even on some planes), but often, the charging stations/wall sockets are in high demand, and the chances of using them are often fairly low. To avoid all that the hassle, one could bring along some reading material of the paper kind, and I have considered doing so many times (Though I've only done so once or twice).
Another thing I do at airports when I have long waiting times is to look for interesting planes to photograph (If you didn't get that from my plane watching at LAX above), and that can take up quite a bit of time. Other than that, I also like to explore the airports, just to see what foreign airports are like and how they'd compared to the airport in Singapore (Which I still think is one of the best in the world).
On long flights, I know that most people would sleep large chunks of it off. As someone who doesn't sleep well on flights, I tend to watch as many movies as I can instead, even as I attempt futilely to dose off. In addition, I also tend to walk around and visit the bathroom somewhat frequently (which is why I tend to prefer aisle seats).
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What are some of the things that you like to do to pass time on long haul flights and transits? Let me know ~
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Till the next time,
Raylen