This has been a question I’ve been long wanting to ask people. Everyone has their own habits or quirks related to travel, and I just wanted to put out some of mine and understand those of my readers to see how people tackle things in the world of travel. Here are my pre-flight habits.
For me, when I refer to travel here, I am talking about international trips and not the domestic trips that happen on an urgent basis, for example, at 8 pm you decide to be flying for a meeting at 10 am next morning.
Here are some of mine:
- Packing at the last minute: While I usually would have brought out my clothes a day ahead and laid them out, I usually have so much to do before a trip that I end up moving packing to one of my last things on the agenda. Usually, I get by, but sometimes (rarely!) you do get egg in your face, for instance, missing out on trousers from a suit. Eh! I try and knock down everything I want to carry in a rollaboard, but there are times I am going on a longer trip such as 3 weeks, and I would have a bigger suitcase along.
- Eating an Indian meal: This is especially true for the times when I am heading to Europe or Americas. I grew up eating warm food, and I’d love me a warm meal before I head out into the western world where I would be living on a lot of exotic food, but not eating Indian warm food for sure. Because I focus on travel for Indians a lot, I do also try and eat an Indian meal on the plane to check out their Indian capabilities! I hardly remember times I’ve broken that rule for something more exotic.
- A hot shower before leaving home: Take note that flights from India to the West almost always originate late in the night, which means I’m usually flying after a full day at work and pretty tired. To sooth the nerves, I’ve made it a point to shower before I leave home for a long night, be it business class, first class or economy class!
- Dress up to fly: This is something I’m particular about as well and we touched upon in this earlier blog post. On a long flight, if I am not directly getting off the plane and walking into a meeting (I’ve done that!), I dress up in my jeans and T-shirt along with a sports coat to fly!
And of course, Shipra insists I put this on record, for these trips, the house is turned upside down if I don’t find something I need! So, yeah, that happens too! Time to do it all over again before my next flight!
What are your travel quirks/habits? I’m looking forward to hearing what do people to before they get set to fly away…
I love having to dress up just to fly. Agreed its become more common place to fly compared to many years before but its still nice to have to dress up.
I take shower and have home food if going international. Also put USB wires in carry on luggage so that I can charge gadgets in flight. I do carry Cola Cans from Lounges to enjoy them mid air. Wear comfortable footwear for long haul flights.
Hahahaha… Good post Ajay….
Here are 4 of mine:
1. Pack at least 24 hours in advance of my flight (if the trip is over 2 weeks), if lesser than about 6 hours.
2. Eat an Indian Chinese meal, in my experience you can get any cuisine anywhere in the world. Some thing I desperately miss when overseas is authentic Indian Chinese cuisine. Nothing beats the taste of chilly chicken or a triple szechuan rice.
3. Ensure my gadgets are all charged and some Netflix content is downloaded for offline viewing on my iPad. A constant pain point I feel is the content on inflight entertainments is usually outdated as I’m a frequent TV show watcher, in addition to being a frequent flyer.
4. Grab one last smoke before the flight (not anymore since I quit smoking about 6 months ago). But yes, regardless if its a 40 minute flight or a 14 hour flight. One last smoke before I board was a ritual.
PS: Good one Shipra.
Cheers,
Mika