How Not to Lose Your Mind When Traveling by Plane

I wish I knew.   

I hate it.  I hate the lines, security, taking off my shoes, remembering to get out my computer to be scanned.  I don't like being patted down.  I hate the lack of legroom.  Children kicking the back of my seat drive me crazy.  I hate that the entire experience makes me a nervous curmudgeon.

I have this idea that if I just plan carefully enough, I can make it more bearable:

1.  We always fly Premium Economy, if  it's available.  It's worth the money for the extra 3-5" of legroom.

2.  I never reserve an aisle and a window seat for us, leaving an empty one between that we hope will give us more space.  All flights are full now; the  middle seat's rarely empty. I learned this the hard way when  I found myself parked in the middle seat of the back row because United thought I was traveling alone, not with Jerry a seat away,  and moved me.  Awful.  Later, a travel agent tipped me off about this.

3.  Before I choose a seat, I always check the model plane and then go to Seatguru.com so I can avoid seats deemed inferior (noisy, near lavatory, don't recline, no window).

Definitely a mixed bag

4.  If we had lots of money, we'd fly Business Class, but we don't.  Years ago, we got  Chase/United credit cards that award us a frequent flyer miles for every dollar we spend.  Now we charge everything, and this year we had enough miles to get  free round-trip tickets to London.

A view of the sumptuous space in Business Class.

4.  We check bags (knock wood) because it's less cumbersome, we don't have to decant toiletries into 3 oz bottles, and we don't have to pull a muscle in our backs trying to heave the damned thing into the overhead bin. 

5.  I try to remember to bring an empty bottle through security, or the TSA will confiscate it.  Sometimes they won't even let me drink the water in front of them.  I re-fill the bottle free at a drinking fountain near the gate.  (It can take a while into the flight to get water from a flight attendant.)

6.  Checking our reservations online now and then weeks/months ahead of our flight has helped us head-off seat changes when the airline switches plane models.  This has happened to us twice.

7.  I've learned to check my e-mail the night before and morning of a flight to see if we've been notified of any delays or cancellations.  We missed an e-mail in Venice that resulted in a 12-hour delay due to a traffic controllers' strike; if we'd gotten it, we could have re-scheduled the night before.

I do all this, and sometimes I still have a bad experience, but, hell,  I tried.

Tomorrow we're off on a trip that involves five airports and six flights.  You can follow my journey on my travel blog here .