Getting ready for a long-haul international flight can make any traveler yawn at the thought of how exhausted they will be.
Now mix in the thrill of visiting a new country with your most precious cargo in tow.
Tired parents and tired kids can still bring about a new and wonderful experience. There is no denying that travel will cause everyone to be more tired than normal. I want to give you my tips to ease the burden of your time travel and on to enjoying more of your time on your trip.
Taking an international trip is exciting. New foods, new cultures and new and wonderful people. International trips are so often a once in a lifetime trip. A trip that we have saved for, dreamed of a planned for a long time. It is tempting to over-schedule.
We are believers in going with the flow and trying not to fill our entire time on a trip with appointments or attempting to do too much.
Over-scheduling on any trip will cause exhaustion in every one of us on any day. We are very careful on international trips to let things happen as they will. We do not want to plan so much that everyone becomes miserable attempting to keep up with a to-do list.
Napping!
Naps are the biggest thing you can do to combat exhaustion. Thankfully we are all great at napping on planes. We do have to encourage our kids to turn off their seat-back entertainment systems and close their eyes, but they will sleep. (Make sure you pack your ear plugs and eye mask, while we have been lucky with seat mates on most flights… you don’t always get that lucky.)
Our last international flight was 15 hours (after we had connected from a 5 hour flight). None of us closed our eyes and slept straight through, but we were all able to get multiple naps as we wanted.
When we arrived in Sydney it was early morning, but after more than 24 hours spent traveling we had planned to go to our Air BnB to get a nap. Fortunately with all of our naps we were all feeling great and excited to get to sightseeing. We were able to dig into Australia the moment we landed.
Throughout our vacation (or holiday as our Aussie friends call it) we took lots of naps. We kept such odd hours but didn’t feel forced to fit into some set schedule so we were free to go back to our room and sleep when we felt tired. It worked beautifully for us as it allowed us to take a nap prior to going to see the Sydney Opera House after dark.
Careful what you drink
Drinking lots of coffee, or alcohol can cause your jet lag to be worse. I do enjoy having a good glass of wine while on vacation, but certainly take it easy on the booze.
Make sure you start your trip hydrated. Starting any trip dehydrated can cause you to be more exhausted, especially when you are traveling long distances.
So, get a bottle to carry with you to the airport and fill it at a fountain. Take sips, take gulps, drink the whole bottle… whatever you do… just drink.
Change your clock
For some reason not knowing what time it was back home really helped us on our last trip. We wanted to immediately adapt to our 15 hour time difference, which is almost impossible with kids. We slept until we were rested and went back to our room for the day when we were tired. Relying on the sunshine to tell us what time of day it was and when we should sleep was a huge help. We were still up way before sunrise (2AM one morning), but that was perfect time to get our plan ready for the day and make it to the beach in plenty of time to watch a breathtaking sunrise.
Don’t Adjust
We were only going to be in Australia a few days so we didn’t go out of our way to try and get completely on their schedule. So what if we woke up at 2AM, we did go to bed at 6PM. We were waking up in the morning feeling well rested and going to bed in the evening when we were tired. We also did not try and stay on our home time zone, and just listening to our bodies.
We were able to spend several days in Sydney, a 15 hour time difference from our home in the US; but we had minimal jet lag. When we arrived back home we went to bed a little earlier and woke up with the sunrise the next morning.
I hope these tips can help you on your next international trip.
