When I committed to a college several states away from my southern home, I knew I was signing up for many lonely plane flights. Thanks to a series of fortunate coincidences, I’ve managed to find a flying buddy for my previous four flights. However, with my spring break coming two weeks before that of my family, and with my desire being to get off campus ASAP on the last Friday before break, the time finally came for me to do it alone.
Luckily for me, the experience went very smoothly, and I’m now safely back on campus and able to reflect on my successful roundtrip. That means that now I can create a list of my advice for anyone preparing to take their first solo flight soon.
- Tip #1: Figure out how to get to and from the airport well in advance
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An incredibly important step that may be overlooked in the stress of booking a flight and packing your bags is figuring out how you’ll even get to that flight in the first place! Will you call an Uber? Take a bus or train? Or maybe you have a nearby, car-owning friend or family member that can give you a ride? Regardless, your method of transportation to the airport should be planned well in advance in order to limit stressors when your traveling day finally arrives.
A little note for my fellow residents of Boston: taking the T to get to the airport is pretty easy, as long as you account for any potential delays. The stop for Logan Airport is located on the blue line, and a shuttle can take you from there to any airport terminal you need.
- Tip #2: Give yourself plenty of time to get there
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When you’re booking your flight and preparing your transportation to the airport, it’s vital that you consider all the ways you could be delayed. That way, you can plan to leave at a time that won’t send you into a panic if your Uber is late or your train breaks down. Map apps and GPS apps like Citymapper can help you determine how long your trip to the airport will take assuming everything is running on time. But don’t take those estimated times of arrival at face value; add anywhere from a half hour to an hour just to be safe.
Arriving at your gate early is much better than getting there late, and if you have plenty of time to burn it’ll be easier for you to get food and drinks before you have to board. Besides, you could always get caught up at the TSA checkpoint, and boarding begins about 30 minutes before your plane is set to leave, so it’s better to be safe than sorry.
- Tip #3: Eat and drink before arriving at the airport
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Airports are busy places, and some lines are notoriously long. For example, it took me nearly a half hour to get coffee and a sandwich from an airport Starbucks, and the line had looked deceptively short when I got in it. On top of that, there can be pretty slim pickings when it comes to your choices of food and drinks. For these reasons, I’d advise you to eat and drink plenty before arriving at the airport so that you’ll be able to subsist on whatever complimentary snacks they provide for you once you’re on the plane.
However, it’s worth noting that if you follow the previous tip and arrive with plenty of time, you’ll have more freedom to choose to eat or drink something after you make it through the TSA checkpoint.
Jocelyn Hsu / Spoon - Tip #4: if possible, get a window seat
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This tip is heavily based on opinion, so it’s not as important as the previous ones. However, I find window seats to be the most comfortable seats on the plane (as long as you don’t have to get up and use the restroom mid-flight).
The main reasons I like window seats so much are that 1) I only have to worry about having a stranger on one side of me, 2) I’m able to see what’s happening outside the plane, which soothes my anxieties about unexpected disasters, and 3) it’s fun! The views are gorgeous when you look out a plane window; the patchwork of farmland, the spiderwebs of cities, the snaking rivers, the ocean dotted with white-capped waves — everyone should try to see the beautiful scenery from an altitude of 30,000 feet at least once in their lives.
- Tip #5: Overestimate your entertainment needs
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My final piece of advice for a solo flight is that you should download EVERYTHING. Depending on your flight, it might take you quite a while to reach your destination. And unless you’re seated beside an unusually chatty passenger, you won’t have anyone to talk to. A flight is the perfect time to pop in your earbuds and zone out to some music, a podcast, a TV show, or a movie. Or, if you’re old-fashioned, you could even try getting lost in a book. But regardless, you should prepare some ways to entertain yourself.
In fact, you should overestimate how much entertainment you’ll need, as you’ll never know when Netflix will randomly begin buffering, or when you’ll run out of pre-downloaded podcast episodes.
If you keep all of these tips in mind, your first solo flight may be easier on you. The less things you have to worry about when traveling, the better. So I hope this list helps!
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