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In just a few weeks, my family is flying nonstop from Dallas to Sydney, Australia. In COACH. It’s a 17-hour nonstop flight.
Yes, I know this is not how most miles and points bloggers travel. And of course I’d rather be flying in a lie-flat business seat. But, we are a family of five, and I feel lucky just to have scraped up enough miles and points to make this trip happen.
To date, my longest flight was 14 hours nonstop from Seoul to DFW. I try to forget that flight. And this one is 3 hours longer!
Admittedly, thinking about this flight to Australia is daunting. In fact, the long flight is the main reason I’ve never had the urge to travel to Australia in the past. If it weren’t for my husband wanting to explore down under, we probably wouldn’t be going.
I know our flight won’t be super enjoyable or overly comfortable. But, we are doing some things to at least make it not so miserable.
Eat Healthy Before and During Flight
Normally when we fly as a family, I let my kids pick out candy and a few other snacks for the flight. We grab dinner at an airport restaurant before we fly, and usually it’s fast-food.
For this flight, we want to be more aware of what we’re eating before and during the flight. We will be stuffed into our seats for so long that we don’t want any upset tummies or sugar highs and lows.
So, we plan to eat a light dinner before our evening flight and bring healthier food options on board.
Dress Comfortably
When my family flies, we don’t dress up but we also don’t look like we’re heading to the gym. However, this time may be an exception.
I plan to wear comfy leggings, and my kids will likely be in sweats or athletic-type pants. Sorry, not sorry.
We will also take off our shoes and wear slippers.
Limit Electronics
Our flight takes off at 10:25 p.m. Qantas serves a light meal shortly after take-off. Our kids should be very tired at this time.
However, our seatbacks will have extensive movie and entertainment options. Also, each of our seats have chargers. So it will be tempting for all of us to keep using our electronics or watch movie after movie.
We’ve already told our kids that they can watch one movie after we board, and then it’s “lights off” in hopes that we will all sleep. We want to hit the ground running when we land in Sydney at 6:30 a.m. Plus, sleeping will make the flight go by much faster.
Use Eye Masks, Neck Pillows and Noise Cancelling Headphones
My husband swears that wearing eye masks and using neck pillows and noise cancelling headphones is the key to helping us sleep on this long flight. Our amenity kits from Qantas will have eye masks for us to wear. We already invested in neck pillows for our Hawaii trip last year, and my husband already has a great pair of noise cancelling headphones since he travels often for work.
We decided to invest in some high quality noise cancelling headphones for me and the kids. Based on reviews and price, we ordered these:
What Else?
We still have time to order up a few more essentials or learn a new strategy before our long flight. What tips do you have for making a 17-hour nonstop flight bearable?
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Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
I just returned from a family-of-4 vacation to Australia. Thankfully, I had enough miles to book business class over the Pacific, but we had economy seats on the US domestic segments. On the way out, we connected to United’s IAH->SYD flight, which lasted about 17 hours. After landing in Sydney, we had a 3.5 hr. layover to connect with a Qantas flight to Hamilton Island. We later spent time in the Red Center, Lady Elliot Island, and Sydney.
I would research what type of seats that Qantas has in economy. If they are the hellishly hard slimline seats (like I experienced on United’s 5 hr. LAX->IAD connecting flight on our return), then I would want to bring along some additional padding. Try to sleep as much as you can on your flight, it is necessary so you can adjust to the timezone difference quickly (we didn’t go to bed until 8PM on our first day and it still took my family 3-4 days to fully adjust).
Uber works quite well in Sydney and we booked an UberXL to get to our hotel in the CBD. Cost was around $60 AUD (about $42 USD). There is a local taxi app called ’13 Cabs’ but I didn’t use it. For weather forecasts, an Australian app called Weatherzone seemed the most reliable, get it at http://apps.weatherzone.com.au
@Erik Thanks for the advice! We may take an UberXL in Sydney to our hotel.Fingers crossed that the kids will sleep on the flight.
Tylenol or Advil and not the PM kind. Anything that helps deaden the nerves just a bit without making me dehydrated like alcohol does. It helps soothe the ‘headache’ of traveling.
@JB Thanks for the advice! I do sometimes get the travel headache.
I do the opposite… Unlimited movies. My son will fall asleep during a movie if he’s tired enough and so will I. But I limit gaming because he will *never* fall asleep while gaming. There’s nothing worse than not being able to sleep and just sitting there in the dark with nothing to do and I want to alleviate stress so movies are OK for our family. Stand up often also – to keep the circulation going. And I normally limit juice intake but not on this long flight… The more liquid the better…we’ll both drink more liquid if it’s juice. They usually have too much food and tons of snacks so wouldn’t worry too much about bringing snacks. They are often out for grabs in back galley! Good luck!
@Talchinsky You can bet we will be grabbing food from the back galley. Qantas supposedly has Tim-Tams back there.
The eyemasks are so important! When we went to Australia in coach our amenity kit did not have them. I was shocked because I’ve always got them on flights to Europe and Asia – I have a million extra pairs I could have brought but didn’t because I figured I’d get another. Ugg – it was brutal as my screen kept flipping on super bright. I made sure I had them for the journey home. I also take Tylenol PM and have Melatonin gummies for the kids.
Be careful with sleeping pills though! My husband took one on a plane and later he passed out while waiting for the bathroom! They think it was the beer he had at airport combined with sleeping pill and dehydration. He no longer takes sleeping pills on planes! (But still has that beer!)
@Talchinsky I think we’ll stick with melatonin. 🙂
@Wendy I will double check to make sure our amenity kit has eyemasks.
Real books!
BTW, which neck pillow did you purchase?
Yeah! Enquiring minds want to know! I had one I loved a long time ago and have never found it’s equal!
@HML Definitely bringing real books! For neck pillows we are using these Bcozzy ones. We bought them before our Hawaii flights last year. I like them because they wrap around the neck and you can configure them a few different ways. https://www.amazon.com/BCOZZY-Chin-Supporting-Travel-Pillow/dp/B01DODMU9I/ref=sr_1_4?crid=VVMMP69UJ0DM&keywords=neck+pillow+for+airplane+travel&qid=1560125283&s=gateway&sprefix=neck+pillow%2Caps%2C162&sr=8-4