How to Entertain Yourself on a Long Solo Airplane Trip

Clearly, I was not traveling alone when I was sleeping through a 12 hr layover in Hong Kong Airport. But I've made plenty a halfway-round-the-world trip on my own (usually, the transit time from Michigan to Malaysia is 25-36 hours). Mostly, such trips suck. However, they can be made better.

1. Food. I've always found food to be very entertaining, plus, airplane meals are so yucky that I refuse to eat them, so packing granola bars and cookies and crackers and candy in my backpack offers a great source of entertainment, as well as enough 'nutrition' so that you won't faint on your 16 hour flight.

2. Music. The in-flight radio stations are good enough entertainment to last you for as long as it takes them to play the ten song rotation that each station may offer.

3. SkyMall. Of course! This is one of the things I look forward to most when flying in a plane in America. I love flying Asia-based airlines, but their in-flight catalogs are more about expensive perfumes than they are about weird inventions. Peruse the SkyMall catalog carefully. Be amazed at the marvelous inventions that mankind has created. Think deep philosophical thoughts about whether the listed prices are a fair exchange for the supposed convenience such inventions would bring to your life.

4. Activity Books for Big Kids. A book of 398 crossword puzzles will keep me busy for a while. Others might choose Sudoku. Also, I just recently discovered activity books that let you play hangman by yourself with scratch-off keys to let you know if you picked the right letter or not. I think that sounds awesome. Here's one, for example.

5. Work. Don't let all those hours go to waste! Get our your notebook or laptop and start writing a blog post or your next great novel. Time is money, ya'll.

6. Walk Around the Airplane. The airplanes that you take on these dozen-hour flights are huge. Get up and go exploring when the seatbelt sign is off. With all the stewardesses and other passengers blocking aisles, it will take at least five minutes for you to make it around all the interesting aisles and back to your seat.

7. Plan your next vacation. So, you might be coming home from vacation, but that doesn't mean you can't use that notebook to start creating a schedule of where you'd like go to next, when, and what you want to do when you get there!

8. Sleep. Time your amount of sleeping perfectly so that you don't experience jet lag when you arrive. (and when you figure out the scientific formula to accomplish that, let me know.)

Honestly, I kind of thought that this last solo trip might kill me. Three out of my four planes arrived late and had me rushing through immigration and customs and security lines, not even sure I would make it to my next flight. Oh yeah--before this trip, I hadn't experienced the new body scanners. Hint: don't wear jeans with buttons on the back pockets and if you wear a stainless steel ring, you might want to put it in your purse before going through the scanners. I kept getting pulled over to get my hands swiped and my butt patted down. 

It was the candy, the crossword puzzles, and the thought of seeing Angel again that helped me survive.

What are your essentials for solo travel?