MMR: Sleeping on Planes

I’ve never been good at sleeping on planes.

There, I said it.  No real revelation.  Usually when I’m on a plane, I’m going somewhere awesome or coming back from somewhere awesome.  My mind is on other things.  It cannot be expected to rest.  Also, planes are noisy.  The roar of the engines is not conducive to a proper sleeping environment.  Finally, the seats are small and do not recline sufficiently to get into comfortable sleeping situations.  All in all, it is not a good scenario.  Which sucks, because red eye flights are super convenient.  They travel during the night, when nothing of note is happening anyways.  And they can save you a night of lodging, which is always wise.  Finally, they’re usually a bit cheaper, because of the reasons I listed above…no one likes sleeping on planes.

One thing that helps, of course, is having enough room to sleep.  Twice this month I have flown on a red eye, and both times I had the luxury of being in first class for my flights.  Not going to lie, it was much easier to sleep when I had a little more room to spread out and whatnot.  My best sleeping arrangement was probably my red eye flight to Boston from LA.  I was in a window seat, so I could recline, stretch out my legs, and use the side of the airplane to prop my pillow against.  I probably slept for 3 hours of the 5 hour flight.  Not too bad.  My other redeye flight was from Lihue to LA, and that one I was in an aisle seat.  Aisle seats are great for if you need to get up and pee while everyone is sleeping, you don’t have to climb over anyone…but not having the wall to prop my pillow against was less comfortable.  I probably only slept for 2 hours of the 5 hour flight coming back.

Over the summer I had a red eye flight from SF to Houston.  I was in coach then, but I had an aisle seat…and no one in the middle seat of my row.  So that wasn’t terrible.  I got a little sleep…but with less leg room, it was tough.  A few years ago, I had a red eye flight from Sacramento to Guadalajara…once again in coach in an aisle seat.  Got like no sleep.  But these two flights were also only 3-4 hour flights (with a 2 hour timezone change)…so that leaves a little less time to get some sleep.  A red eye to the central timezone leaves much to be desired.

All in all, I’ve never been good at sleeping while traveling.  Be it on planes or in cars. I just can’t do it very well; which is odd since as a baby I am told I slept every time I even looked at a car…which I’m sure was nice for my parents.  You’re welcome.  I’ve just learned how to operate on little sleep coming off of red eye flights.  And they’re still so convenient; I will probably keep taking them.

That’s all for today.  Keep an eye out for my Q’s Adventures for my recently completed trip to Kauai in the coming days!