The Penny Loafer: My Secrets of Surviving a Red-Eye Flight

Our flight plans for the upcoming Europe Trip are a little bit crazy. We leave Salt Lake City at around midnight and arrive in New York at 6AM the next morning. Then we get to spend the day in New York City seeing as many sights as we can until we take off for London-Heathrow the next night. Yup, you got it. That's TWO red-eye flights in a row without a place to stay in between flights! We must be crazy. Or just really thrifty. Either way, we're getting to Europe!
Fortunately (or unfortunately) enough this won't be my first red-eye flight; we usually fly home from Maui on the red-eye to save costs, so I've got my red-eye rituals down to a science, and I'm going to share my secrets with you now!

1. Bring a pillow. This is perhaps the most important point of them all. I am a stomach sleeper so I sleep best with my head on a pillow resting on the tray table in front of me. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be able to sleep with my seat back nestled in a cozy neck pillow. Yeah, right, that never works for me. And the "pillows" the airlines give you are barely padding for your head, so this time around Nate and I have purchased compressible travel pillows with memory foam that fold up and fit in our backpacks. You can find our favorite Thermarest Compressible Pillow on Amazon. We got ours in Medium (for me) and Large (for Nate) because we had the room and didn't want to skimp on our sleep quality.

2. Bring an eye mask. Most flights will have the lights off or dimmed, but you might get a reader next to you. I like sleep masks because they block out distractions and allow me to focus on my music (see #3). This might cause a bit of an issue for those of you who choose to fly with makeup on, but that's all personal preference. I never sleep with makeup on except for naps during the day so I don't have any problem wearing an eye mask on the airplane. Check out this awesome eye mask that we found at Target!

3. Make a playlist of music that you can sleep to. Tangent: Oh, do I have a funny story about music on a red eye flight! On a night flight home from Kona I was tired of my own music and decided to sleep to the Dance/Club radio station on the plane. Half asleep, I remember hearing a song that I loved but could not remember for the life of me what the name of the song was. I tried singing it to my friends but no one recognized it. Finally, years later, I was at the MAC counter at a Nordstrom when the same song was playing on their radio. It turns out that my mystery song was The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats. Yup. Still one of my favorite songs!

Anyway, planes are noisy and people around you will most likely snore or do obnoxious things so the best thing you can do for yourself is make a playlist, pop in those earbuds and tune out the world. I've found that this is the best way for me to relax on a plane. I forget that there are people sitting next to me, I forget that I'm even flying 36,000 feet in the air. Seriously, find some music that you can sleep to and make a playlist. I particularly love "A Collection Of The Most Relaxing Classical Music In The Universe" on Amazon.

4. Wear comfy clothes. I know that some crazy people think it's important to dress up to fly, but not me! I rock my sweatpants and aloe-infused socks on those red-eyes because frankly, jeans are just not comfortable to sleep in! Sweatpants make me feel like I'm wrapped in a blanket, hoodies with the hood on prevent body heat from leaving the top of your head and socks are just cozy, who are we kidding? I usually bring a change of clothes to switch into whenever we land so that I don't have to roam around the airport looking like I just rolled out of bed.

5. DO NOT SIT IN AN EXIT ROW. Ya, big surprise, right? This was the biggest mistake I ever made when flying on a red-eye flight. It was noisy and freezing because I was sitting right next to the door and frankly, the "extra legroom" hype was so not worth it, especially because I'm a stomach sleeper and like to sleep curled up, sometimes with my feet tucked into the pouch in front of me. If you're willing to freeze to death and listen to the noisy air cross the airplane door the whole way home just for a little bit of legroom be my guest, but you'll never ever see me in an exit row on a night flight ever again.

6. Let's talk about sleeping meds*. We have a doctor in the family, so we've tried them all. Prescription strength tends to fall into two separate categories: they either make us feel drugged and sluggish the next day, which will be a no-go for us since we hit the ground running each time we get off a flight on our upcoming trip, or they don't work at all and we sit wide awake for hours on the plane wondering what we can get away with doing while the people sitting next to us seem to be sleeping like babies. My happy medium for the past few flights has been Benedryl. I take two and usually sleep pretty well, however my sleep is never as peaceful as it would be in a bed. I think that's just what you get for flying during sleeping hours.

*I am not a doctor, nor am I affiliated with any physician. This advice is based solely on my own experience as a frequent flyer. Read bottles carefully and talk to your doctor before taking any sort of medications.

Final Tip: Don't eat salty foods before a long flight! This picture from my last red-eye flight home should explain it all.