19 Flight Hacks Tested by a Flight Attendant (Do They Work?)
19 things you should pack and do
to make a long flight feel short. I don’t know about you as a flight
attendant, I am very intrigued because every flight feels like a long flight. The only flights I like
are the half hour ones. Those are my bread and butter, baby. Hey guys, it’s Erica from America,
your favorite flight attendant, and today is Travel Tuesday where
I react to something about travel. Today I am looking at Aly Smalls. She has 215,000 subscribers and
she posted this video October 24th, 2024, so 10 months ago. It said this is under travel tips,
tricks, and hacks, and she’s got a lot of products that she’s recommending in here. Let’s see if we can find out
something about Aly real quick. Real world tested advice on packing
light, flying carry on only, and creating unique travel guides and itineraries,
specializing in little known travel hacks, top carry on bag reviews and
hidden gems in popular destinations. I aim to be a trusted resource
for efficient, stress-free travel, and memorable adventures. I am definitely intrigued. Let’s go ahead and watch her video. I don’t know about you guys even
as a flight attendant, even when I have to ride as a passenger,
these flights feel incredibly long. Let’s see if I’ll learn something today. Here are the top things I would do
to avoid the worst parts of flying so that your next flight, especially if
it’s long haul, is comfortable, anxiety free, and feels shorter than it is. I’m gonna cover everything you should
pack and wear, as well as airport tips you may or may not know, and things like seat
selection and how to minimize jet lag. First, let’s start with the 12 things that
I recommend you pack for your next flight. And these are all things that I
personally use and have tested myself. Number one is this new
style of travel pillow. I recently tried it on a couple of
flights and it is a complete game changer for sleeping on the plane. It’s more of a head and neck
stabilizer instead of a traditional pillow, but it’s perfect if you’re
prone to the dreaded head bobbing. Here’s how it works. You just attach the back part to the
headrest on your seat so the person behind you isn’t affected at all, and
then you Velcro on this eye mask part. So essentially your head and neck
stays perfectly stabilized, and then you get to use this blackout eye mask. So no more neck kinks. I slept hard with this thing on, and
honestly, the only reason I woke up was because I could start to hear the flight
attendants kind of slamming the doors as they were preparing meal service. I would say it does take a little bit
of getting used to, because you’re essentially just kind of strapped
in and you do feel a little bit of. Pulling as you’re kind of just
settling in and getting comfortable, but after a couple of minutes,
you’re in complete blackout, you’re comfortable, you’ll fall right asleep. Now, if you don’t like this style
of pillow, I still recommend bringing an eye mask to use, and
this is for a couple of reasons. Number one is if you want some sleep,
but your neighbor has the window shade up or their reading light is on. But the second reason is, I find it
never fails that when the cabin is dark, someone around you is watching
an action movie, and so their screen is 90 minutes of bright flashing light. So a blackout eye mask is a must. Hold on. Let me show you what I take with me. Real quick, um, this is what I
actually got as my neck pillow and I got it from Target. I think it was like $10, I don’t remember. But it’s basically like a long
sock and you can stuff clothes and whatever you need in there. And I really like it because you can
make it as thick or as thin as you want. There is a little snap in here. It turns all the way out and then
you just snap it around your neck. When you wake up, you
can put it on the side. I was using it on my armrest. I just laid it on my
armrest, put my arm there. I comes in very handy. You could probably make
something of this like your own. All you’d really have to
do is some kind of sock. But this is really nice because it’s
kind of like a windbreaker material. Kind of wicks away if you sweat. The other thing that I got that I highly
recommend are these eye masks right here. Now you can see I bought this a year ago. I actually bought this for
my cousin for a wedding gift. That’s how much I like this. My cousin, when he got married, he had
never really lived with a woman before. He was a little concerned. So I said, you have to have this. Unfortunately, I can’t
find mine right now. I’m not sure what I did with it. But if you’ll notice, it’s got
buttons on the front right here. These are music control buttons. And you can see it’s got headphones. And I love this one because it’s padded
on the eyes, but these headphones, you don’t feel them when you sleep. I’m very sensitive when I sleep. When I have to sleep with earplugs
because the air conditioner or the hotel is too loud, I love these because it’ll hold
the earplugs in so I don’t have to worry about them falling out. This thing is fantastic. It’s very soft and gentle. Your partner doesn’t hear the sound
when you’re listening to it in bed. So I love this for at home. I love this for on the road. This is my go-to and I will link
it in the description below. I just bought it on Amazon. So let’s get back to the video. Along similar lines. I like bringing lightly shaded sunglasses. If a lot of people have their
windows open, it can be really bright at 30,000 feet, so this
really helps alleviate eye strain. Next is my… Here’s what you need to think about. If you have sunglasses like this
and you put them on on the plane. When you sleep, the light still
comes in sideways and the window is usually on the side of you, so
you’re still gonna get the light in. It’s not gonna help that much. Instead, what you want is something
like this, and these are kind of like glasses you would get from motorcycle
riding, but you can get them anywhere. And then these ones come around
the side more on all angles. So if you’re gonna take
the time to get sunglasses. Try to get the kind that go
around the side of your face more. It’ll help more on the plane. Next is my foot hammock to
elevate my feet on a long flight. It is so much more comfortable
if you can do this. I’ve talked about this lots
since I use it all the time. All you do is just slip it over
the metal bars behind the tray table, on the seat in front of. You can adjust the length for depending
how short or long your legs are, and as long as you’re not swinging and
kicking your feet, which you shouldn’t be anyway, you’ll just be resting
them in the actual hammock part. The person in front of you will
have no idea that you’re using it. I think this is way less disruptive than
kicking children behind you or people who are constantly grabbing your seat
for leverage to help them stand up. I’ve never been asked to not use this. I’ve used this for probably three years
now, but just know that you cannot use it during takeoff and landing. Okay, wait. I definitely have an
opinion on the foot hammock. Me personally, I hate it. I really hate it. I bought it thinking, oh, that sounds
like a really cool idea and I tried it. And after one use, I donated it. Because I had ordered it, and by
the time I remembered to use it, it was too late to return it to Amazon. Let me show you why I hate it. Imagine you’re sitting in a plane and
the chair in front of you is right here. Because most of these seats only have
about a 31 to 32 inch space… if you’re in economy for most of the airlines. If you’re flying international, you
might get a little bit more room. You might not. Depends on how cheap your ticket is. Basically the point is, is the
back of the seat is right here. The hammock hangs straight down. Your feet are like this. Not like this because the
height of the seat will keep you from extending your leg. So all you can really do is let
your feet hang straight down. If you’re short and your feet
don’t touch the ground, the foot hammock is a great option. But if you wanna stretch your
legs out, it’s not gonna work. What a better option is, is to get like
a backpack or a cooler or something like that that’s soft and squishy. That doesn’t fill up the entire space
between the ground and the bottom of the seat, and then you can kind of
put your feet on that under the seat and it’ll help you extend farther out. That’s what I do when I travel. Like I said, I tried the foot hammock. Absolutely hated it, sent it back. Instead, it’s better to go with
like a backpack or a cooler. Just don’t overstuff it. Or if you’re gonna overstuff it, put
another bag in there so you can take half the stuff out and stick that
in the overhead with your other bag. Your over the ear or earbuds will do. I prefer the over the ear
since they’re more comfortable. But if I don’t have a lot of room or
weight allowance in my personal item bag, these little earbuds work perfectly fine. Just make sure they have
the noise canceling feature. This is pretty standard on most newer
models of earphones and earbuds. Even if you don’t plan to watch a movie
or listen to music or an audiobook, that drone of the airplane noise
is pretty exhausting after a while. So blocking out that really
helps with a minimizing fatigue. Okay. I haven’t actually tried the
noise canceling headphones. I have tried regular in-ear headphones
and over the ear headphones. Me personally, I prefer the
in-ear headphones because it does help keep your ears from popping
too much on ascent and descent. I’ve done the over the ear ones for me. That’s not incredibly comfortable. That eye mask I was telling you
about, I might wear that on the plane if I wanna sleep, but I’ll
probably have my headphones in underneath because mine are portable. I’m definitely gonna try
the noise canceling ones since she’s recommending it. And in a future video I’ll let
you know if I liked it or not. Got. You bring your own wireless headphones. Many planes still use the cord plugins, so
you’ll have to bring a Bluetooth adapter. If you wanna watch the
in-seat entertainment. I’ll link to the one that I use. I just got it off of Amazon. It’s pretty small and really easy to use,
and you can connect two sets of headphones to it so you and your travel companion
can watch the same movie together. My latest favorite. Okay, real quick, most of the domestic
flights are removing the monitors from the back of their seats just because
the airlines have decided it’s too expensive to constantly try to fix them. Apparently they’re
breaking down quite often. On top of that, most people are gonna
watch their tablets or their phones or their laptops anyway, so the
airlines just decided there’s no point in us having those on there anymore. They are keeping them for
international flights as far as I know. But if you’re flying domestically,
you don’t really need that unless you want to share your laptop’s
soundtrack, if that makes sense. That one I would skip. Favorite Travel Gadget is
this ultra slim charger. If you have a bulky phone charging
block like mine, if you come across some well-used plugins, they get really loose. And sometimes this brick won’t stay in,
especially on planes because sometimes the plugin is at a bit of an angle. So this little guy is the size of
a few credit cards put together, and then it’s got two USBC ports. So if there’s only two chargers
between three seats on the plane, it’s not a big deal. And then it’s great once
you’re in your destination. So sometimes when you’re at the hotel,
you’ll find that the closest plugin to the bed is actually behind the bed frame. So when you’ve got like a thick
charging block that sticks out, it literally doesn’t fit. Versus this little slim guy
will fit perfectly fine. Or like on my recent trip to
Cancun, the plugin at the bedside table was so loose that my charger
literally wouldn’t stay in. I plugged it in and it would
just fall right out of the wall. So we had to get books and the TV
remote and just stack it up underneath so that it would stay held in. Real quick, my options instead of that. This big old mess. And yes, it’s a big old mess. I prefer. It is a fast charger and it’s
got USB ports and C ports. It’s got about a three foot
cable to plug into the wall. I usually plug this into whatever’s
on the nightstand, but there have been times I’ve had to reach behind the
bed and plug it in behind the bed, especially ’cause I want my phone next
to the bed when I charge at night. But there have also been times that I will
plug it in by the television, especially when I take my fire stick with me because
the fire stick, I like to watch TV. So that’s what this red cable is for. This one is the type that goes
and plugs into a fire stick. And a lot of times you can’t reach
the plugs behind the wall of the TV, so you have to go for the nearest
plug, which can be really far away. This one is three feet and
this one’s about three feet. I have literally stretched this to
its limit to plug in the fire stick. But the nice thing about these is I can
pull any of these out and what she didn’t quite point out on the plane is, a lot
of the planes do have chargers like this. But the other thing is, they almost always now have some
type of USB plug, and it’s usually either in the back of the seat
or it’s down in the plug itself. So that plug that she was
showing is a little bit older. It can work particularly
well with a plug like this. And then a lot of times what I’ll do is
if for some reason it’s not staying in, I’ll just kind of spread these apart
just a little bit, and that does help it to stay in, which I know… crazy. Why would you do that? That’s what I do for a plug. Let’s see what else she’s got. Alright. Now, what type of clothing
or outfit should you wear? This is really subjective, but
the most important thing is that you wanna be comfortable. And so for this, I recommend layers. Pretty much everyone will tell you that. So here is a standard
flying outfit that I wear. I’ll wear either these travel pants, which
are loose and flowy or black leggings, and then a T-shirt and a sweater with a hood. Now for the pants, I usually hover between
the two choices, but it really depends. I usually like a tighter fitting
legging because they just. Kind of keep everything snug. And for me that’s more comfortable. But some days I’m not feeling it. And I’ll wear this style of pant. Either way, whatever bottoms you
choose, make sure your pants don’t drag because at the end of a long
flight, the bathroom floors just get so gross, like wet everywhere. So just make sure your pants
aren’t dragging on the ground. And then I like hoods so that
I can be cozy and hide myself when I don’t wanna be bothered. So just make sure you have some
sort of short sleeve underneath in case you do get hot. And ideally, a good thing to think
about is either a sweater or a jacket that has deep zippered pockets. This is important if you’re
traveling solo and you wanna get up to go to the bathroom. This way you can keep
your valuables with you. I mentioned this in my book Flight
Attendant Secrets that I published earlier this year, and if you haven’t heard me
say it before or you haven’t got the book yet, here’s something that you really
wanna know when you think about what you’re going to wear to the airport. Are you ready for it? Because this is a big airline secret! Gate agents are told to give
the empty upgrade seats to people who are dressed nice. Sorry, that last word came out
a little loud, but seriously. Say there’s extra first class seats
available and they have to pick between who to upgrade and who not to. Now, not every flight leaves with
their first class completely full. So what they’ll do is they will
look for the premium members first. The ones that fly the most, like
their top, top ones, and they’ll go down to like their second ones. And then they will go to crew, they’ll go
to military, and obviously anybody who’s paid for the upgrade is in there as well. But assuming that the people that have
paid for upgrades have already been seated and there’s still extra seats,
whether in first class or business class, the gate agents are instructed
to look for those top tiers first, and if they don’t find anyone, they find
somebody who’s dressed businesslike. And I have literally flown
before as the first class flight attendant and had four people in my first class when there’s 12 seats,
and I turned to the gate agent and I said, you didn’t have anybody to upgrade? And she said, Nope. I said, nobody was dressed nice. She said, Nope. Everybody was wearing yoga pants
and pajamas on that flight. And so we literally flew with
four people in my first class. And it happens all the time. The gate agents look for somebody
who’s dressed businesslike, and then they will be more likely
to give them the free upgrades. A lot of times it’s necessary
for weight and balance purposes. So if the weight and balance needs to
be moved forward, they will immediately start looking at who’s sitting at
the gate, who’s dressed nicely. So if you dress nicely and you let them
know, “Hey, if there are any free upgrades I’d be interested,” as long as you’re
dressed nice, you have a better option. Now, here’s the other thing,
the planes get really cold. It doesn’t matter if it’s hot, hot, hot in
the summer or freezing cold in the winter. They’re pretty much cold all year long. And the reason for that is because
hot planes make people throw up and cold planes make people sleep. So what I recommend, this is what I have,
it’s nice and thin and it’s Cuddlduds. I actually bought this
from the men’s section. It’s very thin material and you
can find something like this in basically your exercise section. This one, because it’s men’s, it
looks really baggy and frumpy on me, but I don’t care because the material
is very, very silky, very, very thin, and it’s a thermal material. So no matter what time of year I wear
it, it keeps my body temperature right in the range of what I’m comfortable with,
which is why CuddlDuds is 100% my favorite company when it comes to wearing thermals. Something like this can literally
help me In the coldest winter. I buy their thermal leggings
every year to go under my uniform. I’ve worn them under my tights, literally. But if you get something like this… the exercise section is good because
of the wicking features that they have. The material is thinner. It’s more flexible. You can shove this in your bag, and
when you pull it out, it doesn’t look that wrinkled, so keep it in your bag. Dress businesslike at the gate, and
then once you get in, throw this on over your clothes to stay warm. The other tip too is this one doesn’t
have it , but if it has pockets, try to get the zippered pockets. Because if you get zippered pockets and
you put your keys and your ID and your wallet in there, your cell phone in there,
you zip it up… and for TSA, you just throw it into one of the bins and you got
all your stuff there, and then you pick it up, put it back on, and away you go. Something like this, you have to have. You could do a sweater if you
want, but sweaters are bulky. You could do a sweatshirt. Again, sweatshirts are bulky. It’s gonna take up a significant
amount of room in your bag. I far prefer an exercise jacket made of
a wicking material to help me stay warm. And they’re usually much more attractive. They also often have zippers. But anyway, let’s go on to the next part. Speaking of getting hot, a handheld
fan can be a lifesaver if you’re prone to getting hot on the plane. I used this on two different
flights on my recent trip. The first time was because our connection
through the Paris airport was super tight, so unfortunately we had to run to the
gate, and so by the time we sat down, we were just sweating almost since the air
vents didn’t get turned on until takeoff. As somebody who has begun menopause,
I have opinions about this. Here is my fan and it’s perfectly flat,
so I can just stick it in the bag. Now, she was holding the handheld
fan, which I’ve seen on Amazon. I did buy one to try it. It was kind of loud, and this one, as you can see, is not, I’ve literally
got this up next to the microphone. That’s low, medium, high. As I said, I’m very sensitive
to sound when I sleep, and the reason I like this one is I will
put it on the bed next to me. Because as a flight attendant, I’m
usually sleeping on the bed alone. Well, not usually always, I’m always
sleeping in the bed alone ’cause my family doesn’t come with me… You can turn it sideways and have it
stand sideways, or you can have it stand like this and it holds up really good. And there have been times that I got up
in the morning and didn’t even realize it was on and just happened to hear it. This one is battery powered. I did put some tape over the lights. If you get one, which I’ll link it in
the description below, get the black one. Because I also bought the white one
and the white one glows blue at night. Even if you cover the lights. The black one does not. ‘Cause I’m sensitive to light as well. This one supposedly lasts eight
to 20 hours on battery power. It’s rechargeable. And there have been times that I woke
up in the morning and it was off. I would say on low it probably lasts
about 10 to 12 hours… generally. I also wear compression socks usually
on any flight over four hours. Not only do they help prevent or at
least minimize swelling, which can be really uncomfortable, but they’re also
really important to help decrease the chance of developing blood clots as well. And one trick I like to do to also prevent
swelling is to draw the alphabet with my legs when I’m sitting in my seat. The compression socks. I do agree they can help. Here’s what you need to know though. I have very sensitive feet. If you have very sensitive feet at all,
you wanna put them on at the plane. Maybe even as soon as you
sit down in the plane. I would even recommend that you do it
while you’re sitting at the gate, but you don’t wanna walk around in them
because they will rub your feet raw. So wear them before you get on the
plane or as soon as you get on the plane ’cause it’ll help with the
pressurization when you go up and down. But take them off as soon as you start
walking through the airport again. Otherwise, you’re just
gonna hurt your feet. .
And finally my little Vix Vapo inhaler. It’s no fun being stuck sitting
next to someone who may or may not smell the freshest at times. So if that happens, I’ll usually
pull this out and breathe in a bit of minty freshness, and it also
helps kind of wake you up too. Okay. The Vix Vapo inhaler, that
could actually be useful. I would probably try that one. If you ever do get stuck next to
somebody who stinks, what I’ve had to do is generally when you turn the fan
on, kind of direct it towards them a little bit and it’ll kind of blow the
scent away from you, which does help. You can also ask a flight attendant if
you could get like a pack of coffee, just the dry pack, and then open it and stick
it in your seat pocket, because that does kind of help desensitize the smell to your
nose, which is why one day you might walk into an airplane bathroom and notice that
there’s a bag of coffee hanging on a hook in the bathroom or sitting on the counter. That’s because flight attendants use
that as deodorizers, and it works in a bathroom so it can work while
sitting next to someone as well. If you don’t wanna ask a flight
attendant for something like that then get your own pack of coffee. Especially if you’re in a hotel, you
can get those little round packets that are kind of like tea bags and
literally that’s all you need to carry. If you’re staying in a hotel,
you can get that for free. I recommend that if you don’t have TSA
pre-check or are flying internationally, check online to see if the airport
you’re flying out of offers some sort of express option where you can pre-book
yourself a spot in the security line. So for example, at Toronto Pearson,
this program is called YYZ Express. And it’s completely free. You just book yourself a spot
and you’ll get a QR code to scan to enter a separate lineup. Now, some airports do charge
a small fee for this service. Recently, I flew out of e Lisbon
in Portugal, and so I bought the Fast Track pass for nine euros. To me, this was. Super worth it because we saved
ourselves at least 20 or 25 minutes to find out if the airport offers this. I would just Google the airport
name plus something along the lines of Express Security Line or
Fast Track or something similar. Not every airport will offer
this, but it’s definitely a growing trend, so you never know. You know, that’s really interesting. I have not seen that yet, but I think
the reason that I haven’t seen that is because I go through what’s called KCM,
which stands for known crew member, or I go through a special crew line. I’m not held to the same standards
as most passengers unless I’m wearing street clothes. So that’s actually a really good tip
and I wouldn’t be surprised if all of the airports start doing that soon. It’s kind of a trend if one is
doing it and one is making money, then the others will follow. So that’s actually a really good tip
that I would definitely recommend. Now let’s talk about jetlag. As far as how to beat jetlag, this is
a tough one, but there are a few things that I do to minimize the effects. If it’s an evening or overnight flight,
I try to get up as early as possible on that day and do a decent amount
of exercise to tire my body out. This will vary for everyone, but
for example, for me personally, I’ll do a heavy weightlifting session
and then a nice long walk or get in as many steps as I can that day. So that by the time I’m on the
plane, my body is physically tired and wants to go to sleep. If possible, I also try to
not plan anything for the first day in my destination. So if you can give yourself
a bit of a buffer day to just chill, that really helps. And if not, walking, getting
sunshine and staying hydrated will definitely make a difference. I find. Okay, real quick… I do have some opinions about jet lag,
both internationally and domestically. She said, get up as early as possible,
and I’m not sure if she means the day that you fly or the day that you land. But here’s my recommendation. Most international flights seem to leave
later in the evening or at night so that people will sleep on the plane throughout
the night, and then you don’t sleep well. The last time I flew to Paris last
year, my leg was twitching like crazy when I was flying like a passenger. It was, I think like an eight hour flight. And for some reason outta the
blue, just one of my legs decided to just jerk every minute. And I was completely miserable. But basically my general rule that
really works because I’ve traveled internationally several times, is you’re
going to sleep terribly on the flight, if you’re flying from say, America to Europe. You’re gonna wake up in
a different time zone. It’s gonna be several hours difference. What you wanna do is you wanna
stay awake as long as you possibly can through dinner. You go, you drop your bags
off at the hotel and you just immediately start exploring. One of the things that I heard from
a travel guru that I always liked was just go out and start exploring the area
around your hotel and look for toiletries. Look for things that you might
need that you didn’t pack. This person would purposefully not pack
those items so that he would have a reason to go out and explore the area. And I did find once when I was
in Fiji that I wasn’t able to use my allergy meds in Fiji. In Fiji, they would back burn their
farms, and so there was so much local pollen in the air and I tried
my stuff and my stuff didn’t work. I even did Benadryl and I ended up
sleeping for like two days, still woke up with a swollen face and I eventually went
into one of their pharmacies and asked, and they recommended this one over the
counter product that worked like a dream. And the rest of the trip was fantastic. So when you first land in a place, if
you’ve never been there before, you might wanna go out and look for toiletries. You might wanna hit up a pharmacy nearby,
especially if you’re prone to allergies, and you might wanna say, what do you
recommend for allergies in this area? And then just stay awake as long as
you can, try to get through dinner. If by seven or eight o’clock you
feel like you’re gonna crash, go back to the hotel and crash. You will probably sleep like 12
hours and you’ll wake up around eight or nine in the morning. That’s what I recommend
for international jet lag. Now, domestic jet lag… remember,
I’m a domestic flight attendant. My recommendation for domestic travel,
if you wanna be able to adapt quicker and there’s only a two to three hour
time difference, what you need to do is, don’t even turn on the TV when you
get into the hotel room that night. If you turn on the TV, you’re going
to get all that blue light and that blue light is going to keep you awake. So leave the TV off. Close your curtains. If you’re traveling from east to west,
then you’re getting a couple extra hours. So you might find that you’re tired
sooner, and you could just go with it. You could just go to bed your regular
time, wake up in the morning, throw open the curtains, start your day earlier. That might work for you. For me, I’m not a morning person. I hate the thought of
being up before 10:00 AM. But when I go to California, I’m usually
up around eight and I’m okay with that and I’ll just get up and I’ll get moving. And I’ll find that I’m hungry and
everything else about two hours before I would be for that local time. Now, if you’re going from West
coast to East coast, you’re basically losing two to three hours. What you wanna do is you want to
immediately adapt to their time. Not yours. If you try to hang on to what you
do in your time period, you’re going to be hit with jet lag hard. For example, if you normally eat dinner
at seven o’clock in California and then you go to New York, you wanna eat dinner
at seven o’clock in New York, even though you won’t be hungry ‘ cause that’ll
be four o’clock in California time. Do it anyway. Just eat a smaller meal to try
to get you through the night. And then try to go to bed
around 10 o’clock their time. And that’s where not turning on the
TV and closing the curtains can help. Because if you do that, as soon
as you enter your room, that signals to your brain that it’s
time to start winding down. When you get up in the morning, get
up on their time zone, throw the curtains wide open, try to go outside
as soon as possible, and all of that can help you adapt much quicker. One rule of thumb I usually do is,
let’s say I wake up at seven in the morning, and I don’t have to be up till
10, if I have an extra hour and a half to sleep, then I will try to get that
extra hour and a half to sleep, to go from six hours to roughly eight hours. But if I have to get up at eight o’clock
and it’s seven o’clock, then I just get up at seven o’clock because your
body needs about an hour and a half to two hours to get you through the
next level of the circadian rhythm. Basically if you don’t have at least
an hour and a half to sleep, then just make yourself get up and you’ll be
much less tired than if you go back to sleep, set an alarm for an hour and
then wake yourself up with the alarm. So that’s my opinion on domestic
jetlag versus international. Let’s see what else she has to say. I recommend traveling carry
on only if you can do it. I find this just saves you from all
kinds of extra stress or anxiety. No need to wait in line to check your
bag at the airport and not having to worry about your luggage, making
it to your destination, especially if you have connecting flights. And if you’re new to this idea. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered because
that’s what my channel is all about. So I invite you to explore some
of my other videos with practical tips about packing lighter. Thank you so much for watching,
and I’ll see you in the next one. So I went ahead and I hit subscribe
with her ’cause I think that she’s got some pretty good advice. I liked a lot of that advice. I did skip some things in this video. So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna go
ahead and I’m gonna link this video. Grab your remote because
here it comes right now. Thank you for joining
me for Travel Tuesday. The next video that I’m gonna
do is going to be Fun Friday, and I plan on reacting to this. I returned a hundred lawsuit
suitcases to their owners. So come back on Friday
to join me for that one. Here’s her video and here’s
one that YouTube thinks of mine that you would like. See you guys in the next video. Caio.
A flight attendant reacts to travel tips and shares her insights, including some solid airport hacks! She dives into packing suitcase hacks and flying tricks for a smoother journey. Learn about travel packing tips and what really makes a long haul flight bearable. #travelhacks
19 Flight Hacks Tested by a Flight Attendant (Do They Work?)
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Travel hacks are everywhere—but do they actually work in real life? Today I’m reacting to Aly Smalls’ viral “19 Things to Pack and Do for a Flight” video and putting each hack to the test with my flight attendant insider perspective.
From blackout eye masks to portable fans, foot hammocks, power banks, compression socks, and more… I’ll tell you which hacks make flying easier and which ones I ditched after one use.
If you’ve ever wondered what to pack, how to fight jet lag, or the #1 trick for surprise upgrades—you don’t want to miss this one.
Recommended Products (From Amazon):
Eye Mask: https://amzn.to/3VhOja7
CuddlDuds: https://amzn.to/4nUF7Vx
Battery Operated Fan: https://amzn.to/4gnsuiU
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction: Making Long Flights Feel Short
00:15 Reacting to Aly Smalls’ Travel Tips
01:29 Essential Items to Pack for Comfort
03:02 Personal Recommendations and Alternatives
05:39 Foot Hammocks: Pros and Cons
08:00 Noise-Canceling Headphones and Gadgets
12:35 Dressing for Comfort and Upgrades
22:57 Jet Lag Tips and Tricks
28:20 Final Thoughts and Upcoming Videos
12 Comments
What Travel Hacks do you have for long flights? Or are there any travel accessories you want me to test out? Let us know what products you love.
Not sure why you used Aly Smalls’s video to produce your own. It came down to your personal opinions, it wasn’t necessary to bash her video. As a nurse, compression socks should be put on either before you get out of bed or shortly afterwards to be most effective.
Your fan is fine for the hotel room but takes up too much space for the plane. I have several of the hand held ones and don’t think they’re loud at all. Bonus, they act as a charger too if needed.
Thanks for your responses! I'm going on my first international trip in over a decade and have really embraced the carry on lifestyle so Ally has been really helpful but it's always great to see someone else agree, disagree or add on (such as the sunglasses wrapping vs not wrapping as you mentioned).
Can you share more details on the upgrade part? I’ve heard that dressing well can help, and I do believe in looking your best (while still being comfortable) when traveling. But I’m usually in the lounge until close to boarding, so I’m wondering — is it better to check in with the gate agent directly and let them know you’d be interested in an upgrade? Or does this happen more at the check-in counter before security? Would love to hear how to politely make yourself known without overstepping.
Empty upgrade seats?!? Not for a few years…
Hi there, I tried to press like for this video, but it wouldn’t register. Have you disabled the like button?🤨😊
Thank you sooo much Erica, I found the stuffable travel pillow at Target. What a great idea!
A lot of airlines are cracking down on the stuffable travel pillow. That's why she doesn't mention it.
Flight attendant that doesn't know about noise cancelling headphones and benefits on flights?
Agree with hammock thing. Aly is actually pretty short so that's why it works for her so well.
Your charging brick? Yeah, you can't put that in your day bag when out touring to charge your phone. That's why she's saying to get a portable charger, and the one she specifically has doubles as a wall charger…
No hate, but I can see you definitely don't have serious international travel experience. This is what Aly is recommending for. I personally would never get anything you recommended in here because none of it is practical. And probably half of what Aly recommends I wouldn't get either based on preference, but at least what she lists is practical (not the sunglasses though, that one you got right, but I'd still just use an eye mask for sleeping and not sunglasses).
This was really well done.
Noise cancelling headphones 🎧 are a game changer! I will never travel without them again! I can't stand anything in my ears, so they are the over the ear ones! I have the Bose Q45.
As another comment or mentioned, Ally's suggestions are for international flights/vacations. Your big block would not be "friendly" to carry around in an all day touring situation.