Nowadays most vacations or business trips start at the airport. If you’ve done one or more long haul flights you know that proper clothing is essential to being comfortable during your flight. There’s nothing worse than feeling uncomfortable on a 12 hour flight without the possibility to change.

I travel a lot long haul and meanwhile I have my preferred “set of travel clothes” as well as a few little things that help me to enjoy the flight as much as possible.

1. Wear comfortable clothing
My favorites are loose-fitting jeans, a t-shirt and a sweater with a zipper. Don’t use your oldest sweat suit, because you never know who you’ll meet and how embarrassing to look like your own grandmother. It’s also helpful to look respectable when passing through immigration or customs.

2. Use non-iron clothes
You don’t want to show off the “crinkle” look after you’ve been sleeping the night in the plane. Always remember that you will meet people at the end of your journey and not everyone has to know on first sight that you had an awful night at the plane.

3. Never wear tight fitting clothes and shoes
Especially your feet swell while flying, because of the air pressure. It’s rather annoying to force them into tight shoes after a long flight.

4. Bring clothes for warm and cold
Air condition can be either too warm or too cold. That’s why I like to use the “onion principle”: Wear different layers of clothing, so you can take them off if the temperature rises. Suitable is a T-shirt and a sweater, preferably with a zipper for easy dressing and undressing.

5. Wear dark colored clothing
Sometimes a flight can be quite rough and the coffee might land on your shirt…Dark colors don’t show the starches as much as light colors do.

6. Don’t overpack your hand luggage
It’s awful to drag a heavy hand luggage all the way across the airport. You’ll hate it from the moment you leave the check in counter.

7. Always carry a water bottle
This is especially important when flying economy. Service in the different airlines varies and when waking up at night with a dry throat (due to the air condition), it’s a relieve to have a bottle of water within reach.

I used to carry my water bottle everywhere, but with the new restrictions for liquids on hand luggage, you’ll have to buy it in the Duty Free Shop. Or bring an empty bottle and fill it with water from the tap (if you trust in the quality of tap water at your airport).

Marion Kummerow
http://www.inside-munich.com