The Zen of Travel

As I was boarding a flight from Salt Lake City to the East Coast recently, I overhead the flight attendant say “Every day is a great day to fly,” and it occurred to me that was only true if you could find the silk purse in every sow’s ear you ever came across It was a sunny morning, so with the prospect of flying over the Rockies with a window seat in first class I thought I’d give her the benefit of doubt.

Some people love to travel; others hate it. I’m pretty much ambivalent. But the fact is, since I fly on average twice a month I’ve found it essential to accept everything that comes along as just part of the day (or night). Maybe I’m stupid lucky and by writing about it here have jinxed my next five years of flights, but in the past 20 years, I’ve only had two flights canceled/delayed to the point where I didn’t get to my destination the day I was scheduled. And, one of those I was with my son coming home from visiting my parents, so it was kind of a bonus anyway.

I have some personal coping mechanisms for making it a good travel day. First and foremost, unless you’re traveling with a 5 iron, NEVER check luggage. There are two reasons to do this. The first, obviously, is that the airlines will loose your bag. Of the maybe 20 times I’ve checked luggage, it hasn’t landed when I did at least a half dozen times. That’s means over 25% of the time, the airlines screwed up. Hell, once going on vacation I saw them take my golf clubs off the plane after an announcement that we were overweight and some bags were going on the next flight.

The other reason to carry-on is that you have flexibility. The airlines will almost never rebook you on a different flight if your bags are in the system. When there are flight delays and cancellations, being the passenger with only carry-ons, you’re one of the first candidates for rerouting, rather than waiting around for that long delayed flight to be canceled.

And, on certain good days, if you’ve got a connection and arrive early, you just might get on the next flight to your destination, rather than a 3-hour layover. If you get where you’re going early, that’s usually a good thing. Who wouldn’t rather be either home or at the hotel for a few hours rather than an airport lounge?

I recommend always have something to read with you. And don’t depend on finding a decent selection of books at the airport. I actually plan my reading when selecting a book from the library. If it’s a long one, I might start it a few days earlier at the gym, so that I finish in the last hour of the flight home. If push comes to shove, I’ve found that you can always get through a flight with a copy of the New Yorker or, surprisingly, Esquire, which always has a few articles worth reading.

Finding good airport food is always makes the travel day go better. Generally speaking, I try and find the local non-chain place, hoping that I know, for instance, that if I’m traveling through Austin or Charlotte somewhere in the lunch or dinner hour, there’s great BBQ in the central food court. At O'Hare down concourse E you’ll find a Greek diner that has great Gyros for lunch and a feta omelet that will start the day off right if you’ve got an early flight. On the other hand, I had an absolutely horrible breakfast sausage/egg/cheese biscuit in Memphis the other morning. But just today, the Wall Street Deli at SLC produced a perfectly balanced breakfast burrito. Add that to the sunshine over the mountains, and it’s not such a bad start to the day.

Getting a complimentary upgrade when you didn’t expect it almost always makes for a nice day, although not so much when it’s a short flight and the only benefit is your beverage in a glass and an extra bag of sun chips.

Sometimes, just a good seat is enough. Of course exit rows are great because you’ve got the extra leg room, but every now and then your seatmate is somebody who’s interesting and you have a wonderful conversation with a stranger for a couple of hours.

Of course, there’s no way to dress up a flight in a middle seat between two fat people, one of whom has a crying baby on their lap. Just put on headphones, close your eyes and hope you fall asleep fast.