Travel really is a boon to the gadget lover – it provides so many excuses to indulge your gadget fetish. The GPS systems, cameras and phones are a given, of course, but early in my travelling career I also discovered ( with much glee!) the multitude of devices designed purely to make your travels more comfortable. Or – in the case of long-haul flights – a little less unbearable.
As anyone who has spent 9 or more hours in a plane flying through the night the ultimate goal is to discover some means of being able to sleep. I know there are some people on the plane that can shut their eyes after the meal, sigh and fall into blissful slumber for the remainder of the flight, but I’m not one of them! ( and I loathe them with the fire of a thousand suns!!! )
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| Enjoying the in-flight manicure |
I used to think that the best solution to this problem would be to stump up the cash and fly the kind of Business Class that offers a flat-bed, and a few years ago I was very excited to test that theory when Neil had the good fortune to win ( yes win!) a short holiday flying with Virgin Atlantic in the pointy-end of the plane. We certainly enjoyed the pampering that came with our First Class experience – private cubicles, in-flight massage, silver service dinner and unlimited champagne , but it was the night time I was really looking forward to. The hostess gave us our cute little pyjamas and worked her magic on our seats – flipped a switch, laid out the quilt and pillows and I sank with a sigh of joy onto my surprisingly comfortable bed-in-the-sky. I shut my eyes……and stayed wide awake for the next 7 hours. Gah!
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| NOT sleeping |
Not a WINK of shut-eye, made worse by the fact that I lay there berating myself for NOT being able to sleep. “Come on, you idiot, you will NEVER be this comfortable on a plane again – GO TO SLEEP!!” But it was no use, and I’m only eternally grateful that we hadn’t forked out the big bucks to pay for the experience – then I would REALLY have been mad 🙂 At the end of the flight I learned that Neil’s experience had been exactly the same and we both agreed that paying to fly First Class ( or Business) in the hopes of being able to sleep would be a total waste of money for us. Lesson learned.
So, I returned to to realm of the gadgets , and over several trips I’ve trialed a variety of toys in my quest. There are some extraordinary ( and questionable?) doo-dads available , and I’ve been tempted by many of them at times , but my healthy scepticism and unwillingness to look like a total lunatic has prevented me from letting my head go to try these ones…(they are real, I assure you!)
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OK, back in the real world……I have to admit that I really do value a neck support pillow to stop my head from wobbling around on my neck like a bobble-head toy when I start to nod off. We all know how hard it can be to find the perfect pillow and I’ve certainly tried a few in my quest for the perfect plane-pillow. One trip I used one of those big squidgy one that’s full of Styrofoam balls ( just like a bean-bag for your neck), but I found it bulky to carry and hot to wear. I’ve also tried one of those designer inflatables with a flat-back. These are supposed to be better at stopping your head from slipping to the side but I just didn’t get enough support from them. In the end I’ve settled on the bog-standard, cheap and simple inflatable pillow. It’s easy to carry and I can adjust the size so that it’s just right…
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| This one is just TOO BIG | This one is just TOO SMALL | This one is JUST RIGHT – Goodnight Goldilocks! |
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| Put your feet up… |
More recently I’ve realised that it’s not only my neck that needs the support of a good pillow. In the last couple of years I’ve started to suffer from swollen ankles on long haul flights and , as well as compression socks, I really need to try to get my feet up off the floor. The Airbus A380 aircraft is my vehicle of choice these days as they have a footrest support net for each economy seat which does an excellent job of getting your toes up in the air. However, on other planes I now carry a handy little inflatable footrest which does a perfectly respectable job of letting me “put my feet up”.
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| You too can look like “The Fly”! |
When I want to (try!) to sleep I also like to use an eyemask to shade my eyes from the inconsiderate twit who insists on leaving his reading lamp on all through the wee hours of the flight, and to discourage me from opening my eyes to see just what the steward is up to as he walks down the aisle. You wouldn’t think there was much “technology” to an eyemask …but you’d be wrong! I’m a very big fan of these moulded eye-masks that keep the fabric of the mask from brushing against your eyelids – they also have the added perk of making you look like a bug when you’re wearing them 🙂
However, if I had to choose only one comfort item to take onboard it would have to be a good pair of noise-cancelling earphones. Prior to discovering NC earphones I always ended up with a headache at the end of a flight – the constant roar of the engines may , to some extent, screen out other noises like crying babies; but that incessant pounding on your eardrums is incredibly tiring and means that if you want to hear your in-flight movie, your only option is to turn up the volume to uncomfortable levels. But a good pair of NC earphones can cut that background roar down to almost negligible levels and restore peace to your eardrums.
If you have any doubts about this I strongly recommend that you watch the short video below – it is a brilliant demonstration of the wonderful gadgets.
There are a huge number of different models on the market, and between us, Neil and I have trialed a wide variety of different styles. You would be surprised at the variation in noise-cancelling that is offered by different brands and models. If you’re in the market for a pair my main piece of advice would be to steer clear of the cheaper ones they sell at places like Dick Smith and JB Hi Fi , with these earphones you really do get what you pay for. You can spend over $400 on the higher end brands but it’s [ossible to get a good quality product for half that, or less – but NOT for peanuts.
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| Sennheiser PXC-250 |
We both started out with these Sennheiser PXC-250 on-ear headphones. They were lightweight, folded up into a fairly neat little package and offered excellent noise-cancelling. However, after a couple of trips we both went looking for something different. Neil was happy with the full-blown headphone style and wanted an even better standard of noise cancellation, so he upgraded to these monsters…
the Sennheiser PXC-450. I have to admit, with these beauties over your ears you can hear hardly anything at all, but I’m happy to leave them to Neil.
After a few flights with my first Sennheisers, I had realised that when I’m wearing my neck pillow AND my eye mask, the added bulk of full headphones made me feel like I was wearing the weight of the world on my head, a bit like this guy…
So , I went looking for good quality noise cancelling ear buds. Sony have a wide range of these and I was really delighted with my first pair – the Sony MDR NC-22 . They had very decent noise-cancelling, the lightweight little power unit clipped to my shirt and the ear buds were comfortable enough to wear for several hours at a time. The one thing that is an issue with these ear-buds ( in common with ALL earbuds) is durability. Eventually, the constant winding and bending of the cables mean that the sound suddenly disappears from one ear or the other. I had a few trips out of these guys but they eventually died so I went looking for a replacement.
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| Sony MDR NC-22 |
The NC22s had been discontinued so after hours of reading reviews I opted to try an alternative brand, Audio Technica, specifically the ATH-ANC 3 model. However, despite their excellent reviews, these were a disappointment – they simply werent as good as the Sony’s. So the next pair I had, the MDR NC-33, were the newer version of the Sony pair I’d used previously. these saw me through a couple of trips until I started having trouble with them on our flight home from the USA last year. So, at present I’m without a pair of noise cancelling earbuds but I WILL have a pair before our next trip, I will NOT fly without them 🙂