Got a LONG international flight coming up. My first in nearly 2 years
I don't travel much. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I had the travel bug hard when I was in my 20s and I went just about everywhere and am kind of over it. These days I prefer to just stay where I am an make the best of it. A lot of this has to do with my dog Nadi, and how she doesn't really like it when I go anywhere without her, let alone to the other side of the world for nearly a month, which is what I am about to do.
Although I have no real ties to it anymore, I am from the USA. This is about as far away from where I live that a person could possibly be and this trip is going to be absolute murder because even if you are willing to spend a ton of money on the closest available flights with minimal layovers, there just aren't very many options from Vietnam to where i need to go to.
in the past I have taken several vacations with Nadi along with me, but this isn't really an option when flying over the Pacific
There's no easy way around this, the flight is going to suck. I'm not a very good flyer anyway but I can deal with it if only I can manage to somehow get to sleep and this can be a real problem for me on flights unless I super medicate with sedatives.
This is the worst leg of the journey. It's 12 straight hours from Taiwan, which is a great airport, to LAX (Los Angeles) which is an abomination in the world of international airports.
Something that is kind of funny and I don't think about a great deal is you may notice that I am departing on the 8th and arriving on the 7th. That is not a typo and I am sure a lot of you already know about the international dateline, which is somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. I don't know when or how it was determined that this was going to be where new days begin and the old ones end, but that is where it is. When you travel over that invisible line, you go back in time a day if your flights are close enough to midnight. My flight out of Taipei is 10 past 12 so yeah, it's close enough.
The real misery of this flight is the fact that once I arrive in LAX, which is an airport like no other in a bad sense, I am stuck there for the next 13 hours. This will be far worse than the time that I have to spend on the plane to get there.
As if LAX wasn't bad enough, there are ZERO on site hotels or capsule sleep areas in the entire monstrous airport. It's kind of like they decided a long time ago that LAX is going to be a miserable experience and they are not going to do anything to change that.
I guess the Hyatt Regency and other seriously overpriced hotels did the best they could as they describe that their properties are located a convenient 15 minute walk from some terminals. I like the intentionally ambiguous description of their location. LAX is a poorly set up monster of an airport and it very well could be 30 minutes of walking before the 15 minutes to the Hyatt even begins. I would imagine I will just find a business class lounge that I can camp out in but once again LAX's awfulness strikes because there are very few lounges that even bother to stay open all night despite the fact that LAX is one of the world's busiest airports. It's like they are trying to suck - and they succeed at that one thing!
In the past when I was visiting the East Coast it was a better situation for me because I would arrive mostly in New York City... the East Coast of the USA is serviced greatly and has a lot of competition among the relatively new Middle-Eastern airlines, most of which are pretty good. Unfortunately, most of them don't bother with the west coast.
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Starlux is an airline that I have never heard of but that is understandable seeing as how I do not keep up with any global trends, flights or otherwise. The good news is they are a 5-star airline, whatever that means, but not a budget one so there won't be any shenanigans over luggage and meals and what not. They are also only a few years old so perhaps they are still trying to do a good job.
My experience has been that every Taiwanese airline is pretty good so there is no reason why this one shouldn't be.
This trip is pretty special for me because it could be a bit of a end-of-the-road sort of thing. Nadi is getting up there in years and at the moment she is fine to stay with someone else for 3 weeks while I am away, but a year from now when it is around time for me to potentially fly that direction again, she might not be ok for me to do so.
I do not relish being away from her for this amount of time but at least I know that I have a very good babysitter who is happy to do it. he is my Australian friend who loves dogs but just doesn't want to get his own - which is smart on his part because having a dog as an expatriate is not an easy thing to do.
I still worry though because I know that Nadi is accustommed to things being a certain way and me just not being there for 3 weeks is going to seem like an eternity to her. We'll get through this though and at least I will have something to look forward to upon my return!
Wishing good traveling. Hope nothing emergent is bringing you back to the States. Either way, sending good vibes your way.
no, no emergency. I just do what I think a lot of people should do: Take advantage of the fact that your parents are alive while that is still the case.
Yeah, take advantage of that every opportunity.
⋆ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ ғᴏʀ sᴏᴜᴛʜᴇᴀsᴛ ᴀsɪᴀɴ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴏɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ
⋆ sᴜʙsᴄʀɪʙᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀsᴇᴀɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ
⋆ ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀsᴇᴀɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ ᴠᴏᴛɪɴɢ ᴛʀᴀɪʟ
⋆ ᴅᴇʟᴇɢᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ʟɪɴᴋs 25 ʜᴘ⇾50 ʜᴘ⇾100 ʜᴘ⇾500 ʜᴘ⇾1,000 ʜᴘ
We need faster planes and looking forward to when Sonic Boom launches in 2029 reducing most long distance flights by up to 50% in time. They may be pricey though so we shall have to wait and see. Safe travels.
well wasn't there already a much faster plane but the cost of it was so high that nobody used it? Something out of France maybe? It was before my time
There was the supersonic Concord that retired in 2003 after a crash on takeoff. It mostly flew between New York, London, and Paris. I think it had plenty of passengers. Rich passengers.
Those trans-pacific flights are a killer that's for sure. I always just try to get a window seat and figure out a way to sleep. It's not easy though!
no, there is no comfortable way to get some zees in a completely upright position
I've taken a very similar route a few times. Orlando to Los Angeles to Manila...and back. It's horrible. However, I think that 12 to 13 hour flight is worse than staying in an airport even if I'm sleeping on an uncomfortable chair. I did spend the night in the Los Angeles Airport a couple of times but at least I could stand up and stretch and walk around, etc. Cramped in coach for that long is not fun.
The ability to walk around does have some benefits for sure. One thing that seriously sucks about LAX these days is that the luggage that I check in Vietnam specifically for the purpose of NOT needing to roll it around LAX for 12 hours, well you have to take this back into your personal possession in LA, and the ticket counter for my flight to Mexico wont even be open until much later on. It's just all a bunch of BS. I'm packing light because of this but I might be subjected to being outside the terminal for 13 hours because I might not even be able to check into my onward flight to Mex until the morning. It's not gonna be great, but there is no real way around it other than spending 2x as much money. I think my time is valuable, but not $1000 to save 10 hours valuable.
I hope you are at least traveling there for something fun and not for something else. I also hope you are able to find a lounge to hang out in. I have never used one of those myself, but from your other posts in the past, it sounds like they are totally worth it.