I always thought every long(ish) haul flight had a TV screen. But apparently not if you fly on an American Airlines flight from Phoenix to Philadelphia. It’s about 4 and a half hours, yet NO TV screen.
Thankfully I’ve a fully-charged laptop, and with the screen dimmed to absolute minimum brightness, I’ve just managed to pass a whole 2 and a half hours watching the movie, ‘Gone Girl’ for the first time! (The lead actors are Rosamund Pike & Ben Affleck. I’d give it a 4/5. It’s missing full marks because it was a bit too (unnecessarily) long.)
Now, I’ve had this movie on my hard-drive for a long while, but having read the book before there even was a movie, I never really felt compelled to watch it. Particularly because the story-line is crazy and the whole thing frustrates me. It doesn’t have the typical Hollywood ending you’d want or expect. I won’t tell you why though because I don’t want to spoil it for you!
Anyway, it made me think how many first-time travelers are SO UNPREPARED so that little blips like a lack of TV screen can turn into the most major inconveniences. So here’s a quick travel tip to make sure a molehill like this doesn’t become a mountain of boredom and upset (thank me later) 😉
Always travel with entertainment. This time I made sure my laptop (I purchased my HP Stream for $179. You can find the same one here in the UK for £159.) was fully charged and coupled with a 1 Terabyte external hard-drive (I’ve had mine for years, but you can purchase a similar one here), I’m not driven crazy when faced with a 4+ hour plane ride with NO TV SCREEN!
I don’t know what your source of entertainment may be, but make sure you carry it with you! For me, I also love to read so I never (usually) leave the house without my Kindle and a paperback book. Yes ‘and’. ‘And’ because sometimes I want to actually turn REAL pages of a book, but I also love the beauty of having a whole library of alternative reads so I can switch titles depending on my mood. Maybe I want something to make me giggle, or perhaps I want to learn something. Whatever my mood, my Kindle has something for that! UNFORTUNATELY, I’ve been forced to travel without my Kindle (it’s such an awful feeling) because it passed away about two weeks ago now. I basically took it out in the Arizona sunshine inside a clearly-unsafe compartment in my backpack, and the screen partially timed out. So RIP ‘Abs Kindle’. Long Live my newest ‘Abs Kindle’ (which I’ll excitedly unwrap when I walk hobble through the doors at home in Manchester!) There’ll be so many new features I’ll have access to since I’d had my previous one for over two years thus it was super outdated! Yay! Every cloud, eh? (Check out my NEW Kindle. Wanna be twins? Buy one too on Amazon!)
Speaking of ‘every cloud has a silver lining’, I’m still trying to figure out the silver lining for my injury and forced retirement from athletics . But once I figure it out, I can’t wait to share it with you guys!
P.S. I’m not sponsored by any of these companies. I just thought I’d make it easier for you to get involved if you want to! And I’ll continue to do this in future posts.
P.P.S. Let me know what your travel tricks are if you have any! I’m always open to discovering new and better ways to travel happy!
