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The most helpful 26 tips for first time travelers

Learn 26 tips for first time travelers, from how to plan, what to pack, safety tips, and more. With these tricks you'll be so ready to leave home with confidence!

first time journey

Jan 13, 2024

first-time-travelers

Preparing for your first trip can be overwhelming, right? While each first time traveler's preferences and each trip are unique, I’ve made a list of 24 handy tricks that I think will be useful for every beginner in the travel world.

There are many important thing to consider before leaving home, so to make it easier I’ve broken them into three categories: 

First time travelers tips for planning

First time travelers tips for packing time, first time travelers tips for the actual trip.

Hopefully you’ll find something useful here, no matter where you are in your travel journey.

first time traveller tips

1. Invest in good equipment

If you are going to multiple places, a good backpack that fits you well and a good, comfortable pair of shoes will be your two most important investments before you leave home. If you’re going to splurge somewhere, splurge on these two essentials.

2. Purchase travel insurance

Look, no one wants to spend money on travel insurance for international travel . But do it anyway. Trust me on this one.

3. Plan your budget carefully

I highly recommend checking out my article on planning your travel budget , where I go into much greater detail, but a good rule of thumb is to plan your backpacking expenses as carefully as you can, then bring twice as much money as you’ll think you need.

4. Brush up on safety tips

first time traveller

No, you shouldn’t be afraid of exploring the world. But you should be smart about it while you’re traveling. Research safety tips for backpacking and traveling, and then stay aware of your surroundings and keep them front of mind during your trip.

You can start exploring The safest places to travel right now and, as you feel more confindent, keep moving to other destinations.

5. Talk to your bank

Your bank will flag your account if you start spending money in a foreign country with no warning, and trust me, you don’t want to find yourself in a foreign country with no access to your bank account. You also need to talk to your bank and credit card companies about foreign transaction fees. If they’re really high, consider opening an account at a bank such as Charles Schwab, where they charge no foreign transaction fees and reimburse all ATM fees monthly.

6. Consider camping, if possible, to save money

Depending on where you’re going, tent camping may be an option and a huge money saver. Of course, then you’ll have to pack a tent, but it may be worth the savings for you.

7. Do a work exchange program to stay longer

first time travellers

Doing a work exchange might be the cheaper and cooler way to immerse in a trip and it gives you the chance to stay longer at the place and have a unique cultural experience, working and living with locals.  Worldpackers is a great platform to start volunteering as it offers a lot of different types of projects worldwide . Besides, they have a trained team to help you and your host to have a fun and safe experience.

8. Consider traveling during off-season

The best question to ask when considering off-season travel is what makes this time of year the off-season? There’s a reason peak times are popular, I assure you. The savings may be worth dealing with less than favorable weather or missing out on seasonal events, or not. It’s worth considering, though.

9. Familiarize yourself with your destination

I can’t stress this first time travelers tip enough. Read up on your destination before you go. Is haggling acceptable? Is tipping expected? What’s considered appropriate attire in various situations? What will the weather be like while you’re visiting? Are there any popular local scams to be on the watch for? All of these are important questions to have answered before you go.

Another great tip is to read the guide for adventure planning .

first time travelers

10. Pack light

One of the main tips I'd give to first time travelers , especially if they want to backpack is “pack light”. Familiarize yourself with the amount of weight you plan to carry by giving it a test run. Spend a day or two wearing your fully-packed backpack as you go about your daily life. Chances are, you’ll be more willing to cut unnecessary weight before you leave once you’ve done this.

11. Pack medicine

For a stress-free trip , you should never cut the essentials, and a first-aid kit is essential. Bring various kinds of medicine, especially if you are traveling to a country where you’re unfamiliar with the language, as well as bandages, antibiotic ointment and antibiotics, etc. Make sure you have a sufficient supply of any daily medications you may take as well.

12. Bring a journal

If you are someone who likes to journal regularly, this may already be on your list. If not, it’s something you should consider. Trip journals make wonderful souvenirs, but even if journaling isn’t something you’re interested in, at some point, you will wish you had a piece of paper and pen.

13. Have copies of your important documents

first time traveller tips

Don’t forget to make copies of all your important documents such as passport and visas in case your originals are lost or stolen. Having both hard copies and digital copies is your surest bet.

14. Remember these random, but useful things

  • Microfiber towel
  • Toilet paper (not a whole roll, but definitely keep some handy)
  • Water filter (depending on your destination)
  • Comfort item for a little bit of home to combat homesickness on longer trips (it could be a small stuffed animal, a loved one’s t-shirt, or even your favorite coffee or tea from home)

15. When packing clothes, think synthetic materials and layers

Synthetic clothing is lighter and dries more quickly than cotton, making it perfect for trips. Layers are an excellent way to transition between warmer and cooler climates without having to pack two entirely separate wardrobes.

16. Waterproof your backpack

first time travellers

Your backpack will likely come with a rain cover, but in my experience those things can’t be fully trusted. Instead, try lining your backpack with a large, fully waterproof bag so that everything inside stays protected.

17. Bring a battery pack

Once while in a new city, my phone died, I had no cash for the bus or streetcar, and I obviously couldn’t call an Uber. I wasn’t 100% sure how to get back to my hostel without GPS, either. Eventually, I made it back, but it would’ve been much less stressful if I’d had an extra battery to charge my phone.

18. Write down the address of the place you are staying at 

Every time you make it to a new city, write down the address of your hostel, hotel or host and keep it with you. That way, even if you don’t have access to GPS or WiFi, you can still ask someone for directions.

first time travellers

19. Wear your bulky clothing while traveling

This will save room in your backpack on days when everything has to fit.

20. Hide your money in multiple spots

Seriously, a money belt is a good idea. Never store all of your money in one place in case your bag, coat, etc. is lost or stolen. Try to keep some money on your person, some in your bag, and some stored safely at your hotel or hostel.

21. Stay in hostels with free breakfast or cook for yourself

You can save so much money over time by taking advantage of free meals and cooking when it’s a possibility. Many hostels offer free breakfast or, at the very least, have a kitchen you can use to prepare meals. If you choose to volunteer you may have this chance in practically any kind of project as well, such as farms, ecovillages ,  communities and NGOs .

22. Talk to the locals

tips for first time travellers

Locals are your greatest sources of information. They can tell you which parts of the city are safe, share hidden gems for you to explore, and give you a much better sense of the local culture than you’d get by only talking to fellow travelers. Start with the person at the front desk of your hostel or hotel. If you are volunteering, your host will be perfect for it!  

23. take care of yourself.

Although it feels like it sometimes, life doesn’t stop when we’re on vacation. There’s nothing worse than getting sick while backpacking. I’m not saying you should never indulge in that one extra drink or sample all the delicious local foods, but don’t forget to take care of yourself. 

Try to eat at least one healthy meal per day, remember to drink water, and allow time for your body to rest and recover. Keep snacks available on travel days because traveling with a backpack will burn more calories than you’re used to, and you’ll need them for energy.

Read more about it on:  10 tips to eat healthy while traveling on a budget

24. Be flexible

rules for first time time travellers

Speaking of giving yourself time to rest, be flexible with your planning. Make a list of bucket list things for each stop on your trip, but also leave some days open in case you need extra rest, the weather is unfavorable one day, or you meet some cool new people and want to do something spontaneous together.

25. Be aware of free WiFi spots

Research and remember which places locally have free WiFi (think McDonald’s, Starbucks, etc.) Download city maps onto your phone when you first reach a new city. Then you can use them, even if you aren’t connected to WiFi.

26. Check in with family and friends

Give your itinerary to a few different family members or close friends before you leave. Then make a habit of checking in with them at set intervals. It could be as simple as sending an email before bed each night, but having someone who is aware of your location and expecting you to check in each day can make a huge difference if something goes wrong during your backpacking trip.

I hope these 26 first time travelers tips and tricks have been helpful. Backpacking is definitely a learning experience, but it gets easier as you go, and you're sure to discover your own tips and tricks along the way. 

Keep reading about travel tips for beginners :

7 Essential things people always forget to pack for a trip

  • How to get the most out of your travel experiences
  • 10 common travel problems and how to deal with them

Exploring Spain Solo: a guide to safe and enjoyable travel

Also, feel free to join Worldpackers community for free, explore some of the WP Academy courses for travellers and save your preferred work exchange positions for later.

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Kimberli Brown

I recently quit my day job to chase my dream of traveling full-time.

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first time journey

Apr 16, 2023

Traveling for the first time can be an exciting yet daunting experience. To ensure a smooth and enjoyable trip, there are several helpful tips to keep in mind. Firstly, it is important to do your research and plan ahead to make the most of your time in your chosen destination. If you are interested in visiting the Oriental Pearl Tower Shanghai, be sure to check out the Oriental Pearl Tower observation deck, which offers breathtaking views of the city skyline. To learn more about the Oriental Pearl Tower facts and Oriental Pearl Tower attractions, you can visit the website https://www.discoverybit.com/directory-travel/listing/oriental-pearl-tower/. Other helpful tips for first-time travelers include packing light, staying organized, and being open to new experiences. With these tips in mind, you are sure to have an unforgettable trip.

first time journey

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First time flying: Useful tips before you fly

First time flying is super exciting. Here is everything you need to know

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First time flying? You must be nervous and excited. You will always remember your first flight and I'm here to welcome you to the traveler's club! In this article, you will find all the recommendations and help you need to get over the initial hurdles. You'll learn how to prepare for the flight, what to do to minimise any discomfort and have lots of fun instead. We'll touch base on how to select your seat, the differences between domestic and international flights, how to get ready for airport security and what sort of bag you need for your flight. We'll even talk about the boarding pass, the dos and the don't and all the tips for first time flyers. So if you're flying for the first time, this is the only complete guide you'll need.

Table of Contents Open

First time flying - this is exciting.

You will never forget your first flight. The moment the flight attendants welcome you on board for the first time, the butterflies in your stomach as you take off and meet the person sitting next to you. You'll always remember your seat number and the first safety demonstration by the cabin crew. It's an incredible feeling and you should feel really excited! The journey is just as important as the destination and your first flight is something memorable, unique.

There's a difference between a long haul flight and domestic flights. Long haul flights are more tiring and demanding. The plane is usually bigger and there will be more flight attendants on board as well. Long haul flights for international travel usually require several connecting flights and are very rarely operated by budget airlines. Most likely you will have a checked bag as well as a carry on bag and there will be in flight entertainment like movies, series and games.

A domestic flight is usually under three hours and the cabin crew operates several of these flights a day. You'll normally only travel with carry on bags and you'll have to bring your own entertainment on board.

Flights booked? All you need now is to get your boarding pass ready, make sure you pack your carry on well and get ready for an adventure of a lifetime.

If you love planning everything in advance, I cannot recommend enough that you purchase a Travel Planner . This is not only handy to write down your flight information (like your flight number) but also things like accommodation address, plans for every day and getting to have a travel diary handy. This is going to be like a great piece of memory for years to come.

Cory travelling with her Trevi dress from Bluffworks

What do you do when it's your first time on a plane?

There are a few things you can do when you're flying for the first time. If you are on an international flight, make sure you find out how much luggage you can bring with you . If you have checked baggage, you will need to arrive at the airport at least two hours in advance. Head over to the check in desk to leave your hold baggage there. They will measure to ensure you don't go over the weight limits and print out a new paper ticket for you. You can check vital information on suitcase sizes here so you know how much you are allowed on planes otherwise you might have to pay extra.

You will keep your carry on with you and now go through to security.

If you are on a short flight where you travel with your carry on only you don't need to go to the check in desk. Just go straight through security. Make sure you have your electronic boarding pass ready for inspection. You can get this when you check in online a few hours prior to your flight.

At the security, remove all electronic items from the cabin bag and put them in the trays provided. You will need to remove phone, watch and belts and any wallets or small metallic items from your pockets. Remove your large coat and big boots and go through as instructed. You might be asked to open your cabin bag to show a personal item to the airport security staff. That's standard procedure.

Many airports have a designated food court as well as duty free shopping areas. While you wait for your flight, have a look around and buy what you like. Remember that on long haul flights you will get a free meal. On budget airlines, you might get a snack or nothing at all, depending on the carrier. Don't board the plane hungry!

Once you are boarded, place your carry on above your seat and make sure to secure your seat belt for your own safety. Dress comfortably and bring a neck pillow. Staying hydrated is super important!

Airplane View Tenerife

Is Flying scary the first time?

Flying is exciting the first time and if you are fully prepared it's not scary at all . In the unlikely event that you're feeling sick just flag the flight attendant and ask for a little advice. Some people have issues with the air pressure during take off or landing. That's normal and nothing to be worried about. Just swallow or chew on some gum. You can pop your ears by holding your nose and gently blowing out.

This is especially common with first time flyers. You will very likely not feel any of these issues on your next flight. During take off, keep your head straight if you start feeling a little dizzy when the plane is turning. Don't release your seat belt until instructed by the flight attendant that it's safe to do so.

The universal rule is that you should be rested when flying for the first time and bring with you plenty of snacks.

Seat on Qatar Airways Business Class

What does flying for the first time feel like?

Everyone has a different experience but flying for the first time feels pretty incredible. The general feeling is similar to that on a fast elevator. You will feel the gravity at work as you take off. Some might feel a little fuzzy sensation in the head. Others will experience a state of drowsiness. These feelings only last for a few seconds or minutes. Once you are at cruise altitude, you will feel as if you're driving in a car.

How do you fly for the first time alone?

You should plan everything about your trip down to the minute. This will give you a sense of comfort. You might feel nervous and it's perfectly ok. Talk to the cabin crew and tell them you are a first time flyer. As previously mentioned, check in online to reduce any anxiety and have your bags ready at least 24 hours in advance. Have your travel planner handy to write down anything you experience and to make sure you have all the steps handy. Download an app for music or games just to keep yourself occupied.

You've got this! Once you get over the first hurdle, your second flight will feel like a breeze.

Carry On Luggage

How do I prepare for Covid flying?

This is new to all of us and some extra precautions should be taken to ensure you are ready to fly. Make sure you check with the local governments on what documentation you need to bring with you. Many countries and airlines will require to see some vaccination passes and results prior to boarding. Some might require a test as well just to prove that you are fit to fly. Make sure to plan for these extra tests in advance. Countries will ask you to complete a passenger locator form prior to your arrival. Do so before boarding.

You might need to wear a mask on a plane or/and the airport. Bring several clean masks with you and change them every 3-4 hours. We recommend buying N95 masks as they are safer, especially given the proximity to other passengers on a flight.

Many countries are requiring an up to date vaccination card anyway, so having the extra covid vaccine should make no difference to you. It's just standard procedure to keep you and everyone else safe.

Cory and G walking in the hotel corridor with masks on - circus hotel

What should you not do before flying?

There are a few things you shouldn't do before flying. For example, avoid drinking alcohol as it can make you very dehydrated . Don't leave packing and organising for the last second. And try to book your airport transfers well in advance.

Don't forget to prepare your carry on bag for security and remove any large liquids from it. Don't wear clothes which make you feel restrained or uncomfortable and ideally you'd avoid any heels.

What should I know before flying?

There are a few first time flying tips for you. We put together some great tips to help you select the best seat.

First time flyers tips: Make sure to check in online as soon as the check in opens. This will allow you to select your preferred seats. When booking your seat, check seatguru to see if you're preferred location is good. Avoid seats next to the bathrooms as there will always be a queue there and you might feel disturbed by the constant movement and noise. Check to see if your seat offers you enough legroom especially if you're tall.

As a rule of thumb, the middle seat is the equivalent of the most cramped airplane seat and you will want to avoid it if possible. If you travel alone it's unlikely that you will go for the middle seats. The window seat is most comfortable if you like to have your own space and want to admire the world from above. Window seats are generally the preferred seats amongst seasoned travellers. The aisle seat is best if you need to stand up a lot and use the bathroom or stretch. I use the window seat for short flights and prefer the aisle seat for long hauls.

One of the best first time flying tips is to pre-select your meal in advance. Even if you don't have dietary preferences, go for vegan or vegetarian meals. They are usually a lot tastier and you will be served first, before anyone else which means you will always get your choice of food.

Noise Cancelling Earphones / Headphones

There are two reasons why you will need these. Firstly, because you will actually enjoy the sound of silence, as opposed to the continuous background engine noise. Secondly, you might find yourself very unlucky, being seated right in front of a family with small children. Nothing wrong with small kids, of course, but sometimes it can happen that they cry a lot due to cabin pressure. It can happen to any of us. So you want to make sure your sleep doesn't get disturbed no matter what. Put those noise-cancelling headphones on and listen to relaxing music or download a white noise app that allows you to sleep in silence.

Bose QuietComfort 35

Offline music available on your phone

Most airlines will have their own music available on the entertainment system, but sometimes you might find yourself on a plane that has some really bizarre playlists. Listen to some quiet, meditative music, nature sounds or just about anything that can allow you to sleep well. Some people might not be able to sleep with music on and that's ok. Make sure to purchase some earplugs as they might come in handy.

Have some snacks with you

What if you don't like the food you get on board? Or you get hungry in-between meals? Best to have some snacks with you just in case. Bring a bagel or two with you, some salted crisps, nuts, a couple of fruits (something like apples, bananas or blueberries) and some protein bars.

They don't take much space in your hand luggage and are sure to make your flight more pleasant. Try to avoid sugar as it might make you more susceptible to catching viruses.

KIND Protein Bars, Crunchy Peanut Butter, Gluten Free

Wet wipes and sanitising hand gel

Clean your hands and seats with some wet wipes and clean your tray in front of your seat as well. After you visit the restroom, use the sanitising gel to keep your hands clean. This is good practice as you never know who touched your seat before you. Keep it clean for your own safety.

You are more susceptible to getting ill so keeping your face and hands clean helps minimise the risk.

Alcohol-Free Hand Sanitizing Wipes

Avoid alcohol and drink plenty of fluids

I know, it's a difficult one. You totally want to enjoy the free booze included in your flight price. The alcohol will get you dehydrated, together with the already recycled dry air, you will end up having some killer headaches. Make a habit of drinking at least 2 litres of water during your flight. Hydration will also help you better cope with jetlag.

A super comfortable travel pillow

I'm sure you don't want to invest a lot of money in an expensive travel pillow, but honestly, sleeping is crucial on a long haul flight. Besides, the more you sleep, the faster time flies. Most international flights will have pillows and blankets available, but you can use those for securing your lower back and add extra comfort. Just buy the most comfortable (not necessarily the most expensive) travel pillow for your needs.

Everlasting Comfort 100% Pure Memory Foam Neck Pillow

Get some vitamin C just before your flight and one pill after. Your body will thank you for the extra immunity boost. Get an extra potent vitamin C (1000mg) just to be safe. It doesn't cost much but it can make such a difference to you enjoying a healthy time at your destination. Vitamin C is especially crucial when you travel for long or need to go through various airports.

Vitamin C 1000 mg with Bioflavonoids

Have a warm hoodie

Most airlines provide you with a free blanket but never underestimate how cold you can get whilst trying to sleep on a plane. Grab a warm, comfy jumper and sleep in it. It will give you such a fuzzy feeling. Nothing beats a nice jumper for added comfort.

Get a layer of thermals underneath and an extra comfortable hoodie on top. If you get warm you can remove some of your layers.

If you don't like wearing your shoes on a long flight, have your flip-flops with you. Don't walk around in your socks or barefoot. People walk on the same carpet using their dirty shoes. A pair of flip-flops takes very little space in your hand luggage so they are the perfect compromise. As an added bonus, you'll be able to use them in your hotel room for the bathroom and the shower.

Riverberry Yoga Flip Flop with Yoga Mat Padding

If you have oily skin and you are prone to spots, here is a handy trick. Crush an aspirin and mix it with club soda water. Form a paste and bring it with you in a small container. Use the aspirin paste to dab it on any forming pimples.

Toothpaste, Toothbrush

Bring a good travelling toothbrush and some nice quality toothpaste. Don't ignore your normal routines, brush your teeth after each meal and before falling asleep on a plane. When you wake up, brush your teeth again. I also recommend brushing your teeth just before landing while freshening up a little. It feels really nice to have a minty breath and a fresh attitude.

Wowe Natural Organic Bamboo Toothbrush Eco-Friendly Wood

Lip balm and Moisturiser

During the flight, you will get dry and your skin (especially your facial skin and the corners of your lips) can suffer from dehydration.

Once every few hours, you should clean your skin with water and facial wet wipes. Then apply a new layer of moisturiser. Use your lip balm as often as possible. Don't forget to use it after you brushed your teeth. Drink plenty of fluids. Your skin needs an extra level of care.

Aquaphor Lip Repair

It's not just your skin getting dry during long flights, but your eyes too. Have some eye drops handy and use them every time you feel your eyes tired or drier than usual. Avoid wearing contact lenses if possible. Wear your glasses instead. However, if you must wear your contacts, then the eye drops are an absolute must!

Multi-Action Eye Drops

Although the plane's lights are switched for some of the flight duration, you might want to use a sleep mask and try and fall asleep in complete darkness. It really helps add a layer of comfort. Wear a good quality sleep mask, made from satin or silk. Not only it will help not to mess up your hair but good quality sleeping masks are a little looser and more comfortable.

Jersey Slumber 100% Silk Sleep Mask

Painkillers

Dehydration, air pressure, nerves and anxiety, all can cause you headaches. Drink lots of fluids but also have some paracetamol handy, in your hand luggage. Try to buy the ones you could potentially take on an empty stomach (like paracetamol). You never know, you might need them in between meals.

Long hauls are a great chance to catch up with those top travel books you've been meaning to read for ages. I always try to find fascinating subjects to keep me entertained and excited. Download a few books on your Kindle to ensure you have options in case one of the novels doesn't turn out to be as great as you imagined.

All-new Kindle Paperwhite

Bring your laptop or iPad with you to watch some movies or just to work on your personal projects. Sometimes it's nice to just write down memories or feelings, but it's also great to be able to watch your favourite programs to pass the time. Your laptop is great during a long flight. Just remember that your laptop needs to be with you in the cabin and you can't leave it on hold.

Ask your flight attendants for some hot water and bring your own tea bags with you. It will warm you up during the flight and offer you that extra level of comfort. Wrap up in a blanket, sip on your tea and take a moment to admire the sky and clouds outside. You are on a plane! You are going somewhere new, how exciting is this?

Good Earth Green Tea

Medical compression socks

Use medical compression socks to help with your circulation. These socks are designed to apply pressure to your lower legs, helping to maintain blood flow and reduce discomfort and swelling. Magic!

There are times when your legs and ankle feel a little thick and swollen and these socks are solving this issue for you.

EHbee 3 Pairs Compression socks

Hair Bubble

If you have long hair consider using a hair bubble, especially when you need to use the airplane facilities to wash your face and brush your teeth. It will also help you be more comfortable when sitting down or sleeping during the flight. On a plane, your hair can also get frizzy, so keeping it tight might help with that as well. Alternatively, you might want to invest in a silk scarf to keep your curls in check.

Positive Mental Attitude

Hey, you are about to fly! How cool and exciting? Have a positive mental attitude, relax as much as possible, drink hot teas, read a book and watch tonnes of movies. Listen to your favourite song a dozen times and smile. I'm serious, just smile and you will start feeling better. Do breathing exercising and draw circles with your nose to ensure your neck and shoulders get a little lovin'. Stretch as many times as you can, and think how cool that in a few hours you will be in a completely different time zone, on the other side of the planet.

Are you ready for the first time flying experience? What helps you have the best in-flight experience? Let me know in the comment section below.

What do you think?

Did you like this article? Do you have any questions or suggestions? Leave a comment below.

Your Comment

I appreciate your attention to detail!!! My husband, myself and daughter will all be first time flyers in May 2023. We are heading to UK, Ireland and scotland for 2 weeks. Any advice is welcomed!

This is really an essential steps to take before the airport.

It's good that you mentioned that it is a good idea to prepare your carry-on bag before you go through security at an airport. With that in mind, it would probably be a good idea to use some kind of taxi service so that you can get to the airport with plenty of time available.

I am a first time flyer, I will be going from RI to NV. Your tips helped me greatly, especially about listening to MY music, wet wipes, aspirins, Snacks, staying hydrated. As long as I have my bag with me I figured I’d be all set, you pointed out a few extras I had not considered. I need to practice some peaceful easy feeling meditations as well as MY music and noise cancelling ear buds/headphones. Thank you so much. Sandy

Cory Varga

Don't forget to take a vitamin C before your flight. You will be great. Have lots of fun, part of travelling is enjoying the journey. Safe travels,

Some amazing tips! Would definitely keep them in mind, the next time I travel.

There's one thing to add for long haul I think (or super long haul with New Zealand) - set your watch to the local time before you get on the plane.

That and try to avoid unknowns trying to hug you in their sleep...

You are absolutely right about the time! I had to change the time several times (in UAE, Perth and upon landing in New Zealand). This is crucial to ensure you don't miss your flight. As for the hugging part, I think I was lucky enough to not be in that situation. Though I bet you have a really funny (and cringey) story you totally need to share with us. haha

I was mopey as my (then fiancée) wife was working in NZ for the year and I was flying back after Christmas. I always try to sleep on a flight and was awoken by an arm wrapping around my chest and another on my leg... Quite how my 'friend' didn't wake up when I relocated her is beyond me. Turns out, as I saw her passport when we touched down that she was a German police officer.

I'm so glad you liked the article. After the flight to New Zealand I felt I need to find ways to make the most out of my journeys. I'm sure you will start loving flying too.

I remember that LONG journey from the UK to New Zealand. I was lucky enough to get a whole row to myself and get stretched out.

Great article, keep up the good work.

Thank you Tony.

What a brilliant list of tips. I have booked this for next time I fly. I can't imagine doing a 28 hour journey though, that must have been exhausting!

It was crazy. I'm also quite a bad flyer which doesn't help much. I'm slowly learning all the tricks and tips to make myself super comfortable without disturbing other passengers of course.

Oops, I meant bookmarked!

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Journey’s 10 Best Songs

Sure, "Don't Stop Believin'" -- but there's a whole lot more.

By Gary Graff

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Journey

Though it arrives amidst lawsuits , social media sniping and infighting, Journey is turning 50 this year.

During that half century, the group has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, logging 11 platinum-or-better albums (including Diamond certifications for 1981’s Escape and 1988’s Greatest Hits) , earning eight top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 and 25 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. It’s also been a reliable ticket-selling act for most of its career, and in 2017, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Journey’s is the story of eras. When the group originally formed in San Francisco in 1973, original manager Herbie Herbert helped bring together guitarist Neal Schon and keyboard player/vocalist Gregg Rolie from Santana, bassist Ross Valory and rhythm guitarist George Tickner from Frumious Bandersnatch and drummer Prairie Prince from The Tubes. Prince would be replaced by David Bowie/Frank Zappa skins man Aynsley Dunbar, while Tickner would leave after Journey’s self-titled first album in 1975. The remaining quartet recorded two more albums before Steve Perry came on board for 1978’s Infinity, which began the band’s run of multi-platinum smashes — also marking the first appearance of Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse’s iconic scarab logo for the band. Dunbar was replaced by Steve Smith for 1979’s Evolution , and Rolie would leave in 1980 with Jonathan Cain of The Babys joining to help elevate the band to even greater fortunes on Escape and Frontiers .

The palette has been diverse, but there are common elements among Journey’s best songs — sturdy melodies and sing-along choruses, usually leading into one of Schon’s majestic guitar solos. But within that mold there’s also been plenty of invention and clever arrangements that have never been as formulaic as some of the band’s detractors (particularly during their early ‘80s heyday) would have you believe.

Journey has gone through its fair share of lineups, with singer Arnel Pineda on board since 2007 — the longest continuous tenure of any Journey frontman. The group released Freedom , it’s first new studio album in 11 years, in 2022, and despite the current legal fractures (which you can read about in detail here ), still they ride, as the Escape track says — and may they keep on runnin’ for a long time.

With all that in mind, here are our picks for Journey’s 10 best songs — not all of which come from the biggest hits.

"Someday Soon" ( Departure , 1980)

This album track from Rolie’s finally studio effort with the band is a hypnotic tone poem, with a ringing, cushy ambience and a hippie kind of optimism – not to mention the best give-and-take Perry and Rolie achieved during their time together in the band. It’s of course been eclipsed by Journey’s myriad hits (“Any Way You Want It” is the enduring top 40 Hot 100 hit from Departure ), but it’s a gem worthy of discovery.  Listen here.

"Escape" ( Escape , 1981)

The title track from Journey’s Billboard 200-topping studio album straddled the hard rock/pomp attack of the group’s mid-‘70s output with the melodic sensibility of the Perry-Cain axis. Its five-minute length provides room for the arrangement to stretch out and flow from one song part to the next, with a crunch that was part of Journey’s palette at the time. Listen here.

"Of a Lifetime" ( Journey , 1975)

The Journey of 1973-77 was certainly a different creature than the hitmaking colossus so many know and love. The group’s initial lineups flexed instrumental muscles, smoothly knitting together a number of styles more interested in the journey (ba- dum ) than any commercial destination. The first track from its first album is a prototype, leaning into blues, psychedelic rock and a touch of Latin, with the first of what would become many standout Schon solos, and a tuneful sturdiness delivered by Rolie’s soulful vocal. Listen here.

"Faithfully" (Frontiers , 1983)

Journey "Faithfully"

The melody of this top 20 Hot 100 hit came to Cain in a dream on a tour bus, and his paean to the struggle between home and the road was written in a half-hour. The result was a swoon-inducing ballad tailor-made for a sea of lighters (back then) and cellphone flashlights (now), capturing one of Perry’s best recorded performances and one of Schon’s most inspired solos. One of its great side stories is that Prince contacted Cain after he wrote “Purple Rain,” concerned that it might be too similar to “Faithfully.” Cain determined it wasn’t, but joked to Billboard that, “After seeing what it became, I should have asked for a couple of points….”

"Ask the Lonely" (single, 1983)

Recorded for Frontiers , this one wound up in the romcom Two of a Kind (starring the Grease duo of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John) and rocked its way to No. 3 on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. Like “Only the Young,” which wound up in Vision Quest two years later, it showed that Journey was on roll – and well-suited for big soundtrack moments. Listen here.

"Who's Crying Now" ( Escape, 1981)

The best of Journey’s swoon songs — started by Perry while driving into Los Angeles and finished with Cain — has a subtlety and dynamic build that sets it apart from the many others of its ilk they’d create. The verse slips into the chorus with a soulful ease, and Schon’s guitar accents deftly build up to his searing solo at the end. The Escape single reached No. 4 on the Hot 100. Listen here.

"Feeling That Way" ( Infinity , 1978)

If fans at the time wondered how Steve Perry and Gregg Rolie would co-exist, this was the answer — an ebb-and-flow tradeoff that proved they could complement each other as lead singers as well as harmonize smoothly together (first evidenced by Infinity ‘s lead track “Lights”). Its medley-like pairing with the next track, “Anytime,” was gravy that would become a motif on the next few Journey albums. Listen here.

"Just the Same Way" ( Evolution , 1979)

Journey’s fifth album had a punchier sound than Infinity — though they shared producer Roy Thomas Baker — which worked to the benefit of the album’s first single. Led by Rolie’s piano and muscular lead vocal, with Perry responding on the choruses and bridge, it reached No. 58 on the Hot 100 in 1979. In a perfect world this would have been as big as anything from Escape or Frontiers, but it’s still a convincing introduction to the Rolie era of the band. Listen here.

"Don't Stop Believin'" ( Escape , 1981)

Journey "Don't Stop Believin'" (Live 1981: Escape Tour - 2022 HD Remaster)

More than a billion Spotify streams, a Library of Congress National Recording Registry placement and plays at virtually every sporting event around the world don’t lie — this one is Journey’s pinnacle of success. Created during a rehearsal at the group’s warehouse HQ in Oakland, Calif., it gave us the “streetlight people” of Hollywood’s Sunset Strip and put the non-existent South Detroit on the map. And it saves the chorus for the song’s end, after the guitar solo. A cross-generational hit? Believe it, gleefully.

"Stone in Love" ( Escape , 1981)

Schon reportedly called this “Stoned in Love” when he wrote the riff, and it’s certainly an addictive track that’s the best roll-down-the-windows-and-crank-it-up Journey fix you could ask for — not to mention a frequent show opener. A No. 13 Mainstream Rock Airplay hit in 1981, the song is practically a deep cut today. But its anthemic chorus is a spirit-lifter and the dynamic breakdown that segues into the song-closing guitar solo harks back to the ambitious musicality of the first few albums. “Stone” is a gem that still shines bright. Listen here.

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Ultimate Classic Rock

The First Time Journey Fired Ross Valory and Steve Smith

Getting fired may have felt a little like deja vu for Journey 's Ross Valory and Steve Smith.

Guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Jonathan Cain let the band's rhythm section go this week in what they said was a dispute over control of the band's name . The split came almost exactly 35 years after Valory and Smith were fired the first time.

Journey initially assembled for the long-awaited follow-up to 1983's Frontiers with the same lineup intact. But internal dynamics had changed: Singer  Steve Perry arrived in commercial ascendancy, having just notched double-platinum success with his first solo album, Street Talk . He ended up producing 1986's  Raised on Radio , and that included casting the music – which Perry wanted to have a more R&B-inflected feel.

As the early sessions unfolded in the fall of 1985, Perry became increasingly unhappy with the results. Journey typically worked out songs in the studio, with everybody in one room, but this time Perry arrived with extensive demos recorded with Schon at Cain's home studio. Drum-machine beats and bass parts were already sketched out, leaving Valory and Smith feeling isolated.

"My original strategy was to keep the band intact, not to change anything," Perry told the Orlando Sun-Sentinel in 1986 after the album's release. "We played everything with the original band, but we ended up after three months with only a couple of keeper tracks. It was scary because we all saw the group in a different light. The three of us wanted to do these songs, but the band couldn't play them. So, we had to look and figure out where the weak link was. It turned out to be the rhythm section."

Perry ended up firing Valory and Smith, breaking apart a lineup that had seen Journey rise to their chart zenith just a few years earlier with 1981's Escape .

"At that point, the band was hugely successful and egos swell," Valory said in Neil Daniels' 2011 book, Don't Stop Believin': The Untold Story of Journey . "There were struggles for power and control of the band's direction. In that setting, Steve Smith and I left. We'd had enough, and I think it was probably a good time to do so."

Journey's longtime manager Herbie Herbert vocally disagreed with the move, but said he was overruled by Perry. He ultimately decided to continue honoring the rhythm section's agreed-upon salaries.

"Of course, that was completely ridiculous, and I forced him to pay them as if they were there on the tour and everything," Herbert told Melodic Rock in 2008. "That's what I think you do for your people. There's very little chance that Ross Valory or Steve Smith would remember it, let alone reciprocate, but that is the honest-to-God truth. I made sure they were taken care of. I thought it was patently ridiculous, and thought that Steve Smith was one of the best drummers on the planet."

Perry installed bassist Randy Jackson and drummer Larrie Londin for the bulk of the tracks. Jackson, though best known for his work with jazz-fusion great Jean-Luc Ponty, had earlier sat in on bass for "After the Fall," from Frontiers . Londin was a former Motown sessions ace who'd also worked on Perry's solo project.

"When I heard Larrie was there for two weeks tracking, it was a terrible time for me," Smith said in Don't Stop Believin': The Untold Story of Journey . "I felt hurt, personally betrayed and really unappreciated. During the whole thing it was, 'You're not happening.' I was constantly made to feel that I wasn't a good musician, and that hit me where I live."

Smith was ultimately reduced to a bit-player role in the project: He played on only "Positive Touch," "The Eyes of a Woman" and "Why Can't This Night Go on Forever." Valory didn't appear on Raised on Radio at all.

"To try to keep Steve [Perry] in the brotherhood, seeing that he was heading down a specific musical path, we felt we had to pursue the music he wanted to make," Cain said in his 2018 autobiography, Don't Stop Believin': The Man, the Band and the Song That Inspired Generations . "I helped our band make the particular type of sound that Steve wanted – but the new songs came at the expense of our two brothers."

Ross had made significant contributions to every previous Journey album, co-writing more than a half dozen songs – including the radio favorites "Anytime" and "Just the Same Way." Smith joined in time for 1979's Evolution , an album after Perry came on board.

The drummer was surprised how much had changed since then. "Steve just felt that what had been recorded didn't live up to the demos," Smith said in Don't Stop Believin': The Untold Story of Journey . "On one hand, I wasn't completely surprised, because it wasn't fun going to work every day. There was so much tension."

Raised on Radio continued Journey's multi-platinum streak, producing four Top 20 singles – including the No. 9 hit "Be Good to Yourself." But a titanic shift had happened: Promotional photos from the era portrayed Journey as a trio now, with only Cain, Perry and Schon.

"It was not an easy decision," Cain told the Sun-Sentinel . "These guys were a big part of the band's sound, but it was time to move on. The three years we were off, they drifted away from where we were. The three of us had been writing the songs and we just said, 'We've got to make this record now. It's nothing personal; we've got to get down to business.' They were hurt, but they were really nice about accepting the decision."

Valory reemerged when Journey put their early-'80s era lineup back together for 1996's Trial by Fire . Smith initially went back to fronting his own jazz group, Vital Information, before returning for stints in Journey from 1995-98 and 2016-20. Still, it took the drummer a while to recover from the initial shock.

"When it first happened, I stayed at home, didn't do anything for a while, and just had to do a lot of thinking," Smith told Billboard  in 1986. "Even though I had a lot of experience playing with people outside the band, when it got right down to it, I had become really involved during the seven years I was with Journey. It was my life."

The Best Song on Every Journey Album

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7 Must-Know Tips for First-Time Flyers

Claire Tsosie

Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money .

Flying on an airplane for the first time — or the first time in a long while — can be an exciting, life-changing adventure. But it can also be incredibly stressful.

You want to head for the gate with the swagger of a seasoned traveler, but that's hard to pull off when you don't know how much it costs to check a bag, or what to expect when you go through airport security.

So how can you deal? Reviewing these tips before takeoff can boost your confidence, making your trip easier and more worry-free.

Best advice for first-time flyers

1. check the airline's luggage requirements.

It’s easy to overpack — but if you do, it could cost you. Before your flight, visit your airline’s website to review luggage size and weight restrictions, as well as baggage fees. While these vary by airline and fare paid, here's what you can typically bring with a standard fare on a major airline:

Two carry-on items for free: one full-size carry-on the size of a small rolling suitcase or smaller, and one small personal item, such as a purse or backpack

One checked suitcase (often, one weighing under 50 pounds) for $25 to $30. Checking additional bags could cost more

If your carry-on bag is too bulky, you may have to pay to check it. Likewise, if your checked bag is over a certain size, you may have to pay a higher-than-usual fee to check it. It's best to avoid these surprises, if possible.

"If you’re a nervous flyer, little things can really set you off,” says Jackie Sills-Dellegrazie of New York City, founder of the travel blog The Globetrotting Teacher . “Even if it’s not a big deal, and you get to the check-in counter, and they say, ‘Oh, by the way, there’s a $30 bag fee,’ and you weren’t expecting that, that could just be something that rattles you."

Remember, if you pack light enough , you could avoid baggage fees altogether.

Having an airline credit card can mean waived checked baggage fees, as well. For example:

Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card

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First checked bag free for you and up to eight others on your reservation. Terms apply.

First checked bag free for you and a companion traveling on your reservation.

First checked bag free for you and up to four others traveling on your reservation.

First checked bag free for you and up to three others traveling on your reservation.

First checked bag free for you and up to six others traveling on your reservation.

2. Pack essentials in your carry-on

If you’re packing anything that’s hard to replace — say, prescription medicine, contacts or glasses, or important paperwork — put it in your carry-on bag. This way, you won’t be without that item in the rare event your checked bag goes missing. You'll also want to pack some in-flight entertainment, such as your laptop, headphones and a book or magazine.

Just make sure you’re following the Transportation Security Administration’s rules for what you can pack . You can’t, for example, bring a big bottle of contact lens solution in your carry-on, but you can bring a 3.4-ounce bottle. And keep in mind that if your carry-on bag is too big to fit under the seat in front of you, you may have to check it. More rules may apply if you're flying internationally.

» MORE: 10 ways to minimize mix-ups on your first trip abroad

“The overhead compartments fill up quickly,” says Jeff Klee, CEO of CheapAir.com, an online travel agency based in Calabasas, California. “If you’re in the back of the plane, you might find that there’s no more room, and you’ll have to do a gate check of your bag at the last minute, which isn’t particularly fun." Checking your bag at the gate means your full-sized carry-on bag will travel with the other checked bags during the flight, rather than in the overhead bin.

3. Arrive at the airport two hours early

Catching a plane isn’t like catching a bus; it’s a much longer process. In fact, the TSA recommends showing up at least two hours before takeoff for domestic travel, and three hours for international travel.

Ultimately, you need to give yourself enough time to get your boarding pass, check your bags and go through security before your plane starts boarding. Sometimes, that takes 10 minutes. Other times, especially during peak travel times, it can take much longer.

It’s worth keeping in mind that boarding the plane isn’t a free-for-all, either. Airlines typically start boarding passengers 30 minutes before takeoff in groups. Generally, a boarding time will be printed on your ticket.

4. Keep your ID handy

Decades ago, airport security was relatively lax. “There was one point where you could just walk up to a gate, whether you were flying or not, whether you had ID or not,” Klee says. Nowadays, TSA agents check IDs for passengers over 18.

Save time by having your ID card, driver’s license or passport handy as soon as you step foot into the airport. You’ll need it when checking bags and going through security, and you don’t want to hold up the line while rummaging through your wallet.

5. Wear easy-to-remove shoes

Going through airport security might be the most stressful part of flying — but if you know what to expect, the whole rigmarole can feel much less taxing. Typically, unless you have TSA PreCheck or Global Entry , you have to:

Remove your shoes (unless you’re 12 and under or 75 and older)

Empty the contents of your pockets and remove your hat, belt, jacket, wallet and bulky jewelry

Remove your laptop and liquids from your bag

Send these items — and your carry-on bag — through an X-ray machine

Walk through a metal detector or a body scanner (or opt for a pat-down)

Preparing for this — say, by wearing shoes you can easily slip on and off and making sure the items in your carry-on are TSA-compliant — can make the process faster.

WANT TSA PRECHECK FOR FREE?

A number of popular travel credit cards reimburse you for the application fee for trusted traveler programs like TSA PreCheck and Global Entry. Among them:

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$0 intro for the first year, then $95

Statement credit of up to $100 as reimbursement when you charge the application fee for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry to the card. Available once every 4 years.

Statement credit of up to $100 as reimbursement when you charge the application fee for TSA PreCheck, Global Entry or NEXUS to the card. Available once every 4 years.

If your credit card offers reimbursement for the application fee for programs like TSA PreCheck or Global Entry, you must pay the fee with the card. You cannot submit a claim for reimbursement if you paid with some other method. Reimbursement will usually appear as a statement credit in your account within two months.

Cards typically offer reimbursement of only one fee once every four to five years. Check the terms and conditions of your card for the specific rules that apply. Note also that these cards only reimburse the application fee for a trusted traveler program. They don't automatically enroll you in the program or guarantee that you'll be accepted by the program. You still have to apply and go through the required screening, which in the case of TSA PreCheck and Global Entry includes an in-person appointment.

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» SEE the best credit cards that pay for TSA PreCheck and Global Entry

6. Respect other passengers' space

These days, flights are generally fully booked, and most seats offer limited legroom. This might stress out your fellow flyers, so be sensitive.

“If any of your stuff or body parts are going into another space that’s not yours, you really have to be mindful of that,” Sills-Dellegrazie says. “It can be as simple as, you put your ponytail over the top of the seat and now it’s hanging … across someone’s TV screen, and you don’t even realize it."

Similarly, if you wear perfume or cologne, eat smelly foods or listen to loud music, you might unintentionally upset the person sitting next to you. Of course, you can't plan for everything — maybe you're traveling with an upset child, for example — but do what you can to avoid an in-flight faux pas.

7. Have a backup plan ready

Now for a game of “worst-case scenario,” first-time flyer edition: What happens if you miss your flight or your flight gets delayed or canceled ?

First, take a deep breath.

If you miss your plane because of unforeseen circumstances, such as a major traffic delay, the airline will often put you on standby for the next flight without charging extra. Just remember that you generally need to notify the airline within a couple of hours of missing your flight to get rebooked for free.

If it looks like you'll miss a connecting flight , check the smartphone app offered by your airline or the screen in the airport to find out which gate your flight departs from, and whether you've actually missed it. If the flight is delayed, you may still have a chance to board. If you miss the connection and the airline was responsible, you can generally also rebook that flight free of charge — and maybe even get some free meal or hotel vouchers for the hassle.

Smart travelers mitigate the risks of unexpected travel disruptions by booking their flights using a credit card with travel insurance or purchasing a separate standalone travel insurance policy .

In general, be proactive. Have the airline's customer service phone number handy in case you get stuck in traffic, so you can call as soon as possible. Or if you're already at the airport, go to the customer service desk and asking about rebooking. Missing a flight can be a setback, but it doesn’t have to derail your travel plans.

To view rates and fees of the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card , see this page .

How to maximize your rewards

You want a travel credit card that prioritizes what’s important to you. Here are our picks for the best travel credit cards of 2024 , including those best for:

Flexibility, point transfers and a large bonus: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

No annual fee: Bank of America® Travel Rewards credit card

Flat-rate travel rewards: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

Bonus travel rewards and high-end perks: Chase Sapphire Reserve®

Luxury perks: The Platinum Card® from American Express

Business travelers: Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card

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1x-5x 5x on travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards®, 3x on dining, select streaming services and online groceries, 2x on all other travel purchases, 1x on all other purchases.

60,000 Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $750 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards®.

Chase Freedom Unlimited Credit Card

1.5%-6.5% Enjoy 6.5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase Travel; 4.5% cash back on drugstore purchases and dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery service, and 3% on all other purchases (on up to $20,000 spent in the first year). After your first year or $20,000 spent, enjoy 5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase Travel, 3% cash back on drugstore purchases and dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery service, and unlimited 1.5% cash back on all other purchases.

$300 Earn an additional 1.5% cash back on everything you buy (on up to $20,000 spent in the first year) - worth up to $300 cash back!

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2x-5x Earn unlimited 2X miles on every purchase, every day. Earn 5X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, where you'll get Capital One's best prices on thousands of trip options.

75,000 Enjoy a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel.

first time journey

Complete List Of Journey Albums And Songs

Journey Albums

Feature Photo: Bruce Alan Bennett / Shutterstock.com

This Complete List Of Journey Albums And Songs presents the full discography of Journey studio albums. The band Journey was first formed in 1973.  The group Journey hails from the area of San Francisco, California. This complete Journey discography also includes every single Journey live album. All these spectacular Journey albums have been presented below in chronological order. We have also included all original release dates with each Journey album as well as all original Journey album covers. Every Journey album listed below showcases the entire album tracklisting.

JOURNEY STUDIO ALBUMS

Released: April 1, 1975

Journey’s self-titled debut album was released in April 1975 and was the band’s first outing into the musical world. At the time, Journey was yet to adopt the arena rock sound that they would later become famous for. Instead, the album exhibited strong influences of jazz fusion and progressive rock, with extensive instrumental solos and complex musical arrangements.

Notable tracks include “Of a Lifetime” and “Mystery Mountain,” which offered a glimpse into the technical proficiency and artistic aspirations of the band. Though the album didn’t achieve significant commercial success, it laid the groundwork for what the band could accomplish. The album featured Neal Schon on guitars, Ross Valory on bass, Gregg Rolie on keyboards and vocals, Aynsley Dunbar on drums, and George Tickner on rhythm guitar. It was produced by Roy Halee and recorded at CBS Studios in San Francisco in late 1974. .

CD Track Listings:

  • “Of a Lifetime” – 6:48
  • “In the Morning Day” – 4:23
  • “Kohoutek” – 6:40
  • “To Play Some Music” – 3:16
  • “Topaz” – 6:09
  • “In My Lonely Feeling / Conversations” – 4:56
  • “Mystery Mountain” – 4:25

Look into the Future

Released: January 1976

Released just a year after their debut, “Look into the Future” was Journey’s second studio album. The band continued in a similar vein, leaning heavily towards progressive rock with intricate instrumental arrangements. The title track and “On a Saturday Nite” are often cited as highlights. However, the album failed to bring substantial commercial success, although it was a step forward in terms of songwriting and complexity. Neal Schon on guitars, Ross Valory on bass, and Gregg Rolie on keyboards and vocals returned for this album, with Aynsley Dunbar continuing to provide the drum work. The album was produced by Glen Kolotkin and was recorded at CBS Studios in San Francisco during late 1975.

  • “Look into the Future” – 8:08
  • “On a Saturday Nite” – 4:02
  • “It’s All Too Much” – 4:03
  • “Anyway” – 4:12
  • “She Makes Me (Feel Alright)” – 2:43
  • “You’re on Your Own” – 5:54
  • “Look into the Future” – 8:13

Released: February 1977

“Next,” Journey’s third studio album, represents the end of an era for the band in terms of their experimentation with progressive rock and jazz fusion. Songs like “Spaceman” and “Hustler” continue to echo their earlier styles but also hint at the more commercial sound the band would later adopt. While not commercially successful upon its release, it gained some retrospective recognition for marking a transitional phase for the band. As with the previous albums, the lineup featured Neal Schon on guitars, Gregg Rolie on keyboards and vocals, Ross Valory on bass, and Aynsley Dunbar on drums. Produced by Glen Kolotkin and recorded at His Master’s Wheels Studio in San Francisco in late 1976, “Next” was the last Journey album to feature solely Gregg Rolie on lead vocals.

  • “Spaceman” – 4:01
  • “People” – 5:19
  • “I Would Find You” – 5:20
  • “Here We Are” – 4:16
  • “Hustler” – 3:14
  • “Next” – 5:26
  • “Nickel & Dime” – 4:13
  • “Karma” – 5:12

Released: January 20, 1978

“Infinity” marked a major turning point in Journey’s career, introducing vocalist Steve Perry and adopting a more mainstream, radio-friendly sound. Produced by Roy Thomas Baker and recorded at His Master’s Wheels Studio and Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles in late 1977, the album was a commercial success. It featured hits like “Lights” and “Wheel in the Sky,” which have since become staples of classic rock radio. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified 3x Platinum in the United States. “Infinity” was the last album to feature Aynsley Dunbar before he was replaced by Steve Smith. Alongside Dunbar, the album featured Neal Schon on guitars, Ross Valory on bass, Gregg Rolie on keyboards and vocals, and the newly added Steve Perry on vocals.

  • “Lights” – 3:09
  • “Feeling That Way” – 3:26
  • “Anytime” – 3:28
  • “Lă Do Dā” – 2:55
  • “Patiently” – 3:09
  • “Wheel in the Sky” – 4:12
  • “Somethin’ to Hide” – 3:26
  • “Winds of March” – 5:04
  • “Can Do” – 2:39
  • “Opened the Door” – 4:34

Released: April 5, 1979

“Evolution” was Journey’s fifth studio album, and it marked the band’s continued move toward a mainstream rock sound. It was produced by Roy Thomas Baker and recorded at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles. Featuring singles like “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'” and “Just the Same Way,” the album helped to further cement the band’s commercial viability. “Evolution” peaked at No. 20 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified 3x Platinum in the United States. The lineup for this album remained the same as “Infinity,” with Neal Schon on guitars, Ross Valory on bass, Gregg Rolie on keyboards and vocals, Steve Smith on drums, and Steve Perry on vocals.

  • “Majestic” – 1:16
  • “Too Late” – 2:58
  • “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'” – 3:54
  • “City of the Angels” – 3:12
  • “When You’re Alone (It Ain’t Easy)” – 3:10
  • “Sweet and Simple” – 4:12
  • “Lovin’ You Is Easy” – 3:38
  • “Just the Same Way” – 3:18
  • “Do You Recall” – 3:13
  • “Daydream” – 4:41
  • “Lady Luck” – 3:35

Released: March 23, 1980

“Departure,” Journey’s sixth studio album, featured a harder rock sound compared to its predecessors. Recorded at The Automatt Studios in San Francisco and produced by Geoff Workman and Kevin Elson, “Departure” spawned hits like “Any Way You Want It” and “Walks Like a Lady.” The album reached No. 8 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified 3x Platinum. This was the last studio album to feature Gregg Rolie, who was replaced by Jonathan Cain.

  • “Any Way You Want It” – 3:22
  • “Walks Like a Lady” – 3:16
  • “Someday Soon” – 3:32
  • “People and Places” – 5:04
  • “Precious Time” – 4:48
  • “Where Were You” – 3:01
  • “I’m Cryin'” – 2:53
  • “Line of Fire” – 3:18
  • “Departure” – 0:38
  • “Good Morning Girl” – 1:44
  • “Stay Awhile” – 2:48
  • “Homemade Love” – 2:56

Dream, After Dream

Released: December 10, 1980

“Dream, After Dream,” an often-overlooked album in the Journey discography, served as a soundtrack for the Japanese film of the same name. The music showcased a more orchestrated and experimental side of the band. It was the last Journey album to involve Gregg Rolie and was not as commercially successful as their previous works. It was recorded in Osaka, Japan and was produced by Kevin Elson.

  • “Destiny” – 5:32
  • “Snow Theme” – 5:15
  • “Sand Castles” – 4:50
  • “A Few Coins” – 0:54
  • “Moon Theme” – 1:41
  • “When the Love Has Gone” – 5:03
  • “Festival Dance” – 0:59
  • “The Rape” – 1:23
  • “Little Girl” – 5:51

Released: July 31, 1981

“Escape” was a landmark album for Journey, featuring some of the band’s most iconic songs like “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Who’s Crying Now,” and “Open Arms.” Produced by Mike Stone and Kevin Elson, and recorded at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California, “Escape” was a massive commercial success. It was the first Journey album to feature Jonathan Cain, who replaced Gregg Rolie on keyboards. The album peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified 9x Platinum in the United States.

  • “Don’t Stop Believin'” – 4:11
  • “Stone in Love” – 4:25
  • “ Who’s Crying Now” – 5:00
  • “Keep On Runnin'” – 3:39
  • “Still They Ride” – 3:49
  • “Escape” – 5:16
  • “Lay It Down” – 4:13
  • “Dead or Alive” – 3:20
  • “Mother, Father” – 5:28
  • “Open Arms” – 3:18

Released: February 22, 1983

“Frontiers,” Journey’s eighth studio album, continued the band’s commercial success from “Escape.” This is the most underrated Journey album. The sound of this record is incredible. Produced by Mike Stone and Kevin Elson, this album was recorded at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California. It featured hits like “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart),” “Faithfully,” and “Send Her My Love.” “Frontiers” reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified 6x Platinum in the United States.

  • “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” – 5:26
  • “Send Her My Love” – 3:55
  • “Chain Reaction” – 4:20
  • “After the Fall” – 5:01
  • “Faithfully” – 4:24
  • “Edge of the Blade” – 4:30
  • “Troubled Child” – 4:29
  • “Back Talk” – 3:18
  • “Frontiers” – 4:04
  • “Rubicon” – 4:19

Raised on Radio

Released: May 27, 1986

Breaking a three-year silence, Journey returned with “Raised on Radio,” an album that reflected the changing musical landscape of the late ’80s. Produced by Steve Perry and recorded at Fantasy Studios, it had a more streamlined, pop-oriented sound. Despite significant line-up changes, the album was commercially successful, peaking at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 chart and going 2x Platinum.

  • “Girl Can’t Help It” – 3:50
  • “Positive Touch” – 4:17
  • “Suzanne” – 3:38
  • “Be Good to Yourself” – 3:51
  • “Once You Love Somebody” – 4:40
  • “Happy to Give” – 3:50
  • “Raised on Radio” – 3:49
  • “I’ll Be Alright Without You” – 4:50
  • “It Could Have Been You” – 3:36
  • “The Eyes of a Woman” – 4:33
  • “Why Can’t This Night Go on Forever” – 3:41

Trial by Fire

Released: October 22, 1996

Journey’s “Trial by Fire” was a reunion album featuring the band’s classic lineup. Produced by Kevin Shirley and recorded at Wildhorse Studios in Novato, California, the album was well-received by fans. Although it couldn’t replicate the massive success of the band’s ’80s heyday, it still peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart and went Platinum.

  • “Message of Love” – 5:34
  • “One More” – 5:28
  • “When You Love a Woman” – 4:07
  • “If He Should Break Your Heart” – 4:23
  • “Forever in Blue” – 4:34
  • “Castles Burning” – 6:00
  • “Don’t Be Down on Me Baby” – 4:01
  • “Still She Cries” – 5:04
  • “Colors of the Spirit” – 5:35
  • “When I Think of You” – 4:20
  • “Easy to Fall” – 5:16
  • “Can’t Tame the Lion” – 4:32
  • “It’s Just the Rain” – 5:03
  • “Trial by Fire” – 4:27
  • “Baby I’m a Leavin’ You” – 2:48

Released: April 3, 2001

Marking a new era for the band, “Arrival” was the first Journey album to feature Steve Augeri on lead vocals, replacing Steve Perry. Produced by Kevin Shirley and recorded at Avatar Studios in New York City, it failed to achieve the commercial success of previous albums but was appreciated by the band’s dedicated fan base. Of course, there were many who were not happy that Steve Perry was no longer a part of the band, and the low album sales was further proof of the fans who were upset over the loss of Perry

  • “Higher Place” – 5:11
  • “All the Way” – 3:35
  • “Signs of Life” – 4:54
  • “All the Things” – 4:21
  • “Loved by You” – 4:02
  • “Livin’ to Do” – 6:19
  • “World Gone Wild” – 6:00
  • “I Got a Reason” – 4:00
  • “With Your Love” – 4:25
  • “Lifetime of Dreams” – 5:28
  • “Live and Breathe” – 5:17
  • “Nothin’ Comes Close” – 5:41
  • “To Be Alive Again” – 4:20
  • “Kiss Me Softly” – 4:46
  • “I Was Made of You” – 4:29

Generations

Released: August 29, 2005

Journey returned in 2005 with “Generations,” which was the first album to feature drummer Deen Castronovo on lead vocals for several tracks, alternating with Steve Augeri. Produced by Kevin Shirley, the album was recorded at The Plant Studios, Sausalito, California. The album includes a variety of styles, blending traditional Journey elements with more modern influences. Musicians featured on “Generations” included Steve Augeri on lead vocals, Neal Schon on guitars and vocals, Jonathan Cain on keyboards and vocals, Ross Valory on bass and vocals, and Deen Castronovo on drums, percussion, and vocals.

  • “Faith in the Heartland” – 6:02
  • “The Place in Your Heart” – 4:24
  • “A Better Life” – 5:45
  • “Every Generation” – 5:52
  • “Butterfly (She Flies Alone)” – 5:55
  • “Believe” – 5:45
  • “Knowing That You Love Me” – 4:12
  • “Out of Harms Way” – 5:16
  • “In Self-Defense” – 5:32
  • “Better Together” – 5:14
  • “Gone Crazy” – 4:25
  • “Beyond the Clouds” – 7:52

Released: June 3, 2008

Journey’s “Revelation” marked a pivotal point in the band’s long and storied career, primarily because it was their second album with Arnel Pineda on lead vocals. Produced by Kevin Shirley, “Revelation” was recorded at The Plant Studios in Sausalito, California, and Avatar Studios in New York.

The album is a triple-disc set. The first disc features 11 new songs, while the second contains 11 re-recorded classics featuring Pineda’s vocals, allowing both old and new fans to experience Journey’s classics in a new light. The third disc is a DVD of a live concert.

The album captures Journey’s classic rock sound, while also infusing new energy. Hits like “Never Walk Away” and “After All These Years” became fan favorites and enjoyed radio airplay. The album went on to receive platinum certification and peaked at #5 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Musicians on “Revelation” include Arnel Pineda on lead vocals, Neal Schon on guitars and vocals, Jonathan Cain on keyboards and vocals, Ross Valory on bass and vocals, and Deen Castronovo on drums, percussion, and vocals.

CD 1 Track Listings:

  • “Never Walk Away” – 4:19
  • “Like a Sunshower” – 4:29
  • “Change for the Better” – 5:52
  • “Wildest Dream” – 5:02
  • “Faith in the Heartland” – 6:18
  • “After All These Years” – 4:10
  • “Where Did I Lose Your Love” – 5:02
  • “What I Needed” – 5:28
  • “What It Takes to Win” – 5:23
  • “Turn Down the World Tonight” – 4:56
  • “The Journey (Revelation)” – 3:17

CD 2 Track Listings (Re-recorded classics):

  • “Only the Young” – 4:14
  • “Don’t Stop Believin'” – 4:55
  • “Wheel in the Sky” – 5:01
  • “Faithfully” – 4:47
  • “Any Way You Want It” – 3:25
  • “Who’s Crying Now” – 5:44
  • “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” – 5:27
  • “Lights” – 3:16
  • “Open Arms” – 3:22
  • “Be Good to Yourself” – 4:29
  • “Stone in Love” – 4:26

DVD Track Listing (Live in Concert):

  • “Intro Medley: The Journey (Revelation)/Majestic”
  • “Never Walk Away”
  • “Only the Young”
  • “Ask the Lonely”
  • “Stone in Love”
  • “Keep On Runnin'”
  • “After All These Years”
  • “Change for the Better”
  • “Wheel in the Sky”
  • “Lights”
  • “Still They Ride”
  • “Open Arms”
  • “Mother, Father”
  • “Wildest Dream”
  • “When You Love a Woman”
  • “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)”
  • “What I Needed”
  • “Edge of the Blade”
  • “Where Did I Lose Your Love”
  • “Escape”
  • “Faithfully”
  • “Don’t Stop Believin’”

Released: May 24, 2011

“Eclipse” is the 14th studio album by Journey. Also featuring Arnel Pineda on vocals, the album aimed for a heavier sound than its predecessor. Produced by Kevin Shirley, it was recorded at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California. Despite receiving positive reviews for its musical direction, it did not achieve high commercial success.

  • “City of Hope” – 6:01
  • “Edge of the Moment” – 5:27
  • “Chain of Love” – 6:10
  • “Tantra” – 6:27
  • “Anything Is Possible” – 5:21
  • “Resonate” – 5:10
  • “She’s a Mystery” – 6:41
  • “Human Feel” – 6:43
  • “Ritual” – 4:57
  • “To Whom It May Concern” – 5:15
  • “Someone” – 4:34
  • “Venus” – 3:30

Released: July 8, 2022

Freedom features the return of bassist Randy Jackson.

1. Together We Run 2. Don’t Give Up On Us 3. Still Believe In Love 4. You Got The Best Of Me 5. Live To Love Again 6. The Way We Used To Be 7. Come Away With Me 8. After Glow 9. Let It Rain 10. Holdin On 11. All Day And All Night 12. Don’t Go 13. United We Stand 14. Life Rolls On 15. Beautiful As You Are

JOURNEY LIVE ALBUMS

Released 1981

Captured is Journey’s first live album, released on January 30, 1981. This album marked the end of the band’s successful run in the late ’70s into the ’80s with Steve Perry. The album charted at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified platinum, which attests to its commercial success.

The album features Steve Perry on lead vocals, Neal Schon on guitar, Ross Valory on bass, Jonathan Cain on keyboards, and Steve Smith on drums. The record was produced by Kevin Elson and Steve Perry. Captured was released on the Columbia Records label. The album was recorded during various shows in 1980 but primarily on the “Departure” tour.

  • “Where Were You” – 3:22
  • “Just the Same Way” – 3:37
  • “Line of Fire” – 3:26
  • “Lights” – 3:30
  • “Too Late” – 3:44
  • “Dixie Highway” – 6:51
  • “Feeling That Way” – 3:14
  • “Anytime” – 4:27
  • “Do You Recall” – 3:26
  • “Walks Like a Lady” – 7:05
  • “La Do Da” – 7:02
  • “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'” – 5:16
  • “Wheel in the Sky” – 5:03
  • “Any Way You Want It” – 3:39
  • “The Party’s Over (Hopelessly in Love)” – 3:42

Greatest Hits Live

Released 1998

Greatest Hits Live is not an official studio album by Journey, but a compilation of live performances released on October 13, 1998. It’s a compilation of recordings taken from various concerts, primarily during the period when Steve Perry was the lead vocalist.

This collection features Steve Perry on vocals, Neal Schon on guitar, Jonathan Cain on keyboards, Ross Valory on bass, and Steve Smith on drums. It was released on the Columbia Records label.

  • “Don’t Stop Believin'” – 4:19
  • “Lights” – 3:20
  • “Open Arms” – 3:21
  • “Mother, Father” – 5:27
  • “La Do Da” – 7:03
  • “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'” – 5:09
  • “Who’s Crying Now” – 5:46
  • “Ask the Lonely” – 3:23
  • “Girl Can’t Help It” – 4:29

Live in Houston 1981: The Escape Tour

Released 2005

“Live in Houston 1981: The Escape Tour” is a live DVD/CD package by the American rock band Journey, released on November 15, 2005. The concert was recorded and filmed at The Summit in Houston, Texas on November 6, 1981, during the band’s tour for their then-newly released “Escape” album, which had been released in July of that year. The album peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 chart for music videos and was certified Platinum by the RIAA.

The lineup for this live recording included Steve Perry on lead vocals, Neal Schon on lead guitar, Jonathan Cain on keyboards, Ross Valory on bass, and Steve Smith on drums. The album was produced by Steve Perry and Neal Schon.

  • “Escape” – 5:17
  • “Line of Fire” – 3:07
  • “Lights” – 3:17
  • “Stay Awhile” – 2:26
  • “Open Arms” – 3:09
  • “Mother, Father” – 5:22
  • “Jonathan Cain Solo” – 1:53
  • “Who’s Crying Now” – 5:41
  • “Where Were You” – 3:18
  • “Steve Smith Solo” – 3:54
  • “Dead or Alive” – 3:30
  • “Don’t Stop Believin'” – 4:09
  • “Stone in Love” – 5:00
  • “Keep On Runnin'” – 4:01
  • “Neal Schon Solo” – 2:21
  • “Wheel in the Sky” – 5:56
  • “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin'” – 5:14
  • “Anyway You Want It” – 3:39

Escape & Frontiers Live in Japan

Released 2019

“Escape & Frontiers Live in Japan” was released on April 3, 2019, and captures Journey’s performance at the Budokan in Tokyo on February 7, 2017. This special live performance was a unique set where Journey played their “Escape” and “Frontiers” albums back-to-back in their entirety.

The lineup for this recording featured Arnel Pineda on lead vocals, Neal Schon on lead guitar, Ross Valory on bass, Jonathan Cain on keyboards, and Steve Smith on drums. The album was produced by Journey and was released through Eagle Vision.

  • “Don’t Stop Believin'” – 4:15
  • “Who’s Crying Now” – 5:01
  • “Troubled Child” – 4:04
  • “Frontiers” – 4:10

Complete List Of Journey Albums And Songs article published on Classic RockHistory.com© 2023

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Flashback: Journey Introduce Steve Perry to America in 1978

By Andy Greene

Andy Greene

Steve Perry emerged from two decades of seclusion in August with new single “No Erasin'” off his upcoming album Traces . It was a rather stunning development for Journey fans that had largely given up on ever hearing him sing again, especially after he refused to perform with his old group when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year. But in new interviews, Perry revealed that after losing his girlfriend Kellie Nash to cancer in 2012, he decided it was time to face the world again.

Perry said he’s considering promoting Traces with a solo tour, but don’t expect to see him back onstage with Journey. They’ve been doing just fine without him ever since Arnel Pineda became their new singer 10 years ago and have even played stadiums this summer on their co-headlining tour with Def Leppard. They exclusively play songs from the Perry era of the group, and Pineda sounds almost exactly like his predecessor did in 1983. Most audiences are quite happy to sing along with their favorite hits and don’t really care if the original guy isn’t actually on the stage.

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Forty years ago, however, Perry was a crucial part of Journey’s success. The group began in 1973 as an offshoot of Santana with guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist/singer Gregg Rolie, but their first three albums failed to find a mass audience and they faced getting dropped from their record label. Steve Perry was brought into the group to help them develop a more commercial sound, beginning with 1978’s Infinity. The gambit worked immediately as lead single “Wheel in the Sky” reached Number 57 on the Hot 100. Here’s video of them playing their first hit song on The Midnight Special in February 1978, which was the first time many in America saw the group play with Perry.

If Perry decides to tour in support of Traces , Journey will face some competition on the road. Fans have had plenty of chances to see Journey minus Perry play the hits, but Perry minus Journey hasn’t done any sort of tour since a brief one in 1995 to support his solo album  For the Love of Strange Medicine . The tour generated very little interest since Journey were aggressively uncool in the Lollapalooza era, but things have changed quite a bit since then. He hasn’t sang “Wheel in the Sky” in over 23 years, but should he decide to go out and do it again he’ll probably be shocked by how many people are willing to pay big bucks to hear it.

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Jessie on a Journey | Solo Female Travel Blog

25 Important Tips For Flying Alone For The First Time

Compiled by Jessie Festa. This guide to flying solo for the first time contains affiliate links to trusted partners!

Flying alone for the first time ?

Boarding an airplane on your own and flying to a destination solo can be a daunting experience — though it doesn’t have to be.

I still remember flying by myself for the first time. It was a flight from New York City to Sydney , Australia, and I was a nervous wreck every step of the way. In fact, I don’t think I really slept for the week leading up to the flight!

But, in the end, it was all okay. Actually, it was better than okay, as traveling solo — both in the air and on the ground — is now my preferred way to explore the world.

Now, I realize solo flying confidence takes time to develop, and that there are steps you can take to feel more assertive and to ease anxiety.

So to help those who are nervous about flying on their own, I reached out to some of my favorite travel bloggers and asked them to share their best tips for flying alone for the first time. You’ll find their advice below.

That after reading this article, you feel confident about traveling solo and boarding that plane to your dream destination on your own.

Quick tip: One of the most important items to pack for a flight is a power bank and a charging cable, which helps ensure your phone is always charged and you’ll always be able to pull up your electronic boarding pass, look up information about your destination, and enjoy in-flight entertainment. In fact, many airlines require you to use their app in order to access movies and shows!

Table of Contents

Fly Alone With Confidence (Free E-Course!)

Now, before we dive into our list of first time flying alone tips , I invite you to grab a seat in the  free Savvy Solo Traveler E-Course .

The six-day ecourse is designed to help you feel confident about booking your first solo trip and exploring the world alone.

Lessons include:

  • Common solo travel fears and how to overcome them
  • How to choose your perfect solo trip
  • How to tell loved ones you’re hitting the road solo
  • Mentally preparing for your solo journey without losing your mind
  • Essential steps for staying safe on a solo trip
  • How to take amazing solo selfies

Once you’ve grabbed your seat , keep reading for tips on flying on your own for the first time. This is an important consideration when researching how to travel by yourself successfully .

tips for flying alone for the first time

Tips For Flying Alone For The First Time

1. plan your first day of travel just right.

Whether it’s your first time flying internationally alone or domestically, you’ll likely have a few jitters.

Some people like to travel without a plan and others like every minute of their trip mapped out. In my opinion, if you’re flying by yourself for the first time you should plan your first day or two of travel in a way that helps you ease into things.

This involves two key elements:

  • Having accommodation booked in a safe and accessible area
  • Not booking too many tours or activities

Knowing that you have a safe place to stay that is easy to get to and walkable to places like eateries and cafes gives you one less thing to worry about during air travel.

Moreover, being able to get familiar with your surroundings before needing to worry about schedules and meeting points can help you adjust to this new solo travel experience.

Keep in mind, while there are a number of solo travel pros and cons , one of the major benefits of traveling alone is getting to plan your itinerary however you’d like, so take advantage of that.

-Jessie Festa from Jessie on a Journey

2. Learn TSA-friendly techniques for curbing first time flying anxiety

Meditation can help ease anxiety when flying alone for the first time

If you’re scared to travel alone or have never flown solo before, I highly recommend learning a few relaxation techniques, such as:

  • doing breathing exercises ( like these ),
  • listening to meditation recordings ( like these ),
  • watching ASMR videos (my favorite ASMRist is GentleWhispering ),
  • completing puzzle games ( like these ),
  • coloring (I love this adult coloring book ),
  • and reciting positive affirmations ( like these ).

It’s also wise to understand what can trigger anxiety. For instance, avoiding caffeine, junk food, and fried foods can help you keep anxiety at bay since gastrointestinal issues can cause anxiety to flare up.

This also means that when cabin crew come around with snacks and drinks you should avoid caffeine and sugar.

Skipping meals can also be an anxiety trigger, so make sure you’re eating regularly and incorporating nutritious foods.

Furthermore, exercising before your flight can help you work out any nervous energy and feel more relaxed after take-off.

Finally, if you’re feel really nervous, consider a fear of flying treatment . While I haven’t tried it myself, I have a friend who used hypnotherapy to cure her flight phobia — and it worked.

The above are all great ways to ease first time flying alone anxiety!

3. Check in online in advance so you can save time and reduce anxiety

It’s perfectly normal to feel overwhelmed and nervous about flying alone. One of the best ways to reduce that anxiety is by doing a little preparation in advance.

Early check-in is an easy first step you can take. Airlines typically allow travelers to check in up to 24 hours before a flight’s departure time. You can download the airline’s app and check-in that way or go directly to the airline’s website.

Checking in early is a big timesaver and a great way to avoid long lines at the airport. If you’re not checking any luggage, it even allows you to skip the lines and head directly to the security checkpoint. It also ensures your seat on the flight, so you won’t have to worry about it being given to a stand-by passenger.

Early check-in allows you to pay in advance for any bags you’re checking, select your preferred seating options, and download digital copies of your boarding passes to your phone or device.

Once you have digital copies of your boarding passes for each flight, make sure you take a screenshot of each one to save on your phone! That way, even if your Wi-Fi doesn’t work at the airport, you’ll still be able to access a copy of your pass to show to the boarding attendants.

Make note that early check-in usually cuts off an hour or two before the flight’s actual departure time. After the cut-off, you’d need to go directly to the counter. 

-Erin from Savannah First Timer 

4. Carry a notebook and jot down all the steps

One of the best tips for flying alone for the first time is to carry a notebook

When flying solo for the first time, carry a notebook and jot down all the essential information that is particularly important when traveling internationally. Ensure you know the steps for baggage drop-off, security check-in, and organizing immigration documents, for example.

Additionally, it’ll be helpful to have information on speaking to border personal/customs officers, heading to the baggage claim carousel to pick your bags, getting to your pre-paid taxi, and finding the route to the train station to connect to your final destination once you land.

Noting any necessary addresses is super important. For instance, you should write down the names of your hotels, their addresses, and their phone numbers — including any emergency contact numbers. This way you don’t have to rely on your memory or your cell phone battery. Instead, everything will be available to you at your fingertips. 

Having contact information handy (and on paper) is useful when you clear immigration as sometimes due to security reasons a smartphone may not be allowed. 

-Mayuri from Canada Crossroads

5. Download the app of the airline you are flying with

Nervous about flying alone for the first time? It can be daunting, but if you are well-prepared then it’s a piece of cake.

One of the first things that I like to do is download the app for whatever airline I am flying with.

Delta, American, United, and Frontier all have apps that I’ve personally used before. These apps allow you to manage multiple aspects of your trip.

You can use Google Flights to find great flight deals and then book directly through the airline’s app.

Or, if you’ve already booked a flight, then you can enter your name and flight details in the app so that it stores your trip information for easy access.

The app will send you an alert once it is time to check-in 24-hours before your flight. It walks you through the check-in process step-by-step and then allows you to add your boarding pass to your phone’s wallet when it’s ready.

If you aren’t checking a bag then you won’t even have to go to the counter when you arrive at the airport! Just go straight through security.

Once you are actually at the airport, the app sends you alerts if your flight gets delayed or any other information that you might need to know.

You’ll also find airport maps — which I’ve used more times than I can count. It is very helpful if you have a tight layover so you can check where you need to go before you get off the plane.

Some apps even have a “track my bag” feature if you know your bag tag number. The features vary depending on which company you are flying with but they are all incredibly helpful.

-Anna from Stuck On The Go

6. Schedule your flight to arrive in the morning

Schedule your flight to arrive in the morning when flying alone for the first time

Flying alone for the first time can be a scary experience for many people but one of the best things you can do is to schedule your flight so that you will arrive at your destination in the morning. 

This way, you will have lots of time to relax, become familiar with the place, figure out the transportation system, and ask for help if you need it. It is not fun to navigate a foreign city after sunset, not to mention it can be dangerous. 

Plus, travel is stressful enough as it is, so why would you want to limit the time you have? Arriving when it is light out gives you extra time to explore.

Additionally, you should have a clear plan on how to get from the airport to your accommodation for the first night. Write down the address of the place and do some research beforehand so that you know what to expect.

If you will be taking public transit, then you will definitely want to know the ticket price, how to buy and activate your ticket, transit schedules, where to get on, and where to get off.

These tips are simple but effective, and they will help you to feel more confident on your next trip.

-John from Your Destination is Everywhere

7. Alternatively, arrive during daylight hours & book a taxi if running late

My tip for flying alone for the first time is to arrange a flight that lands at your destination during daylight hours. It’s always more nerve-wracking when you arrive in a new city/country after sunset and have to navigate an unfamiliar place in the dark. 

Touching down while the sun is up always makes me feel less anxious when transiting from the airport, especially when using public transport. I also prefer to get a sense of the neighborhood around my accommodation before nightfall. 

If it isn’t possible to arrive during the day or your flight gets delayed, book a taxi with a reputable provider. You might pay more but it is worth it to put your mind at ease. If it is too expensive, you can always wait in the airport until daylight.

-Hannah from All About the Après

8. Carry the right items to avoid a security delay

Carry the right gear when flying alone for the first time

Airport guidelines are very strict in regard to the allowance of different types of items carried in luggage. If you are traveling on a flight for the first time, I suggest you check the list of items allowed in your checked luggage as well as in your carry-on luggage as suggested by the Airport Authority or the airline company.

Every airline has an allowance limit for luggage. Exceeding the limit leads to paying extra charges, so I would highly recommend being aware of the limit.

Secondly, carrying the right items will not only save you money and time but will also help avoid any further delay in the security line.

For instance, once I mistakenly kept my power bank in my checked luggage. Having reached a bit late at the airport, the scanning process was done in a rush. I was called back from the flight at the end when the security personnel found it in the checked luggage. It was removed eventually, and I was allowed to board the same flight. But my checked luggage (backpack) couldn’t be loaded on the same flight. I received the backpack only the next day. Most of the security delays are because of the carrying of wrong items in both the hand and checked baggage.

Like the weight limit, different airlines have different items that they allow. Personal items such as lighters, scissors or metals with a pointed tip, sharp objects, flammable items, probable harmful sporting goods, tools, and essentially anything that has the potential to harm another passenger are strictly prohibited. It is sometimes confusing when a few of these items are allowed in the dismantled form in the checked luggage. 

You can carry laptops and chargers, power banks, books, water bottles, clothes, medicines, cash, and a few other items without any difficulty. In a nutshell, packing the right things in the right baggage will ease the process at the airport.

-Joydeep from The Gypsy Chiring

9. Arrive to the airport early 

Flying alone is daunting, especially if it is your first time. While it is not physically more difficult — in fact, it’s probably less physically demanding — it is psychologically more taxing.

There is no one to remind you about your belongings or share the stress of getting lost. The worst part of it all is the unnecessary stigma of traveling alone!

That is why it is very important that you arrive early at the airport. If you need to arrive three hours in advance, plan to arrive at least 30 minutes earlier than that. Need to arrive two hours in advance? Plan to arrive 2.5 hours in advance.

Did you miss your bus to the airport? Is your boarding gate on the other side of customs? Worry not. Having that extra time will allow you to compensate for any travel mishaps or unexpected occurrences. There is nothing more stressful than running to your boarding gate and hoping it won’t shut down on you.

When you know that things can go totally wrong and you will still have enough time to get on that flight, there is less reason to stress over every little detail. So make sure you arrive (extra) early next time you have a solo flight!

-Sean from Living Out Lau

10. Avoid falling asleep and stay alert

Stay alert when flying solo for the first time

Traveling can be quite exhausting, especially if you have a very early morning flight.

When flying alone, one of the most important things to keep in mind is that you probably shouldn’t fall asleep while waiting for your flight to board. If you don’t have a flying buddy, you need to be more alert than if you did for more than one reason.

If you fall asleep, you risk potentially missing your flight if no one around you is nice enough to alert you.

Apart from that, it might not be the best idea to leave some of your expensive luggage lying around while you take a long nap. While your chances of getting anything stolen are low, it can happen.

If you must sleep, you should at least take some precautions.

For one, set an alarm so that you can make it to your terminal on time, or if you’re already at the terminal, set it up before they start calling people in.

In terms of your gear getting stolen, opting to sleep in a paid lounge is typically safer than sleeping in the terminal.

Similarly, it’s worth investing in some anti-theft gear and pickpocket-proof clothing . Whether it’s sleeping at the airport or traveling to an unknown country as a foreigner, anti-theft gear can help prevent and discourage thieves.

-Martin from Travel Explorator

11. Beat jetlag by sleeping on the plane

One of the worst parts of flying comes after the plane: jet lag. There’s nothing worse than arriving in a new location only to be unable to enjoy it because you’re exhausted out of your mind.

Most first-time fliers fear jet lag, but they don’t need to. It’s totally beatable if you know how to make the most of your flight and can learn how to sleep on a plane .

The best way to beat jet lag is to mentally switch to the time zone of the place you’re going before you even get on the plane. That means that if you are going to Paris from New York, you would operate five-to-six hours ahead. It might be breakfast time where you are, but if it’s already the afternoon in Paris, you should be acting like it’s the afternoon.

A big part of sticking to this schedule is figuring out when to sleep on the plane. You don’t want to time it incorrectly or you risk being stuck on the wrong schedule.

If you are flying on an overnight red-eye flight to the destination, it can be tempting to sleep through the entire plane ride. But that’s the worst thing you can do, as you’ll arrive later in the day and then won’t be tired by bedtime.

Instead, take a few hours rest, but try to get up as though you have “slept in” in Paris. This may mean you get less sleep and could be groggy on your first day, but a bit of caffeine will cure this until you’re ready for your first full night of sleep.

It’s important to do everything you can to get onto the new schedule so you can fully enjoy your trip and not suffer through jet lag that makes the whole journey a drowsy haze.

-Nina from Nina Out and About

12. Always take a portable charger for your smartphone 

tips for flying alone for the first time - bring a phone

If you’re used to flying with someone else, the experience of doing it alone can be quite different.

Now, whether you are sitting on a bus or eating in a restaurant chances are you have your phone glued to your hands, in front of you like a coat of armor. 

Taking your smartphone with you is like a shield of protection that stops you from looking — but more importantly feeling — alone. What is more, when you have your smartphone you are not alone. Instead, you are constantly connected.

And flying is no different. Your smartphone will be your ultimate companion when traveling. It holds your e-ticket, boarding pass, credit card, confirmation emails — even your vaccination status in 2021. 

Your phone also doubles as your banking system, your camera for taking quality travel photos, and your in-flight entertainment system. It is your latest book, how you watch the latest film on the flight, or simply a device for listening to music.

In short, it is needed at more or less every stage of the flight process, save for take-off and landing, and even when it is not needed chances are you will use it anyway. 

So what would you do if the battery ran out? As the frustratingly short life of a smartphone is well-known, the chance of it lasting you a long-haul flight when in constant use before, during, and after is slim. 

To avoid getting stranded mid-flight not knowing who did it in the latest crime series you are watching and to ensure you are always able to call someone or order an Uber on landing, be sure to pack a portable charger ( like these ). 

A portable charger will enable you to keep your phone battery life topped up throughout your travels. They are small and compact and can fit into any hand luggage. It will be as life-saving as having your phone in the first place. 

-Sarah from Tammy Mum

13. Pack the right gear

I just returned from a solo flight last week, and there are several tips for flying for the first time by yourself that immediately come to mind. The first tip is to begin preparing long before arriving at the airport. I always check out the weather for packing and try to plan accordingly. 

I usually have my suitcase open for several days ahead of time. Rather than pack everything at once, I use it as a “holding area” for any and everything I think I might need. I then re-check the weather and finalize what I bring the day before my flight. 

Personally, I prefer to travel with only carry-on luggage , as it’s much quicker to get through airports — but don’t be afraid to check a bag if you need it. Many airlines now have a luggage tracker on their app and you can actually verify that your luggage is on your flight. 

Now let’s chat about how to get through an airport by yourself .

In the airport, you will need to have your boarding pass and ID (license or passport) handy and easily accessible for going through security. I usually put my boarding pass on my phone and have my ID in my pocket until I am through security. Then I always put it away at the same time that I’m putting my shoes back on. 

As far as shoes go, I do not like to spend a lot of time lacing and tying, so I only wear slip-on shoes or sandals. You can wear or carry a pair of socks if your feet typically get cold.

I usually wear a light jacket through the airport. Note that layering is very helpful. Some airports are much cooler than others and you don’t always know ahead of time.  

Planning for the actual flight itself is also important when flying alone. In fact, I have several “must-haves” every trip in my purse/backpack for use during the flight:

  • an audiobook on the Kindle on my phone,
  • headphones,
  • and an extra jacket, small blanket, or a scarf shawl

Additionally, water cannot be brought through security, but you can purchase it once you are fully through and in the departure area.

Typically, flight attendants come around during the flight to provide a drink and snack, but having your own just in case is good for peace of mind.

I also make sure that I have acetaminophen, something for indigestion or nausea, and mints or cough drops. There’s nothing worse than having a coughing session mid-flight with nothing to take for it. Your fellow travelers will thank you!

Personally, I enjoy flying alone as much as I do with someone, but over the years I have found that the more time I put into planning and preparation, the more relaxed I am during the trip. 

-Leah from Rambling Russells

14. Pack a power bank with the right mAh

A power bank is a great tool for your first time flying alone

Flying alone is so much easier nowadays when everything is available to you with the tap of a finger. Consider your boarding pass, your credit card, your airport shuttle, your hotel confirmation, and your maps — which are all easily accessible from your mobile phone or tablet.

This ease of access has made traveling so much simpler and quicker, as you no longer need to worry about printing all the necessary documents and having to carry a dossier full of tickets and maps.

However, to make all these digital assets possible there is the assumption that your phone is always on and has enough battery to take you through the day. But phones don’t always have long-lasting batteries, especially if the device is not new and considering that you constantly need to use it.

Luckily, there are many workarounds that can ensure your device is always on and functioning when you need it! The easiest one is to always carry a power bank ( like these ) and a charging cable with you. 

A power bank can be a lifesaver, as your phone may die in the most uncomfortable situations. As a bonus, by carrying a power bank you can also charge other small devices on the go, like your camera or Bluetooth headphones.

Now, before going to buy a random power bank, you need to keep a few things in mind.

Firstly, you need to consider the mAh value. mAh stands for milliamp-hour and describes the capacity of the battery. In general, the higher the mAh, the more times it can charge your phone, but at the same time the heavier the power bank is.

Overall, you want to choose something that fits your circumstances. If you have a long flight ahead of you and then you are off for some solo traveling, choose something between 10000 to 20000 mAh (expect about three-to-six charges respectively). Otherwise, a smaller one that provides at least one full charge should suffice.

-Elina from Empnefsys & Travel

15. Carry a pen

This will be the smallest but one of the most important items you can pack when flying alone — and the easiest to forget. There is nothing worse than that sinking feeling when immigration forms and arrival cards are handed out on a flight, and you instantly realize you do not have a pen in your carry-on. 

At this point your choices are to ask someone if you can borrow their pen, or hope that the arrival hall has pens for public use.

Both options are uncomfortable and may slow you down. Then there is the added stigma of sharing personal items during these socially distant times.

So pack it first, and pack a spare just in case!  

-James from The Slow Traveler

16. Download an audio book 

Downloading an audiobook makes flying by myself easier

One of my best tips for flying alone for the first time is to plan ahead for your in-flight entertainment. To do this, I suggest downloading an audiobook to enjoy during your flight.

Plan to select and download your audiobook at least a day or two prior to your departure. Doing this ahead of time will prevent you from forgetting to download the book on your actual travel day when things are likely to be a bit hectic. 

I also recommend selecting a book you’re genuinely excited to read. This way, you’ll have something to look forward to on your travel day, which can help alleviate any anxiety you might be feeling about your solo trip. 

Besides just being great entertainment, audiobooks also make a great choice for solo travelers because they help reduce social anxiety. In most cases, having headphones on will prevent fellow travelers from bothering you or making small talk. 

If you’re a nervous flier, audiobooks are also a great way to drown out many of the other common noises you’ll experience on airplanes such as engine noise, excessive announcements, or even crying babies. 

In addition to providing entertainment and alleviating travel anxiety , audiobooks are a great tool for learning more about your destination before you arrive. Consider selecting an audiobook about the place you’re visiting. This way you can do your travel planning while en route to your destination.

-Eden from Rock a Little Travel

17. Dress comfortably 

Your first time traveling alone or boarding a flight solo is likely going to be mentally taxing on you — which is totally understandable! One of the best tips and tricks to combat mental fatigue is physical comfort.

In short: dress very comfortably for your first solo flight and it will help boost your overall mood throughout this new experience.

For starters, the airport security is likely going to make you take your shoes off when going through the metal detector, so opt for an easy on/off pair. These will also be convenient if you want to take your shoes off during the flight — though only do this if you’re planning to wear socks.

Speaking of socks, a nice pair will come in handy for several reasons. First, you’ll want them at security so you don’t have to have your feet on the icky carpet or cold floor, but they will also keep you comfortable on the actual flight.

As airplanes tend to be cold, along with socks you’ll want to have a sweater or hoodie in your purse or bookbag — and not packed away in the suitcase where it’s out of reach. If you have a favorite hoodie, consider bringing that one, which will keep you both warm and in good spirits.

By the way, a nice pair of stretchy, elastic leggings or yoga pants are perfect for flights. These are great because you can move around freely, and they will move with you. Sweatpants are another great option.

-Shelley from Travel Mexico Solo

18. Avoid overpacking (and embarrassment)

Use a carry-on bag when flying by yourself for the first time

While you’ve surely heard that it’s best to pack everything into a carry-on, if possible, you need to make sure that you can easily transport your carry-on bags. Overpacking your carry-on and personal item bag means you won’t be able to get through the airport quickly if you have to run to catch a flight.  

Additionally, you’ll have to put your carry-on in the overhead bin, which can be very tricky if you have a heavy suitcase and there is little room. You’ll want to make sure that you can lift your carry-on up over your head — by yourself — to avoid any embarrassing incidents or having to ask for help.  

Clumsily hitting your seatmate on the head with your carry-on because it’s too heavy for you to hoist into the bin is not a good way to start a flight!

-Kristin from GrowingGlobalCitizens

19. Use a VPN for added security

Internet security is an issue of increasing prevalence. Hacking is so easy a child can do it (there’s a terrifying video somewhere out there to prove it), and public places such as airports and hotels are like shooting fish in a barrel for hackers. 

Actually, any place with public WiFi –- even if it has a password –- is dangerous; anybody who has ever used that connection can gain access to the contents of your laptop/tablet/phone if they know how.

I’m looking at you, local Starbucks!

Luckily, protecting your data and devices is an easy fix. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) creates a firewall that encrypts your traffic (browsing, emails, downloads, uploads) and allows you to surf anonymously with a different IP address.

If that all sounds a bit technical for your liking, don’t worry; installing and using a VPN is as simple as signing up, downloading the software, and clicking “Connect/Disconnect” whenever you want to toggle your VPN on and off. 

There are free and paid versions, and I’ve tried a ton of different VPN services. Now I happily pay (less than $3 dollars a month) for one of the best, NordVPN . It definitely one of the most important travel safety essentials to consider!

-Nora from The Professional Hobo

20. Always take an empty water bottle with you to the airport 

water bottle for flying alone for the first time

According to Healthline , staying hydrated is a great way to curb anxiety, so if you’re feeling jittery about your first time flying on a plane alone, water will be your friend.

It’s also worth noting on long journeys that keeping hydrated can help you cope with jet lag, which can seriously ruin an otherwise fun solo trip.

Now, I’ve lost count of how many bottles of water I’ve had confiscated at airport security over the years, which is why I recommend you always bring an empty water bottle with you when you travel. 

Or rather than throw away yet another bottle of water before passing through security, simply drink up and keep hold of that empty bottle. Then once you’re through security and in the departure lounge, you can easily refill it at a water fountain and take it on board with you. This will save you from buying expensive bottles of water at the airport and on the plane.

I forgot this piece of advice on my last trip when I was traveling on a budget airline. It ended up costing me €3 to purchase a tiny bottle!

Having a reusable water bottle will also come in extremely useful throughout your trip and save a fortune. 

Bonus: You can opt for a collapsible bottle, like this one , to save space in your luggage too!

-Sarah from Life Part 2 and Beyond

21. Know vital tips for flying alone as a teenage

Letting a teen fly alone may be a worrisome concept, but with some preparation and research, you can help the trip go smoothly. Airlines are ready to support you on this new adventure! 

First of all, they have unaccompanied minor policies that will help both you and your teen feel comfortable in letting them fly solo. Read the highlights of the policy ahead of time so both you and your teen know what to expect from the airline for support. 

Additionally, provide your child with a means of staying connected by choosing either a tablet, smartwatch, or phone. 

If you have avoided getting your child technology, this may be the time to give them access, even if it is only temporary. The goal is that your child knows how to get in touch with you in case of an emergency or change in schedule — such as an unexpected flight delay.  

Empower your teen by setting up a plan for unexpected issues. This could be as simple as knowing how they can contact you in case of changing schedules or an issue such as delayed flights.

Moreover, providing them with a small, printed list of emergency contact numbers is a good way to help everyone feel assured that they’re able to stay in touch. 

-Michelle from Travel With Intention

22. Add a VIP experience to your flight

first time journey

If the thought of flying alone for the first time makes you nervous, I recommend upgrading your trip and turning your first flight into a VIP experience!

Take control right from booking your solo flight by choosing your own seat. Yes, it will cost a little bit extra; but, you will be able to board the plane whenever suits you best while knowing exactly where you are sitting, too.

Some carriers also include a priority check-in desk with certain seats ensuring you whizz past those queues when you first arrive at the airport.

While you’re at it, why not avoid the check-in desks completely and travel carry-on only?

If it’s only a short trip you might consider only taking hand luggage that fits under the seat in front of you. This will allow you to board whenever you like without having to worry about whether or where your suitcase will fit. It also means you will have everything you need for your flight right at your feet.

Another idea:

Turn your airport waiting time into a bit of “me time” and book a VIP lounge at the airport. Enjoying drinks and snacks away from the airport chaos is always a great way to deal with any first time flying alone anxiety.

Plus, if there are any flight delays you can stay in the comfortable lounge — meaning your only worry might be the amount of cake and Champagne you have enjoyed!

Upgrading your airport visit is a smart way to put you in a positive mindset for your first solo flight experience!

-Melanie from The Professional Traveller

23. Dress in layers for inflight comfort

Flying alone can be scary, so make sure you are as comfortable as possible when traveling. Rather than wondering if the flight is going to provide a blanket or if you’ll freeze, control the situation by dressing up in layers! 

Since flight temperatures can vary, make sure to layer up and then wear or take off layers as needed to keep you in your maximum comfort level. It can feel sweaty on a packed flight or chilly on an empty red-eye flight.

Examples of layering items include cardigans, light jackets, scarves, and shawls — or even scarf-shawls ( like this one ), which can also act as a blanket!

When you bring layers, you can also fold them to make temporary pillows for a better nap on the flight. Fold up your scarf or jacket and fit it in between your head and the flight seat to prevent your head from moving around when you take a nap.

Bonus: when you wear layers, you’re also packing a few pounds less in your luggage!

You can always stuff them in your backpack or carry-on bag if you don’t want to wear them. But keeping them handy helps when you are traveling across locations with contrasting climates. 

Make sure to squeeze layers into your backpack before the security checkpoint so you don’t have to place them in the not-so-clean security bins.

-Rasika from Bae Area and Beyond

24. Leave enough time between connections

running through the airport when flying solo

Having to worry if you enough time to catch your connecting flight or if you’ll be stranded somewhere you weren’t expecting is never fun. And if it’s your first time flying alone, you definitely don’t want this added stress.

If possible, choose layovers that are at least an hour and a half, keeping in mind that this number is a guideline and you’ll want to research how long it will take you to get from one terminal to the other.

Also consider if you’ll need to go through security again, which adds time. This is especially important if you’re flying alone for the first time internationally .

For instance, if you’re traveling the USA solo and you’re connecting from one domestic flight to another, you won’t have to go through security. However, if you’re flying from, say, the USA and connecting in London to fly to Italy, you will.

25. Know where to sit on the plane

Knowing where to sit on the plane makes a big difference when flying for the first time alone.

Not all seats offer the same flight experience. For instance, nervous fliers who hate turbulence should sit toward the front of the plane, as you’ll feel less of the bumps than if you were in back.

Moreover, consider your own preference when it comes to window seats vs aisle seats. Personally, I like an aisle seat since I hate feeling trapped or like I can’t get up easily to use the restroom.

That being said, many fliers prefer a window seat as gazing out can help ease their travel anxiety.

Travel Insurance For Your First Time Flying Alone

When flying for the first time — or the thousandth — it’s wise to get travel insurance.

One of the  best travel medical insurance for travelers  is SafetyWing as they’ve got a large network and offer both short-term and long-term coverage — including coverage if you’re traveling for months as well as limited coverage in your home country.

Additionally, SafetyWing is budget-friendly and offers $250,000 worth of coverage with just one low overall deductible of $250.

Click here to price out travel insurance for your trip in just a few clicks .

Frequently Asked Questions About How To Fly By Yourself

Q) how do i get over flying by myself.

If you are scared to fly alone, you can do breathing exercises, listen to meditation recordings or podcasts, and complete puzzles. Watching videos of planes taking off or landing can help you know what to expect.

Q) How do I prepare for my first flight alone?

Research the right items you can take on a plane, choose a morning flight if possible, plan to arrive early at the airport, check in online to reduce time and stress, and consider downloading some podcasts or films to watch on your phone, tablet or laptop.

Q) What are the benefits of flying alone?

Some of the benefits of flying solo are building up your confidence, getting out of your comfort zone, and learning more about yourself.

What tips for flying alone for the first time would you add?

Enjoyed this guide on how to fly alone for the first time ? Pin it for later!

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The time factor matters a lot while flying. A delay may lead to missing the flight which is another headache. Reaching on time, carrying the right items, not overpacking is always a good idea. The only thing I have lacked is getting insurance.

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Our Woven Journey

27 Best Tips for Flying for the First Time (2023)

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Flying for the first time can be both exhilarating and frightening. There are many things you can do to make it easier and less stressful, though! I’ve rounded up 27 of the best first time flying tips to make it that much easier for you.

If this is your first time flying, much of your anxiety likely comes from just not knowing for sure what to experience. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to prepare ahead of time!

Knowing things like what to expect while going through security, what’s the best thing to wear on an airplane, and advice on avoiding extra luggage fees can be a game changer when it comes to being comfortable on your first flight.

Here are 27 travel tips for first time flyers that will have you flying like a pro on your very first flight.

1 Dress comfortably

One of the best first time flyer tips is to dress comfortably and to make sure you have layers.

Sitting on a cramped plane for hours can be a nightmare if you’re wearing clothes that are restrictive or make you uncomfortable.

Not only are you in a cramped space with little ability to move around, but pressure changes during  the flight  can cause your body to feel bloated or your legs to swell.

Make sure you wear unrestrictive clothing, comfortable shoes, and have a sweater or jacket in case you get cold once you’re in the air.

You’ll also thank yourself for wearing comfy clothing the first time you have to climb over another passenger to use the restroom!

By Tawnya at Money Saved is Money Earned

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first time journey

RELATED: Road Trip Essentials: Make Sure to Pack These in Your Car

2 Stay hydrated

If you want to experience an enjoyable flight, staying hydrated is key. Airplanes create a humid environment, which can quickly lead to nausea, tiredness, and headaches. And a headache is the last thing you want at 40,000 feet!

Staying hydrated on a plane isn’t difficult. You should ensure that you drink plenty of water before and throughout the flight.

Equally, you will want to avoid coffee and alcohol (no matter how tempting the complimentary booze might be!) as these will dehydrate you even more.

Drinking water isn’t the only way to stay hydrated on a plane though. One way to see just how dehydrating airplanes are is by looking at your skin after a flight. With the harsh air conditioning blasting in your face for several hours, your face will quickly dry out.

You can overcome dry skin by packing a small moisturiser or facial spritz to apply throughout the flight.

A good lip balm is a must too to combat dry and painful lips! And finally, you may benefit from packing a nasal spray too, to avoid dry and painful sinuses.

By Hannah at Get Lost

first time journey

3 Use points to pay for your flight

If you’re a first time flyer, you may not be aware that you can use credit card points to pay for your ticket.

Every airline has a reward program and you can sign up to start earning miles with them from your very first time flight experience.

However, unless you fly on that particular airline often, it’s going to take quite a while to rack up enough miles for a free flight.

Another option is to select a credit card that has a great sign up bonus and use those points to pay for your ticket.

The way this works is like this: once you’re approved for the card you applied for, you’ll typically have three months to put a certain amount of spend on it.

Once you’ve done that, the bonus points will be yours to spend as you choose!

At the time of this writing, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card has a sign up bonus of 60,000 points. You’ll need to spend $4,000 within three months to meet the requirement.

You can use that 60,000 points to splurge on something like a first class round trip ticket to Europe or go the more economical route and you’ll be able to book a few domestic economy flights.

Using points to pay for flights is one of the best flying for the first time tips there is. Use your points wisely and you’ll be flying for the second, third and fourth time in no time!

By Karee at Our Woven Journey

Airplane flight over Oahu paid for with points

4 Know how to get over jet lag quickly

Jet lag occurs when you travel quickly to a new time zone which alters your natural circadian rhythm. It can cause fatigue and insomnia whilst you adjust, and the more time zones you travel through, the more affected you can be. Generally, the effects of traveling from west to east can be worse.

Our internal clock becomes mixed up partly due to a difference in exposure to light so one way to alleviate symptoms and help you recover from jet lag faster is to get outside soon after flying.

Exposure to natural daylight will reduce the release of melatonin hormones that make you sleepy and help wake you up so that you can stick to the schedule in your new time zone.

Melatonin products can help the other way around too, and help you to drift off if you are struggling.

And drink plenty of water before, during and after your flight, as dehydration will make it worse! 

By Rosanna at Rosanna Etc.

first time journey

5 Use packing cubes

One of the most surprising first-time flying tips is to use packing cubes. This seems an almost oxymoron because you are putting your stuff into more stuff.

However, since packing cubes use compression technology it makes your stuff take up so much less space. They usually have multiple zippers, the first to secure the contents, the second to compress the size down.

There are two strategies for utilizing packing cubes: the first strategy is to pack your daily outfit in each cube (or your family’s outfits), the second strategy is to pack by item in each cube.

I recommend packing by outfits, as this will enable you to turn them and put the dirty items in that same cube.

Usually, the packing cubes come in packs of three of multiple sizes. The smallest is perfect for your first day comfortable outfit and pajamas the night you arrive.

Make sure to tuck this into your carry-on just in case your checked luggage arrives late. Packing super light in a carry-on will make your flight less stressful.

By Rebecca at Whatever Packs Your Bag

first time journey

6 Download movies before your flight

An excellent way to keep yourself entertained during a flight is to download a selection of Netflix or Amazon Prime movies to your device.

Some flights don’t come with onboard entertainment and others charge extra for a movie package. Instead of relying on the airline, it is a great idea to prepare your own entertainment.

If you already have a Netflix or Amazon subscription, all you need to do is download your favorite show to be able to watch it in offline mode.

You won’t be able to do this once you’re on the plane and don’t have wi-fi, so add this to your travel checklist to do before you travel. You can watch them on your phone, but for the best experience, watch can movies on one of these lightweight  laptops for traveling . 

Netflix and Amazon Prime both have a wide selection of shows. You can spend the flight time learning Spanish or watching a fascinating documentary.

Time passes more quickly when you’re watching your favorite shows which helps a lot, especially if you have trouble sleeping on a plane.

And before you know it, it will be time to land!

By Mal from Raw Mal Roams 

➡️ Get a free 30 day trial for Amazon Prime Video

7 Know how to book cheap flights

Preparation for a flight actually starts when searching for a flight because no one wants to pay more than they have to.

Luckily, there are several tricks to help you find the cheapest flight possible.

First, be flexible with your travel dates when searching for flights. Some days of the week, month and year are cheaper than others. The larger your date range, the easier it is to pick the cheapest moment to fly.

Second, compare different airlines through a price comparison site such as Skyscanner. This way you’re sure to find the most affordable carrier. Websites of the airlines themselves are often the most expensive!

Third, don’t be lured into paying for extras.  Be especially aware of low-cost airlines  trying to upsell additional services: from extra luggage and priority boarding to selling lottery tickets on the plane itself. Most of these things you don’t need at all so be strict with yourself and keep your budget in mind.

By Emma at Emma’s Roadmap

first time flyers should use low fare flight calendars like this one

8 Pack valuables in carry-on luggage

If you are planning to travel and pack both a carry-on bag and checked luggage, this one is for you.

When it comes to flying on any airline, even if it’s rated number one in the world, there is always the possibility that your checked luggage will go missing. Especially if you have connecting flights!

Make sure to pack your valuables in your carry on luggage and store them in the overhead bins or below the seat in front of you. 

Valuables can include many things. Firstly, make sure to carry your passport, wallet with money, and any high-value jewelry in a sling bag or concealed purse that you keep on your person at all times.

Secondly, keep essential medications and vitamins in your carry-on luggage (never in checked luggage!) as these cannot be replaced easily while you travel.

Thirdly, place your electronics, including your best camera for travel , phone, laptop and even drone in your carry-on luggage.

If you plan to carry a drone with you, ensure you pack the drone batteries in your carry on luggage, and the body of your drone in checked luggage. Always store battery packs in your carry-on.

As a good rule of thumb while travelling, never store your valuables far from reach!

By Haley of HaleyBlackall.com

first time journey

9 Choose your seat wisely

Going on your first flight is an exciting experience that you will always remember. That is why it is important to choose your seats wisely! If you choose the wrong seat, your flight won’t be as enjoyable. Between catching beautiful views and stretching your legs, your seat choice can have a huge impact on your trip. 

If your first flight is a short one, you should choose a window seat. The view from the window is always amazing. Between watching cities fade into the distance, beautiful sunsets, and cars that look like ants, you will be amazed by everything you can see from an airplane. 

While window seats are ideal for short flights, you may be uncomfortable during a long flight . During a long flight, the best seats to choose are aisle seats. This is especially true if flying on a large airplane. Sitting in the aisle seat allows you to stretch your legs and use the bathroom as needed. There is nothing worse than crawling over strangers on a long flight to go to the bathroom!

If you really want to make sure you get the best seat on the plane, use SeatGuru for reviews of the aircraft you’ll be flying.

By Gabby at Journey to the Destination

10 Bring a neck pillow and blanket

When you head out on a flight, you want to be comfortable, and often the air conditioning is too cold, or the seats are uncomfortable. A good idea is to bring  eco friendly travel products  like a comfortable neck pillow so you can sleep well without hurting your neck and a blanket to stay warm . There is nothing worse than feeling cold on a flight.

A sarong is also a great versatile piece of travel accessory to bring. Taking this on the plane means you can re-use it on the beach or cover up if you are entering temples during your trip. It is super lightweight and takes up pretty much no space.

An extra pair of socks can also be ideal for the flight. Why not make them big and fluffy for extra comfort?

By Linn at Brainy Backpackers

first time journey

11 Savvy use of your carry-on allowance

Depending on where you’re traveling to, sometimes you might only have carry-on luggage and some airlines are extremely strict with what you can take. In fact, some economy airlines will only allow one cabin bag so if you have more than one item, such as a purse and a backpack, one needs to fit inside the other.

The ultimate hack for first time flyers is knowing how to extend your carry-on luggage allowance. If you buy something in the airport (no matter how small), provided it comes in an airport carrier shopping bag, this becomes an extension of your carry-on luggage.

So, if you’ve already packed your cabin bag tight, use the shopping bag to hold all the essentials that you want to use on the flight. Not only does this mean you don’t have to keep getting up to take things out of your bag, but it also means more space.

If your airline isn’t quite as strict, it’s still handy to have one big carry on and one item that’s small enough to fit under your seat without being uncomfortable, but big enough to have all your essentials in it.

Don’t stress, just fly savvy.

By Kerry Hanson from  VeggTravel

Use airport store shopping bag to help expand your baggage allowance

12 Be Ready to go Through Security Checkpoints

One of the most nerve-wracking parts of flying can be dealing with airport security. Even experienced travelers can have irrational anxiety dealing with getting their liquids ready and having laptops prepared to go through the detectors.

Because it’s an anxious time for everyone, people in line can also be quite rude. If you are slowing down the line, you risk alienating a massive line of people. No one wants to start their first flight that way.

While you’re in line for security, be sure to start preparing for the scanners right away.

You will need to remove any jackets or sweaters (you’ll need to go down to your lowest layer). Take all the items out of your pockets – or wear pants with no pockets to skip this step. Try to wear pants that don’t need a belt or take it off while you’re in line. 

Keep your shoes on in line! Airport floors are gross – and some airports don’t require you to take them off. 

When you pack your carry-on, be sure to put all the items that need to come out at security on one side. Laptops, tablets, and liquids will need to be removed. If you put your liquids in a small bag or Ziploc, it’ll make this even easier.

Also, keep in mind that any liquid containers have to be 3.4 oz or smaller and need to be packed together in one quart-sized ziplock bag.

By Nina of Nina Out and About

first time journey

13 Use a foot-sling to relieve back and leg pain

If you suffer from low back or leg pain, the idea of sitting in a cramped airplane seat isn’t all that appealing. Shorter flights may not be a problem, but flights over a couple of hours long can be a pain, literally! One of the best travel accessories you can pack to help alleviate the pain is a foot-sling to use on your flight.

To use it, you simply lower the tray on the seat back in front of you, place the strap over the arms of the tray and then close the tray again. You can adjust the height of the sling as needed to make it as comfortable as possible for your back and legs.

One thing to note is you’ll want to be aware of the person sitting in the seat in front of you. Always take your feet out of the sling before you lower the tray or it will jolt their chair. Treat them like you would want to be treated and you’ll be fine.

You also want to be sure you’re not putting unnecessary pressure on the tray arms as you get comfortable.

Most foot-slings roll up small and take up very little space as a personal item in your carry-on bag. It can make a huge difference in how comfortable you are while sitting for hours, so if back or leg pain is an issue for you, you’ll definitely want to bring one of these along! This is one of the best tips for first time flying because once you get it, you can use it for every flight from now on.

14 Use a travel credit card with the best perks

Chase Sapphire Reserve is one of the  best travel secrets  every new traveler should know about. You can get access to airport lounges included in your credit card membership through Priority Pass. The lounges are available in many airports and some even have multiple lounges you can visit on the same day!

Not only that, there are many other benefits of using the card including a large signup bonus where you can receive credit towards purchasing a flight or other travel perks.

In addition, you are covered for car insurance when you rent a car so there are many wonderful perks that outweigh the cost of the membership.

You also get $300 credit off travel purchases so although there is an annual fee for the card, it’s reduced by this and the many other benefits that pay for themselves. If you’re a first-time traveler and hope to travel a lot more often, then this card is amazing and will have you prepared to travel the world. 

Jackie of  Jou Jou Travels

airport lounges are a great way to relax when it's you're flying for the first time

15 Avoid extra luggage fees

The quickest way to blow your travel budget before even stepping on a plane is being charged an unexpected fee for an oversize or overweight suitcase.

Most airlines charge for any type of checked baggage and some even charge for a carry-on. This can vary based on the type of ticket you bought as well. Before the trip, head straight to the source and check the airline’s website for specifics.

But don’t stop there! Be sure to check the airlines bag size and weight limitations too. A carry-on that is too big may have to be checked, with an additional bag fee. The easiest mistake, one that I have made and seen many others make, is trying to check an overweight bag.

Many airlines have a 50 pound limit. Sometimes 1-2 extra pounds can be ok, but not always. You can either take out a few pounds and add them to your your carry-on, or get stuck with an oversize bag fee upwards of $100.

All it takes is a few extra minutes of research, some measuring and weighing to avoid those extra fees. I recommend packing a luggage scale to use on the way home. Those souvenirs can get heavy!

By Hailey at America My Beautiful

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first time journey

16 Avoid ear pain

For a lot of people, flying can lead to pain in the ears due to changes in air pressure. This can be quite uncomfortable, and sometimes even pretty painful. There are a few different tricks that can help with equalizing the pressure in your ears while flying in order to lessen the discomfort and pain.

One of the simplest things you can do to limit ear pain from flying is to drink plenty of water before and during your flight. The airplane air is dry, which makes the nasal mucous thicker and more likely to clog your Eustachian tubes (the tubes that connect your throat to your ears). Drinking also encourages swallowing, which can help equalize ear pressure. Other things you can do to help open your Eustachian tubes are chewing gum and yawning.

If none of the above tips work, you can try something called the Valsalva Maneuver to help clear your ears. To do this, keep your mouth closed, pinch your nose closed, and gently exhale – this should push air through your tubes and help them open up.

By Sydney at A World in Reach

first time journey

17 Always use carry-on luggage

If you’re new to all of the airport protocols, packing can be a serious challenge!  To make it simple, learn how to pack in a carry-on bag – no matter your trip length.   Not only will it make your travels easier by knowing exactly what you brought with you, but you’ll see a number of other advantages.  

With just a carry-on, you can save time at check-in and upon arrival at your destination since you won’t have to wait for your bag at the baggage claim. You’ll also be able to avoid the high baggage fees airlines have implemented, not to mention you won’t have to worry about your luggage, or anything in it, going missing! 

And, best of all, if there are any changes to your travel plans, you’ll always have your bag with you!

To pack in a carry-on, first you’ll need to know what size bag your airline considers a carry-on and find the right luggage.  From there, you’ll want to make sure your liquids pass TSA’s rules with each individual container being no larger than 3.4 ounces or 100 milliliters and all containers fitting into one quart-sized plastic bag.

Beyond that, you’ll need to pick your clothing wisely and avoid overpacking.  From creating a capsule travel wardrobe to rolling your clothes and using packing cubes, your luggage will be compact and ready to go whenever you are!

By Julia at A Cure For Curiosity

first time journey

18 Bring your own snacks

Whether your flight is just a short hour, or a long trans-continental journey, you should always bring snacks aboard! Especially in the current environment where delays are common, and you never know how long you may be stuck at the gate, or even worse, in the plane on the tarmac. 

As far as what to bring, keep it simple. Things that do not require refrigeration and that can get jostled around are best, like protein bars and trail mix.

Try to avoid empty calories like candy, or salty things like chips. Hydration is very important on flights so in addition to avoiding salty snacks, also remember to fill up your water bottle after going through security.

For longer flights, you may need something a little more substantial. Wraps are pretty durable and much easier to eat than salads or sandwiches.

Don’t bring something that will waft through the air gagging other passengers like tuna. A turkey or cheese wrap can last a good few hours, and so can cheese and crackers, or yogurt. Best of all, these will provide needed protein and keep you energized. 

One last tip, when bringing snacks on flights, remember your napkins!

By Denise from  Chef Denise

first time journey

19 Sign up for frequent flyer programs

Step one when you’re flying for the first time on a new airline is to sign up for their frequent flyer program.   This way all of your profile information will be attached to your frequent flyer account number, making it easier for you to book future flights without re-entering the same data again. 

Also, you will start accumulating miles right away and build them up over time, hopefully to the point of earning a free flight! 

Feel free to make your flight reservation on the computer but afterwards, download the airline’s cell phone app so your data will be in accessible format throughout your trip, whether you have a nonstop flight or a  long airport layover .

With your airline’s app you can view or change your seat, receive notifications about departure gate, time or delays, track your bags and access in-flight entertainment and wifi.  You can even use it as a digital boarding pass so there’s no need to carry around the paper version.  Each airline’s app may have different features but it’s definitely worth it to download and use the app during your first flight.  

By Jenny at Global Game Plan

Related: What is the Southwest Companion Pass and why you should get it

20 Download audiobooks ahead of time

Having a variety of entertainment within reach can vastly improve a flight experience. Energy and mood levels fluctuate so it’s important to have a selection of activities or media at your disposal.

Feeling reflective? Jot down your thoughts in a journal. Looking for mindless entertainment? A few downloaded movies or TV shows might fit the bill. Do your eyes need a break from reading a book or watching a screen? Listen to an audiobook.

One advantage of audiobooks is that they’re available from  different sources at reasonable prices. Or they can be sourced from your library free of charge from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. A more robust inventory is available with a subscription-based service such as Audible.

Downloaded, audiobooks take up no space (only the digital variety) so they’re a perfect choice for packing light travellers. Many audiobooks synchronize nicely with travel plans by heightening anticipation or enriching a person’s appreciation of a destination.

Fictional works set in a particular time or place, a biography of a national figure, or a homegrown author with cultural insights can contribute to a more meaningful travel experience.

If audiobooks aren’t yet part of your in-flight checklist or pre-trip packing list , take a test run at home while driving, gardening, or completing mundane tasks. They’ll help make your next flight much more enjoyable.

By Anne at Packing Light Travel

➡️ Get a complimentary 30 day trial to Audible, including one free book

21 More first time flyer tips: Use MyTSA app

One of the biggest stresses of flying for the first time can be not knowing how crowded the airport will be when you get there. Knowledge is power, though and you can at least get a reasonable estimate by downloading the MyTSA app before you go.

You’ll be able to see how busy the airport is likely to be on your specific day and time of travel. You’ll also be able to check estimated wait times to get through the security checkpoints.

This can be super helpful when flying for the first time! The standard advice most airports give is to arrive two hours early for a domestic flight and three hours for an international flight. While that holds true for most airports, it’s not always accurate.

For instance, smaller airports are rarely as busy as a larger airport. Being able to check the app to see how busy it will be for your first flight will help you decide how much time you actually need.

Remember, it’s always better to be early than late, but checking the app can help you decide just how early you need to be. The MyTSA app is available in the iTunes and Google Play app stores .

22 Get TSA PreCheck

If you have plenty of time before you’ll be flying for the first time, consider getting approved for TSA PreCheck. Not only will it save you time going through security, it will make the process much easier for you. That’s a big relief for anyone with first time flying anxiety.

As you get to the security line at the airport, you’ll notice there is a separate line for those with TSA PreCheck. It is almost always short than the main line. That’s partly because most people don’t have access to it.

It’s also because those who have applied for TSA PreCheck have already had a security check done by the government. Therefore, the screening process at the airport is minimal.

You won’t need to remove anything from your carry-on bags. That means you can leave your liquids (although they still have to be 3.4 oz or less and all fit in a quart-sized bag) in your carry-on. Same goes for leaving your electronics in your bag.

You also won’t have to take your off your shoes, belt or light jacket as you would if you went through the main security line. This makes it so much easier and less stressful to pass through security!

To get approved for TSA PreCheck, apply for it online . The cost is $85 and it lasts for five years. Even if you don’t plan to fly often, it’s definitely worth considering!

Another option is to apply for a travel credit card that covers the cost as one of its benefits. Chase Sapphire Reserve is a great option since it covers the cost of the TSA PreCheck along with the Priority Pass to airport lounges as was mentioned above.

23 Pack a small bag for all your inflight things

Getting situated on a plane can be stressful for even an experienced traveler, but when you’re flying on a plane for the first time it can be even worse. Here’s a smart travel tip that can make your 1st time flying experience go so much more smoothly. Pack all the little things you think you’ll need during the flight into a small bag.

Then, when you get to your seat you can easily remove it from your carry-on bag or backpack , store everything else and sit down in your seat. You won’t need to take any time get situated just to find your headphones in one bag, your laptop in the other and where did you stash your snacks anyway?

Get yourself a small bag and while you’re packing for your first flight, think about what you’ll want out while you’re on the plane. Pack the things like gum, small snacks, earbuds, phone charger, eye mask, your foot sling (see above) and any other little thing that tends to be hard to locate when you’re in a hurry.

Instead of standing in the aisle blocking others while you find what you need, you’ll be able to quickly grab your bag, put your carry-on or backpack away and sit down without worrying where all your things are.

Of course you may still want to grab things like your laptop or bento box (you’re packing your own snacks, right?), but those are easy to find and shouldn’t take you long to get situated. The main thing is to have all the little things you’ll want packed into one single bag you can grab and be done.

Then you can sit down, relax and enjoy your first time flying on an airplane!

Click to view our recommendation

first time journey

24 Keep your passport, ID and boarding pass handy

There are many first time flyers tips and this one is important. You want to decide on one place to keep your passport, ID and boarding pass and keep them there at all times. This needs to be someplace that you can easily retrieve and then put away quickly.

If you’re checking any bags or printing a boarding pass at the airport, you’ll need to show your ID. Once you’ve got your boarding passes, either hold on to them until you get to security, or put them in an easy to grab location. Never set them down anywhere!

The best tip for going through security is to put them in a secured place, but keep your eye on that bag in particular as you go through. Ideally, you want to try to time it so that you’re going through the medal detector while your bags are going through the xray machine. That way, your important things are not left unattended for someone to (accidentally?) grab while you’re not looking.

At this point, you’ll only need your boarding pass to get on the plane. You can put your other ID safely away, but you never want it to be far out of reach. Don’t put it in your carry-on bag because there’s always the chance there won’t be enough room for everyone’s bags and yours might end up getting checked.

The easiest way to always know where your passport, ID and boarding passes are is to keep them in a designated holder. When you’re flying in a plane for the first time, you want things to go as smoothly as possible and this is one way that will definitely help you.

Click to view our recommendations

first time journey

25 Consider wearing compression socks

You don’t need to have problems with circulation to benefit from wearing compression socks when flying, especially if it’s a long flight. Many people with a history of blood clots or poor circulation are understandably concerned about flying. Sitting for so long can cause problems, but wearing compression socks can help considerably.

While the benefit of wearing compression socks while flying is that they can help increase blood circulation, if you suspect any problems with your circulatory system, be sure to talk to you doctor before your flight.

There are several types of compression socks, but most people will benefit from wearing the kind that can be purchased at the pharmacy or online. If you’re flight is more than five hours, consider getting yourself some to wear. They are also good for long car rides, so you can save them to use for another time.

Be sure to put them on before you get to the airport though! Since they are meant to be tight, you wouldn’t want to wait until you got on the plane to try and put them on.

first time journey

26 Use the restroom before boarding

You may have seen movies or pictures of restrooms on airplanes, but if this is your first time flying, I don’t think you can picture just how small they really are. The less time you need to spend in it, the happier you’ll be!

Some good advice for first time flyers is to plan to use the airport restroom just before time for boarding. Since you’re going to want to stay hydrated while on your flight, using the restroom before you board will lesson the number of times you’ll need to go before you land again.

If your flight is a short one, you may be in luck and not even need to use the restroom on the plane. Either way, once you board you won’t be allowed to use that one until your flight has taken off, the plane has leveled off and the captain turns off the seatbelt sign.

This could easily be an hour, so even if you think you don’t have to go before you board your plane, go anyway. Especially if you’re traveling for the first time with kids!

airport restroom sign

27 Bring your own headphones

Gone are the days when airlines handed out free headphones to everyone on the flight. Nowadays, unless you’re flying in first class or international travel, you need to plan to bring your own.

Some airlines have headphones for purchase, but you can’t count on that either. Of course, not all planes even have entertainment systems for you to plug into. If you’ve read the other tips for first time flyers we’ve already mentioned, you’ll know you should already plan to bring something to watch movies on anyway.

One thing to mention is that if the plane does have an entertainment system, it may have a two-pin socket. If that’s the case, you’ll need an adaptor to be able to plug your headphones in. This really only makes sense if you don’t plan on downloading your own movies to watch.

Another reason to bring your own headphones is to help with noise cancellation, especially if you’re flying at night. Something first time flyers might not realize is that the engines on airplanes can be loud. You may be seated near young children who can be loud. It’s also the universal symbol for “please don’t talk to me” if you’re sitting next to someone chatty.

Seriously, headphones are useful for more than just watching movies! Whether you pack an inexpensive pair just to get you through your first flight or want to block out all the extra noise going on around you, headphones can make flying first time much more enjoyable.

first time journey

28 Pack essentials in your carry-on

Many travelers try to travel as light as possible, but there are times when we just can’t avoid checking a bag into the hold of the plane. In these circumstances, it may be tempting to put everything in the hold and to skip onto the plane light as a feather, carrying nothing at all (other than your phone and wallet, of course). 

However, what if something goes wrong with your checked bag… ? Perhaps it gets delayed or lost in transit. Or perhaps you miss a connection and you can’t retrieve your bag from the baggage system while you wait for the next flight. You probably have travel insurance to cover any losses and delays, but having the losses covered financially is of limited comfort when you are separated from your personal possessions. 

As evening turns to night, you realize how important basic things like toothpaste and pajamas are. And what about clean underwear and clothes the next day? Sure, you could buy new stuff, but that’s not ideal.

For this reason, it is a good idea to pack some essentials in your carry on, including a toothbrush and toothpaste, core toiletries, spare underwear, and a change of clothes – basically, the essentials you’ll want if you’re separated from your bag for a day or two. 

by Martha from  May Cause Wanderlust

Helpful tips for first time flying

If you’re going to be flying in a plane for the first time and are trying to prepare for what to expect, this list should cover it! Being prepared and knowing what to expect on your first flight is half the battle. Just follow the advice given here, especially if you’ll be flying alone for the first time and you’ll be just fine!

Enjoy your journey!

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Karee Blunt

Karee Blunt is a nationally syndicated travel journalist, focused on discovering destinations and experiences that captivate and inspire others through her writing. She is also the founder of Our Woven Journey, a travel site focused on inspiring others to create memory-making adventures with their loved ones. Karee is passionate about encouraging others to step out of their comfort zone and live the life they dream of. She is the mother of six kids, including four through adoption, and lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest. You can learn more about Karee on her about me page.

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3 thoughts on “27 Best Tips for Flying for the First Time (2023)”

I will be traveling soon, September to be precise and this will be my first time boarding a plane, I’m kinda anxious cause I don’t know what to expect, I will be traveling from Nigeria to the Netherlands. I hope I get a smooth trip to my destination, after reading all the tips, I think I can do this

Hi Joy, how exciting that you’ll soon be taking your first flight! I truly hope you’re able to enjoy every minute of it. Try not to stress. You’re going on an adventure of a lifetime, but hopefully just the first of many more to come. 💗

Always eat food at the airport before you actually get onto the plane. There are so many cheap groundside restaurants at which you can order a meal from these days. Or merely take onboard your own free healthy snacks and things to do or stuff to read etc as well.

Consider audiobooks. You can find many different and cheap activity books located in the bookshops quite easily. Once on board the aircraft aim to spend the time flying in the air either drinking some white wine or reading/talking to the other travellers. I like to eat a dish of hot food beforehand.

Bring patience. You will need it for sure on route. Or take a shorter flight instead. Always a good idea. Research the hotels and activities at your destination carefully. Pick one that really appeals to you and also meets your needs. Good luck.

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'Welcome to the moon': Odysseus becomes 1st American lander to reach the moon in 52 years

Houston-based intuitive machines' lander is now the first commercial spacecraft to ever land on the surface of the moon, and the first american craft to do so since nasa's final apollo mission in 1972.

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For the first time in more than five decades, Americans have returned to the moon .

Well, American robots, at least.

A week after launching aboard a SpaceX rocket, the uncrewed Odysseus spacecraft gently touched down on the surface of the moon late Thursday, ushering in a historic moon landing.

The lander, designed and operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines , is now the first commercial spacecraft to ever land on the moon. The lunar landing is also the first by an American-built spacecraft since NASA's final Apollo mission in 1972.

"Houston, Odysseus has found its new home," Stephen Altemus, president and CEO of Intuitive Machines, said shortly after the landing at 5:23 p.m. CST.

The announcement came about 10 minutes after it happened after some communications challenges. Tension built as the team behind the IM-1 mission waited for confirmation with bated breath.

"I know this was a nail-biter, but we are on the surface and we are transmitting," Altemus said. "Welcome to the moon."

What is the Odysseus lunar lander?

Nicknamed for the Greek hero of Homer's epic poem "The Odyssey," the Odysseus lander hitched a ride to orbit last Thursday aboard the  SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket , which launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Read more: What Odysseus will do now .

Intuitive Machines built the Odysseus to carry cargo for NASA and other private customers to the lunar surface for its  IM-1 mission . Formally called a Nova-C, the lander is a 14-foot-tall  hexagonal cylinder  with six legs that the space company has operated from a mission control center in Houston.

A failed lunar lander attempt

Odysseus may be the first privately built spacecraft to reach the moon, but it's hardly the first to try.

In January, Pittsburgh-based aerospace company Astrobotic sent its Peregrine lander on a doomed mission to the moon that ended with the spacecraft  burning up in Earth's atmosphere  days later.

Shortly after the craft separated from the United Launch Alliance's  Vulcan  rocket, Peregrine's propulsion began  leaking a critical amount of propellant  that forced Astrobotic to abandon plans of landing on the moon.

Intuitive Machines lander's journey to the moon

Intuitive Machines encountered hiccups along the way – including temporary communication delays – but none so detrimental that it could threaten the mission.

After separating from the SpaceX rocket last week, it took the lander 48 minutes to reach its orbit before it established communication with ground control in Houston, Intuitive Machines said. An engine firing Friday  helped position the lander toward the moon and allowed flight controllers to determine that the engine burn and throttle systems needed to land were functioning as intended.

The tests set the Odysseus craft up to enter lunar orbit Wednesday ahead of its landing Thursday near the moon's south polar region. Scientists have long been interested in studying the south pole because of the water ice thought to be abundant within its craters.

Intuitive Machines is working with NASA

Intuitive Machines' lunar mission is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

The U.S. space agency has a budget of  $2.6 billion in contracts  available through 2028 to pay private companies to place scientific payloads on private robotic landers like Odysseus bound for the lunar surface. The success of Intuitive Machines in putting a lander on the moon will now pave the way for NASA to work with more commercial entities on future space endeavors.

As the primary customer for the Odysseus mission, NASA paid Intuitive Machines $118 million to take its scientific payloads to the moon. The instruments will collect valuable data for NASA as it prepares to send astronauts back to the lunar surface for its Artemis program for the first time since the last Apollo mission 52 years ago.

NASA's Artemis program mission delayed

NASA had intended to launch its Artemis II astronauts into orbit by the end of the year on a 10-day trip circumnavigating the moon ahead of a moon landing itself a year later for Artemis III. But the Artemis program missions have since been delayed by at least a year after NASA encountered a slew of issues, including a battery flaw on the vehicle that will ferry astronauts to the moon.

Once NASA is  back on track in the years ahead , the agency intends to send a crew to the moon's south polar region, where it will will lay the groundwork for NASA to establish a permanent human presence on and around the moon ahead of future  missions to Mars .

Contributing: Amanda Lee Myers and Mike Snider.

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]

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Highlights From the Successful Lunar Landing of the Spacecraft Odysseus

A mission from Intuitive Machines of Houston overcame last-minute difficulties that engineers had to work around. The company said the first privately built vehicle to make it to the moon “is upright and starting to send data” back to Earth.

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Kenneth Chang

Kenneth Chang

For the first time since 1972, an American-built spacecraft is on the moon’s surface.

For the first time in a half-century, an American-built spacecraft has landed on the moon.

The robotic lander was the first U.S. vehicle on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, the closing chapter in humanity’s astonishing achievement of sending people to the moon and bringing them all back alive. That is a feat that has not been repeated or even tried since.

The lander, named Odysseus and a bit bigger than a telephone booth, arrived in the south polar region of the moon at 6:23 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday.

The landing time came and went in silence as flight controllers waited to hear confirmation of success. A brief communication pause was expected, but minutes passed.

Then Tim Crain, the chief technology officer of Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that built Odysseus, reported that a faint signal from the spacecraft had been detected.

“It’s faint, but it’s there,” he said. “So stand by, folks. We’ll see what’s happening here.”

A short while later, he announced, “What we can confirm, without a doubt, is our equipment is on the surface of the moon and we are transmitting. So congratulations.”

Later, he added, “Houston, Odysseus has found its new home.”

But with the spacecraft’s ability to properly communicate still unclear, the celebration of clapping and high-fives in the mission control center was muted.

Later in the evening, the company reported more promising news.

“After troubleshooting communications, flight controllers have confirmed Odysseus is upright and starting to send data,” Intuitive Machines said in a statement. “Right now, we are working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface.”

While this venture was much more modest than the Apollo missions that led to astronauts walking on the moon, the hope at NASA was that it could help inaugurate a more revolutionary era: transportation around the solar system that is economical as far as spaceflight is concerned.

“I think it is a smart thing that NASA is trying to do,” said Carissa Christensen, chief executive of BryceTech, a space consulting firm, “which is to essentially create a competitive ecosystem of providers to meet its needs.”

Intuitive Machines is one of several small companies that NASA has hired to transport instruments that will perform reconnaissance on the moon’s surface ahead of the return of NASA astronauts there, planned for later this decade .

For this mission, NASA paid Intuitive Machines $118 million under a program known as Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, to deliver six instruments to the moon, including a stereo camera that aimed to capture the billowing of dust kicked up by Odysseus as it approached the surface and a radio receiver to measure the effects of charged particles on radio signals.

There was also cargo from other customers, like a camera built by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., and an art project by Jeff Koons. Parts of the spacecraft were wrapped in reflective material made by Columbia Sportswear.

Odysseus left Earth early on Feb. 15 aboard a SpaceX rocket. It pulled into lunar orbit on Wednesday.

The lead-up to the landing included last-minute shuffling.

After the spacecraft entered lunar orbit, Intuitive Machines said it would land on the moon at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday. On Thursday morning, the company said the spacecraft had moved to a higher altitude and would land at 4:24 p.m.

Then on Thursday afternoon, the landing time changed again, with the company saying that an extra lap around the moon would be needed before the 6:24 p.m. landing attempt. A company spokesman said a laser instrument on the spacecraft that was to provide data on its altitude and velocity was not working.

The extra orbit provided two hours for changes in the spacecraft’s software to substitute a different, experimental laser instrument, which had been provided by NASA.

At 6:11 p.m., Odysseus fired its engine to begin its powered descent to the surface. The laser instrument appeared to serve as a suitable fill-in, and everything appeared to be working until the spacecraft went silent for several minutes.

The landing site for Odysseus was a flat area near the Malapert A crater, about 185 miles north of the moon’s south pole. The moon’s polar regions have attracted much interest in recent years because of frozen water hidden in the shadows of craters there.

Getting to the moon has proved to be a tricky feat to pull off. Other than the United States, only the government space programs of the Soviet Union, China, India and Japan have successfully put robotic landers on the moon’s surface. Two companies — Ispace of Japan and Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh — had previously tried and failed, as has an Israeli nonprofit, SpaceIL.

In an interview before launch, Steve Altemus, the chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said he hoped NASA would persevere with the moon-on-a-budget mindset even if Odysseus crashed.

“It’s the only way to really go forward,” he said. “That’s what this experiment is supposed to do.”

In the past, NASA would have built its own spacecraft.

Before Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon, NASA sent a series of robotic spacecraft, Surveyor 1 through Surveyor 7, to validate landing techniques and examine the properties of the lunar soil. Those robotic landings allayed concerns that astronauts and spacecraft would sink into a thick layer of fine dust on the moon’s surface.

But when NASA designs and operates spacecraft itself, it generally seeks to maximize the odds of success, and its designs tend to be expensive.

The Apollo moon landings from 1969 to 1972 became a paradigm for a colossal program that tackled a problem nearly impossible to solve with a near-limitless budget — the proverbial moonshot — while CLPS seeks to harness the enthusiasm and ingenuity of start-up entrepreneurs.

Thomas Zurbuchen , a former top NASA science official who started the CLPS program in 2018 , estimated that a robotic lunar lander designed, built and operated in the traditional NASA manner would cost $500 million to $1 billion, or at least five times as much the space agency paid Intuitive Machines.

NASA hopes that capitalism and competition — with companies proposing different approaches — will spur innovation and lead to new capabilities at lower costs.

But even if they succeed, these companies face uncertain business prospects attracting many customers beyond NASA and other space agencies.

“It’s not obvious who those other customers might be,” Ms. Christensen said.

Intuitive Machines has contracts for two more CLPS missions, and other companies are expected to take their shots at the moon, too. Astrobotic Technology, the Pittsburgh-based company, has a second mission in preparation to take a robotic NASA rover to one of the shadowed regions where there might be ice. Firefly Aerospace, near Austin, Texas, has its Blue Ghost lander mostly ready but has not yet announced a launch date.

Why did the bill to NASA grow by tens of millions of dollars?

In May 2019, NASA announced that it would pay Intuitive Machines $77 million to send five payloads to the moon.

Intuitive Machines and other companies in its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS, have signed fixed-price contracts to deliver NASA payloads to the moon. Such contracts mean that if something goes wrong and costs increase, generally it is the companies, and not NASA, that would cover the difference.

But by the time Intuitive Machines made it to the moon on Thursday, NASA said it was paying the company nearly $118 million, an increase of close to 50 percent. What happened?

The main reason is that NASA changed its mind about where it wanted to go and how much it wanted to send. That is like remodeling your home and then deciding midway through the project that you want a fancier bathroom. The contractor is going to charge you for that.

NASA originally wanted Intuitive Machines send its Odysseus mission land in an easier-to-reach spot in the equatorial region of the moon called Oceanus Procellarum. It is a huge, scientifically intriguing dark spot on the near side of the moon.

However, with future missions that will take astronauts toward the moon’s south pole region, NASA wanted the Intuitive Machines lander to take an early look. Thus, NASA asked Intuitive Machines to change the landing site for Odysseus to a location near a crater named Malapert A, the farthest south that any lunar lander had targeted. That change cost an extra $28.4 million.

NASA also added almost $12 million to compensate for disruptions that companies experienced during the coronavirus pandemic and for changes in what it was sending on the mission.

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Michael Roston

Michael Roston

In a post on the social media site X, Intuitive Machines just announced that “Odysseus is upright and starting to send data.” The company said it is working on bringing the spacecraft’s first images from the moon’s surface to Earth.

Tim Fernholz

Tim Fernholz

The entrepreneur who helped start Intuitive Machines has more plans for private space exploration.

Much of the American space program is run out of nondescript offices in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. That’s where Kam Ghaffarian, the billionaire space entrepreneur, could be found recently on an auspicious day. Exactly 47 years before, he had immigrated to the United States from Iran. Mr. Ghaffarian, 66, sat at a table made of gently glowing white onyx, also from Iran.

Just a few weeks later, Mr. Ghaffarian’s company, Intuitive Machines, did something no private organization has ever done: Touched down softly on the surface of the moon .

Mr. Ghaffarian specializes in moonshots. His array of companies includes not just the one that sent a lander to the moon on Thursday, but also one building a space station to put in orbit around the Earth, another designing advanced nuclear reactors, a venture fund and a nonprofit studying faster-than-light travel technology. His projects are the kind that Silicon Valley frets about having given up on. They are bets on tangible technology, not software, where metrics like hits and clicks are replaced with the hard questions of physics.

And while bombastic billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have captured attention for their efforts to launch futuristic reusable rockets, the lower-profile Mr. Ghaffarian’s companies have helped answer the question of what to do with them, becoming crucial in the increasingly close partnership between NASA and private industry. SpaceX’s key innovation has been building rockets that have brought down the cost of going to space. Mr. Ghaffarian’s firms are using those cheap rockets to commercialize space activity in ways that Mr. Musk’s SpaceX hasn’t pursued, while Mr. Bezos’ Blue Origin has yet to reach orbit.

Mr. Ghaffarian is a believer in that public-private model. “If you look at cars or planes and all of that, there were entrepreneurs who created that and changed the game, right?” he said. “What comes to mind is Henry Ford or Howard Hughes.”

In a post on the social network X, Thomas Zurbuchen, the former NASA official who helped start the program that paid for the scientific devices aboard Odysseus, called the mission “a huge initial success for the landing, a true space and commercial milestone.” He wished Intuitive Machines and NASA officials luck as they sought scientific results and data from the mission.

The next spacecraft heading to the moon could be from China.

After Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander, the next spacecraft to head to the moon may be Chang’e-6 from China, which will try to add to the country’s cache of lunar rocks and soil.

The China National Space Administration has announced that the launch is scheduled for sometime during the first half of this year. Chang’e-6 is essentially a repeat of Chang’e-5 , which in 2020 returned the first set of moon samples to Earth since the 1970s, though they were from a different part of the moon.

Chang’e-5 landed at Mons Rümker, a volcanic plain on the near side of the moon. Mons Rümker is much younger than the sites investigated by NASA’s Apollo astronauts and the Soviet Union’s Luna robotic landers, which also returned rock samples to Earth. Planetary samples were keen to perform precise dating based on radioactive elements in the rocks. Using that data helps calibrate techniques for estimating the ages of geological surfaces on planets, moons and asteroids throughout the solar system.

The destination for Chang’e-6 is a spot on the far side of the moon within the 1,500-mile-wide South Pole-Aitken basin, the scar of an immense impact more than 4 billion years ago. Planetary scientists speculate that the impact might have been so violent that some of the moon’s mantle, usually located miles under the crust, could have been ejected onto the surface.

Chinese scientists expect to find rocks of a wide range of ages at the landing site.

China has more ambitious moon plans. It has announced that it is aiming to land its astronauts on the moon by 2030 and that it wants to build a lunar base near the south pole. So far, all of the Chinese lunar missions have succeeded — a stark contrast to the struggles of others aiming to land on the moon.

There are more private landers headed to the moon.

Whatever the state of Intuitive Machines’ spacecraft on the surface of the moon, it certainly will not be the last private company to try to get there. In fact, following this mission, it may even be the next company to try again.

A second Intuitive Machines mission aims to send a lander of the same design as Odysseus to another site near the south pole, not far from the 13-mile-wide Shackleton Crater, where water ice may be found below the surface. This lander, which is also part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, will carry three technology demonstrations for NASA, including a drill that will attempt to bore three feet into the ground.

Ispace, a Japanese company, failed on its first landing attempt in 2023. Its second moon mission will uses a lander nearly identical to the one that crashed, with fixes to its software to avoid another crash. It will carry a small rover.

Astrobotic, which tried and failed to reach the moon earlier this year, is currently scheduled to carry VIPER, a NASA rover costing more than $400 million, to the south pole region later in 2024. Given that VIPER requires a new, larger lander and that Astrobotic remains unproven at landing on the moon, NASA could decide to delay the mission, which will play a key role in exploring the permanently shadowed craters before its astronauts explore them during future missions.

Another company joining the rush to the moon is Firefly of Cedar Park, Texas. It is planning to launch its Blue Ghost lunar lander on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the middle of this year.

As with the Intuitive Machines mission, NASA is the primary customer for the Firefly flight, paying Firefly at least $93 million under the CLPS program to take 10 instruments weighing about 330 pounds to Mare Crisium, a dark volcanic plain on the near side of the moon.

Mr. Crain said Odysseus is definitely on the moon and operating but it remains to be seen whether the mission can achieve its objectives.

Tim Crain, the chief technology officer who is leading mission control, said, “We’re not dead yet,” referencing a line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He said they are receiving a faint signal from the spacecraft’s high-gain antenna.

It’s possible that Odysseus has crashed. It’s also possible there’s just a communications glitch.

Flight controllers are going through the last data they received, looking for clues about whether it’s a communications glitch or a more serious issue. Three minutes have passed since the expected landing time.

Still waiting to hear from the spacecraft.

A short interruption in communications was expected.

The expected time of landing has come and passed. Now flight controllers wait for the spacecraft to get back in touch.

The lander is deciding where it will land. Less than one minute.

The lander has performed the “pitchover” maneuver to a vertical orientation needed for a safe landing

There is a long pause after a request for the altitude.

Two minutes until touchdown.

Three minutes until landing time.

Even if the landing is successful, it’ll take a little bit — from 15 seconds to several minutes — before confirmation that it is safe on the surface. A short hiccup in communications after landing would not be necessarily worrisome.

The propulsion system is operating properly.

10 minutes until planned landing time.

Everything seems to be going well so far as we watch an animation of the landing.

The Odysseus lander has started its power descent. This is a 11-minute engine burn to slow down from 4,000 miles per hour. It is now on a path of no return to the lunar surface.

A mixed record for moon landings this year.

So far in 2024, humanity is one-for-two when it comes to landings of robotic spacecraft on the moon, though even the successful one, by JAXA, the Japanese space agency, was not quite perfect.

The Japanese spacecraft, Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, launched in September. Taking a long, slow but fuel-efficient path to the moon, it fired its engines to head to the surface on Jan. 19.

The main mission of SLIM was to test a vision-based navigation system and efficient computing algorithms, each designed to set the spacecraft within about 100 yards of a desired landing site. That is much better accuracy than technology on earlier spacecraft, where the uncertainty could be many miles.

JAXA officials said that SLIM’s technology appears to have met its objectives for a precision landing, with the spacecraft arriving intact at the surface. Japan thus became the fifth nation to successfully put a spacecraft on the moon.

But, just before landing, about 150 feet above the lunar surface, one of SLIM’s two main engines appears to have failed. The other engine attempted to compensate, but SLIM ended up tipping into an awkward position, with its engine nozzle pointed upward to space.

SLIM was still able to send radio signals back to Earth, telling JAXA officials that it had arrived. But its solar panels were facing the wrong direction, away from the sun, and the battery ran out of power less than three hours after landing.

As the sun shifted and struck its solar panels nine Earth days later, SLIM revived. The spacecraft was able to take some photographs and perform some measurements on nearby rocks before the sun set and SLIM again fell silent.

Another mission’s outcome was more clear-cut.

On Jan. 8, a lunar lander built by Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh headed to space carrying payloads for NASA, much like Intuitive Machines’s lander. But soon after it separated from its rocket, the lander suffered a major malfunction of its propulsion system.

As a result, it never even got close to the moon. Instead, when it swung back toward Earth, it ended up burning up in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.

Intuitive Machines said the original laser instrument it planned to rely on for guidance during descent is not working. The two-hour delay from the extra orbit allowed the uploading of updated software to use a LIDAR instrument provided by NASA instead. NASA's LIDAR instrument was intended to be experimental, not operational but it turns out to be a very handy backup.

What will happen as Odysseus tries to land on the moon.

Intuitive Machines had a landing plan for Odysseus that it announced in recent weeks. In the past day, that plan has changed substantially.

It started with an engine burn last night, which shifted the spacecraft to an elliptical orbit.

That adjusted orbit moved up the landing time but then flight controllers decided to make an extra orbit around the moon, pushing the landing time back by two hours.

At 6:11 p.m. Eastern time, the engine on Odysseus will start up again, and the spacecraft will begin its powered descent, slowing itself down. This will be the point of no return, and the spacecraft will be operating entirely on its own.

At 6:22 p.m., it will pivot to a vertical position.

Odysseus will track its position through a camera, matching the patterns of craters with stored maps and measuring its altitude. During the broadcast covering the landing, an Intuitive Machines spokesman said flight controllers decided to use a NASA lidar instrument to provide guidance and navigation during descent instead of a laser altimeter on the spacecraft.

Sensors will look for a safe spot, away from boulders and steep slopes.

For the last 50 feet or so of the descent, Odysseus will rely solely on its inertial measurement units, which act as the spacecraft’s inner ear, measuring the forces of acceleration. It will stop using the camera and the altitude-measuring laser to avoid being fooled by dust kicked up by the engine’s exhaust.

Intuitive Machines expects a 15-second delay after touchdown before it will be able to determine whether it is the first private company to land successfully on the moon.

It should be 6:24 p.m.

NASA and Intuitive Machines have started a joint video stream from Houston, where the company has its headquarters. You can watch it in the video player embedded above, and watch Times journalists here for analysis of the moon landing attempt over the next 90 minutes.

Intuitive Machines has not publicly given a reason about why it decided Odysseus needed to make an extra orbit around the moon, delaying the landing by two hours. This is pure speculation but it’s conceivable that the additional orbit would pass closer to the desired landing site, or perhaps flight controllers felt they needed more time for preparations or troubleshooting. There is no downside to waiting a little bit longer.

How Odysseus will take selfies while it lands.

When Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander is still about 100 feet over the surface of the moon, it will eject a small box.

That box is EagleCam, a system of cameras built by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. As it falls to the surface, the device will snap photos of Odysseus landing on the moon's surface — a sort of space selfie.

If it works, it will be the first student-built project to operate on the moon.

The $350,000 project resulted from a visit to Embry-Riddle in 2019 by the chief executive of Intuitive Machines, Steve Altemus, who is an alumnus of the university.

Mr. Altemus challenged the students to build a payload “with the goal of taking the first third-person view of a spacecraft landing,” said Troy Henderson, a professor of aerospace engineering. “So that was the starting point.”

During the final descent of Odysseus on Thursday, a spring will push EagleCam away from the spacecraft, and as the instrument falls — it will track its motion but lacks any propulsion to turn or move itself — three cameras with wide fields of view will be taking pictures.

“No matter what happens, if we slide or tumble or anything like that, one of those three cameras will see the lander,” Dr. Henderson said.

Even after EagleCam hits the ground at about 25 miles per hour, it should continue taking photographs. The students performed drop tests of a model of EagleCam into a sand pit with several inches of material simulating lunar soil on top. The test version survived.

“We’re pretty confident that we’ll be OK,” Dr. Henderson said.

One key to the success of EagleCam is that Odysseus has to land in operating condition, too. The Embry-Riddle device will send the photos to the lander, which will then relay them to Earth.

It was not a simple project.

“We were in the throes of design during Covid,” said Christopher Hays, a doctoral student who served as the lead engineer for EagleCam. “So how did we adapt to design a camera that was going to the moon while we were all on Zoom at our houses?”

The pandemic disrupted supply chains, adding more challenges. “We actually ordered a pack of screws from a company, and it came in nine months later,” Mr. Hays recalled. “Some of our initial budgets were off.”

There was also continual turnover as students graduated. “Then we had to kind of backfill and make sure that the new students knew what they were doing,” Mr. Hays said.

As landing approached, Mr. Hays said he was excited and confident. “There’s a peace knowing that it’s kind of out of our hands now,” he said. “We just have to trust the system to do what it’s built to do.”

Within a few hours after landing, Mr. Hays expects to find out how EagleCam did and, he hopes, see the photos it took.

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of the EagleCam’s lead engineer. It is Hays, not Hayes.

How we handle corrections

A quick flight to the moon for Odysseus.

On Feb. 15, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sent Odysseus on a trajectory toward the moon. The journey was short by the standards of recent lunar missions, which took more gradual, fuel efficient journeys to the moon. India’s successful Chandrayaan-3 mission traveled for more than a month, and the journey of Japan’s SLIM mission lasted more than four months before reaching the lunar surface in January.

After Odysseus separated from its rocket, it successfully turned itself on. An initial engine burn to test the propulsion system was postponed because the liquid oxygen propellant took longer to chill down than ground-based tests had predicted.

Time lapse of a 5 ¾ hour journey: @Int_Machines IM-1 lunar lander #Odysseus and the tumbling #Falcon9 upper stage a distance of almost 290,000 km. Recorded from our station in South America. pic.twitter.com/q1LUKX213F — s2a systems (@s2a_systems) February 17, 2024

Engineers adjusted the ignition procedures, and the burn was successfully performed on Feb. 16.

Along the way, the spacecraft transmitted photographs taken of both Earth and the moon.

Flight controllers fired the engine twice more, on Feb. 18 and Feb. 20, to fine-tune the spacecraft’s path to the moon. The second effort was precise enough that the flight controllers decided to skip a planned third correction.

Odysseus is now in a circular orbit above the surface of the moon. It had been 57 miles up, but Intuitive Machines said on Thursday morning that it had raised the spacecraft’s orbit to a higher altitude, which it did not specify. Then on Thursday afternoon, it announced the spacecraft needed to take another lap around the moon before heading to the surface at a later hour.

If the company sticks to the current plan, about an hour before the scheduled landing time of 6:24 p.m. Eastern time, a final command will start the lander’s journey toward the surface.

When will Odysseus actually land on the moon? We keep getting surprised. Intuitive Machines just shared an update that the landing time is now scheduled for 6:24 p.m. Eastern time. The company had originally said 5:49 p.m., then 5:30 p.m. Then an update this morning said it was moved up to 4:24 p.m., perhaps because the spacecraft ended up in an orbit lower than what had been planned, and was moving faster than anticipated. Now, flight controllers decided to circle the moon one additional time before landing.

On the moon’s south pole, a quest for ice.

If you want to send astronauts to the moon, a place with water would be a good destination.

Obviously, humans need to drink water to survive, and water molecules can be split into hydrogen and oxygen. Oxygen provides air to breathe, and hydrogen and oxygen can also be used as rocket propellants to return home to Earth, or to travel somewhere else in the solar system.

But water is heavy, and lugging it from Earth is expensive and inconvenient.

The rocks brought back by NASA’s Apollo astronauts from 1969 through 1972 suggested that the moon was completely dry. But then, planetary scientists started seeing hints of water ice at the bottom of craters in the polar regions where the sun never shines. India’s first lunar orbiter, Chandrayaan-1 , collected some of the data that confirmed the presence of water.

An armada of missions headed to the lunar south pole aim to measure how much water is contained in the shadowed craters and how difficult it would be to extract it. (It could be very difficult if the water molecules are trapped within minerals, rather than as ice mixed in with the soil.)

Layers of ice in the craters could also provide a history of the solar system, much like how ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica provide a record of Earth’s climate.

Why private companies are aiming for the moon.

Where you might just see gray rocks, soil and craters on the moon, entrepreneurs see profit. And whatever happens during Thursday’s landing attempt, expect more companies to race toward the moon in the years ahead.

NASA is looking to send astronauts to the moon in the coming years, and robotic spacecraft will go there first. The space agency is financing a number of commercial missions through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS. The program is modeled on NASA’s successful effort to rely on private companies for trips to and from the International Space Station.

For NASA, buying rides on private spacecraft to take instruments and equipment to the moon is cheaper than building its own vehicles. NASA also hopes to spur a new commercial industry around the moon.

So far, however, NASA has little to show for its efforts. Some of the companies that NASA had selected to bid for CLPS missions have already gone out of business. And Astrobotic of Pittsburgh’s first CLPS flight failed on its way to the moon last month.

The dream of a delivery service to the moon is not a new one.

In 2007, the X Prize Foundation announced a competition offering a $20 million grand prize to the first nongovernment-funded business or organization that could get a spacecraft to the surface of the moon and have it successfully perform a few tasks: moving 500 meters, or 1,640 feet, to a second location, and beaming data and video back to Earth.

Eleven years later, the competition ended without any of the teams even attempting a launch . Some of the X Prize teams like Astrobotic and Ispace, the parent company of the Japanese Hakuto team, continued, believing that they could develop a profitable business without the prize money.

Among other ambitious business ideas: mining the moon for helium-3 for future fusion power plants on Earth. Rare earth metals used in electronics could also potentially be extracted from lunar soil and rocks.

A layer of lunar protection that doubles as winter wear on Earth.

What does a winter coat have in common with a lunar lander?

For Columbia Sportswear, the apparel company with headquarters in Portland, Ore., the answer is that it makes a material used in both.

About a decade ago, the snow gear maker was inspired by the kinds of heat blankets that are wrapped around NASA spacecraft to reflect heat from the sun. But Columbia’s shiny gold-colored Omni-Heat lining does the opposite of the NASA protectors, reflecting body heat back to the wearer of the coat.

Intuitive Machines approached Columbia Sportswear to be a sponsor of the robotic lunar mission that is to land on the moon Thursday afternoon. In conversations, Intuitive Machines officials realized that Columbia made something they could use for their spacecraft. Like NASA, Intuitive Machines needed to make sure its spacecraft did not overheat when it was in bathed in sunlight. The Omni-Heat lining ended up wrapped around parts of the spacecraft’s exterior.

“It was more or less serendipitous,” Tim Boyle, the chief executive of Columbia Sportswear, said. “Hey, listen, we think we can help you guys with this thing.”

Columbia employees in Portland will gather to watch the landing. “We’ve got a full-size lunar lander in a conference room,” Mr. Boyle said. “We’re going to have a big party there. We’re going to be serving champagne and cake.”

Will Columbia start selling its lining to other spacecraft manufacturers too?

“This is sort of a new development in terms of how these technologies that we’ve developed could be used in other places,” Mr. Boyle said. “We’re pretty much an apparel company.”

But, he added: “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Zachary Small

Zachary Small

It’s not all rocket science: Jeff Koons packed sculptures aboard Odysseus.

The American artist Jeff Koons watched as a SpaceX rocket carrying 125 of his miniature moon sculptures and other cargo departed from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week.

“I grew up listening to President Kennedy speak about going to the moon,” Koons said in an interview before takeoff. “It gave our society a vision and drive that we could believe in ourselves and accomplish things.”

The artist said the project was inspired by his son Sean Koons, who approached him with the idea after seeing a proposal to send artworks to the moon. The project involved the digital arts and technology company NFMoon and the space exploration company 4Space, as well as support from Pace Gallery.

The moons are named after inspiring historical figures. “Leonardo da Vinci, Ada Lovelace, Plato, Billie Holiday,” Koons said, as he listed examples.

This is the cargo being carried by the Odysseus moon lander.

The Odysseus spacecraft is hexagonal in shape with six landing legs, standing about 14 feet tall and five feet wide. For fans of “Dr. Who,” the science fiction television show, the body of the lander is roughly the size of the Tardis, the time-traveling spacecraft that, on the outside, looks like an old British police telephone booth.

NASA is the main customer for the Intuitive Machines flight, paying the company $118 million to deliver six instruments to the lunar surface. They are:

A laser retroreflector array to bounce back laser beams fired from lunar orbit. That will act as a precise location marker for Odysseus. During the Apollo missions, astronauts left similar retroreflectors on the moon.

A LIDAR instrument will precisely measure the spacecraft’s altitude and velocity as it descends to the surface. LIDAR is similar to radar, except that it uses laser light instead of radio waves.

A stereo camera will capture video of the plume of dust kicked up by the lander’s engines during landing.

A low-frequency radio receiver will measure the effects of charged particles near the lunar surface on radio signals. That will provide information that could aid the design of future radio observatories on the lunar surface.

The Lunar Node-1 navigation beacon seeks to demonstrate an autonomous navigation system.

The lander’s propellant tank includes a NASA instrument that uses radio waves to measure how much propellant remains in the tank.

The lander is also carrying a few other payloads, including a camera built by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla.; a precursor instrument for a future moon telescope; and an art project by Jeff Koons .

A U.S.-built spacecraft lands on the moon for the first time in half a century.

For the first time in more than 50 years, an American spacecraft has landed on the moon.

The lander, named Odysseus, was built by Intuitive Machines of Houston. At 6:23 p.m. Eastern time the spacecraft touched the ground, making it the first privately built spacecraft to land on the lunar surface.

At first, Tim Crain, the mission director and Intuitive Machines’ chief technology officer, said it was uncertain if the spacecraft would be able to achieve its objectives, even though the spacecraft was on the moon and transmitting signals to Earth.

Still, in the face of that indeterminate outcome, Dr. Crain congratulated his colleagues in the flight control center at the company’s headquarters.

“Houston, Odysseus has found its new home,” Dr. Crain said.

The landing site was a flat area near the Malapert A crater, about 185 miles north of the moon’s south pole. The moon’s polar regions have attracted much interest in recent years because of water ice hidden in the shadows of craters there.

Odysseus left Earth early on Feb. 15 aboard a SpaceX rocket. It pulled into lunar orbit on Wednesday. About 12 minutes before landing on Thursday, it fired its engine to begin its descent to the surface.

From this point onward in the landing sequence, Odysseus was operating completely on its own, with flight controllers at Intuitive Machines’ control center powerless to change what happened.

To accomplish the landing, Intuitive Machines had to overcome late technical issues with the flight. During the coverage of the landing, a company spokesman said a laser instrument on the spacecraft that was to provide data on its altitude and velocity was not working.

That problem explained why the spacecraft took an extra orbit around the moon, which provided two hours for changes in the spacecraft’s software that allowed the use of an experimental NASA lidar instrument on the spacecraft instead.

The State Logo

SEC women’s basketball tournament schedule takes shape. Here’s South Carolina’s path

No. 1 South Carolina opens its postseason journey Friday as the top seed in the 2024 SEC Tournament.

The Gamecocks (29-0, 16-0 SEC) tip off at noon Friday against the winner of Thursday’s game between No. 8 seed Mississippi State and No. 9 Texas A&M.

The conference’s women’s basketball tournament begins Wednesday in Greenville at Bon Secours Wellness Arena. USC earned a double-bye as the conference’s top team. If the Gamecocks go 3-0 this weekend, they’ll win the program’s eighth ever tournament title — all under coach Dawn Staley.

SEC Tournament schedule

Wednesday, March 6

G1: No. 12 Kentucky vs. No. 13 Georgia, 11 a.m. (SEC Network)

G2: No. 11 Florida vs. No. 14 Missouri, 25 minutes after prior game ends (SEC Network)

Thursday, March 7

G3: No. 8 Mississippi State vs. No. 9 Texas A&M, noon (SEC Network)

G4: No. 5 Tennessee vs. Winner of G1, 25 minutes after prior game ends (SEC Network)

G5: No. 7 Auburn vs. No. 10 Arkansas, 6 p.m. (SEC Network)

G6: No. 6 Vanderbilt vs. Winner of G2, 25 minutes after prior game ends (SEC Network)

Friday, March 8

G7: No. 1 South Carolina vs. Winner of G3, noon (SEC Network)

G8: No. 4 Alabama vs. Winner of G4, 25 minutes after prior game ends (SEC Network)

G9: No. 2 LSU vs. Winner of G5, 6 p.m. (SEC Network)

G10: No. 3 Ole Miss vs. Winner of G6, 25 minutes after prior game ends (SEC Network)

Saturday, March 9

G11: Winner of G7 vs. Winner of G8, 4:30 p.m. (ESPNU)

G12: Winner of G9 vs. Winner of G10, 25 minutes after prior game ends (ESPNU)

Sunday, March 10

Championship: Winner of G11 vs. Winner of G12, 3 p.m. (ESPN)

The bracket

This story was originally published March 3, 2024, 5:16 PM.

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Jake Paul vs. Ryan Bourland fight results, highlights: 'The Problem Child' destroys foe for quick TKO

Paul continued his professional boxing journey by battering another 'pro fighter' on saturday night.

For the second consecutive outing, Jake Paul made light work of a "professional boxer." On Saturday night in Puerto Rico, Paul picked Ryan Bourland apart for a first-round TKO. Paul was light on his feet in the opening moments of the fight, firing off jabs that split Bourland's guard. The jabs opened up shots to Bourland's ribs as Bourland tried to chase down Paul to get his own offense rolling. Before Bourland had a chance to get anything going, Paul moved back to the head and landed right hands and left hooks, sending Bourland reeling.

Paul kept his foot on the gas until Bourland began to wilt in the corner, resulting in the referee calling a halt to the bout at the 2:37 mark of Round 1.

"I wanted it to be a little bit longer to give the fans some more time but I'm just so happy to be here in Puerto Rico," Paul said after the fight. "You all showed that love. I love it here. If you're not first, you're last. A little bit of shake and bake. Dodge his punches and put his sorry ass on the floor."

After the fight, Paul made a call for the biggest star in the sport to step up and face him.

"Hey, Canelo. Stop ducking," Paul said. "I know you want it. I'm repping Puerto Rico. You're repping Mexico. So it's Puerto Rico vs. Mexico."

Paul vs. Bourland was the chief support bout for Amanda Serrano's defense of her unified featherweight championship against Nina Meinke. Just prior to the Paul fight, online reports began to circulate saying Serrano would not be fighting due to an eye injury.

The injury was confirmed following Paul's bout, with both Serrano and Paul, who is Serrano's promoter, speaking to the crowd after those in attendance were told they would receive full refunds for their tickets.

"I came ready to fight 100 percent," Serrano said. "I came to show my fans and put on a great show. I can't because I had something wrong with my eye. I had my hair done as you can see. The doctor wouldn't clear me. I wanted to fight. I wanted to fight in front of my people."

Paul backed his fighter with his own comments.

"Amanda put in a hard camp but the doctor wouldn't let her fight," Paul said. "Her cornea was exposed. ... This happened super, super last minute. We did everything we could but her cornea is exposed and you can't risk losing your sight just for one fight."

CBS Sports was with you throughout the entire way on Saturday with the live results and highlights below. 

Fight card, results

  • Amanda Serrano (c) vs. Nina Meinke, Unified featherweight titles -- Fight canceled  
  • Jake Paul def. Ryan Bourland via first-round TKO
  • Jonathan Gonzalez (c) def. Rene Santiago via unanimous decision
  • Krystal Rosado def. Gloria Munguilla via majority decision

Jake Paul vs. Ryan Bourland -- Round 1:  Paul opened the fight pawing with a few jabs before a left hook missed. Paul did land a hook moments later before popping more jabs. Bourland tried to bull his way in before eating a few shots to the body. Paul continued to mix in those body shots while moving and forcing Bourland to chase. Paul's jab continued to do good work along with getting in some body shots. A right from Paul wobbled Bourland and more follow-up shots had Bourland reeling. Bourland wasn't firing back as Paul continued to land hard shots. Paul connected with an uppercut and more right hands as Bourland was stuck in the corner covering up. Finally, as Bourland began to slump down, the referee jumped in for the stoppage. Light work for Paul. Official result: Jake Paul def. Ryan Bourland via TKO, Round 1

According to an ESPN report, Amanda Serrano's main event fight may be off after something fell in her eye ahead of the fight. Updates are forthcoming.

Jonathan Gonzalez successfully defended his WBO junior flyweight title by unanimous decision over Rene Santiago in a competitive fight. That was the final bout ahead of the first of the night's two big fights. Up next: Jake Paul takes on Ryan Bourland in cruiserweight action. Speaking honestly, this should be light work for Paul.

Wanna Walton, who has had roles in many major shows, including HBO's "Euphoria," Prime's "Utopia," and Netflix's "The Umbrella Academy," but has been boxing since childhood, just had a bit of a setback. Walton, in his second bro bout, went to a majority draw with Joshua Torres, who entered at 0-1-1.

Scores were 39-37 Walton and 38-38 twice.

Hello and welcome to CBS Sports coverage of boxing live from Puerto Rico. It's a fun night on tap with both unified featherweight champion Amanda Serrano and her promoter Jake Paul in action. Serrano is set to defend her trio of titles on home soil for the first time since 2021 when she takes on Germany's Nina Meinke. Paul, meanwhile, takes on the unknown commodity of Ryan Bourland. 

There's plenty of other fights set for tonight, with some already ongoing, so be sure to check in all night for our coverage.

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Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 1 Episode 26 Release Date & Time on Crunchyroll

T he Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 1 Episode 26 release date and time have been revealed. The episode will air on Crunchyroll. An adaptation of the namesake manga series written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe, it follow Frieren and her new comrades as they explore the world to learn more about humanity.

Here’s when the episode is coming out.

When is the Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 1 Episode 26 release date and time?

The Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 1 Episode 26 release date is Friday, March 8, 2024.

The Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 1 Episode 26 release time (simulcast) is:

  • 8:00 a.m. PT
  • 11:00 a.m. ET
  • 4:00 p.m. GMT
  • 5:00 p.m. CET

Where to watch Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 1 Episode 26

Viewers can watch the upcoming episode on Crunchyroll.

To watch Episode 26, you can subscribe to Crunchyroll, which has three plans available to its viewers. The Fan Plan can be purchased for $7.99 monthly, the Mega Plan for $9.99, and the Ultimate Fan Plan for $14.99. All three plans have a 14-day free trial available at the start.

This fantasy adventure anime is an adaptation of the namesake manga series written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe. The story is about elven mage Frieren, who, years ago, embarked on a grand journey to defeat the Demon King as part of the Hero’s adventuring party. As her former human comrades, including the hero, start dying because of the inevitability of death, a grieving Frieren recognizes how fickle human existence is and sets out on a new adventure.

The official synopsis for Frieren: Beyond Journey's End reads:

"After the party of heroes defeated the Demon King, they restored peace to the land and returned to lives of solitude. Generations pass, and the elven mage Frieren comes face to face with humanity's mortality. She takes on a new apprentice and promises to fulfill old friends' dying wishes. Can an elven mind make peace with the nature of life and death? Frieren embarks on her quest to find out."

HBO Max March 2024 Schedule: New TV Shows & Movies Lineup

Hulu march 2024 schedule: new tv shows & movies lineup, disney plus march 2024 schedule: new tv shows & movies lineup, amazon prime video schedule february 26 – march 3 2024: new tv shows & movies being added.

The post Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 1 Episode 26 Release Date & Time on Crunchyroll appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More .

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 1 Episode 26 Release Date & Time on Crunchyroll

Comedian Shane Gillis' "Saturday Night Live" journey from firing to hosting, explained

In the comedian's first time hosting snl, he said “please, don’t google that,” about his 2019 firing, by nardos haile.

Five years ago, comedian Shane Gillis was fired from "Saturday Night Live" before he even stepped on the esteemed stage at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. But this past Saturday, he made his way back on the stage, not as a cast member but as a host.

The comedian's career first launched when he was kicked off the starting lineup of new cast members in 2019 for his resurfaced podcast clips that were deemed both racist and homophobic, using language that SNL called “offensive, hurtful and unacceptable.” Since this hiring and immediate firing, Gillis has created a successful comedy career with the Netflix comedy special "Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs" and a YouTube sketch comedy channel called "Gilly and Keeves" that has nearly a million subscribers and millions of views. Also, Netflix just recently acquired the comedian's independently produced sitcom "Tires."

Needless to say, even after Gillis' very public ousting at "SNL," his career has flourished enough that he was even invited back to host the show. So how did a cancelled comedian become the controversial celebrity comedian to host the respected late-night sketch comedy show?

Here's a timeline of the events from Gillis' firing to hosting:

September 11, 2019: Gillis is hired at "SNL"

When Gillis was hired at the show five years ago, he was joined with now current cast members Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman. The sketch comedy show has a wide array of talent from diverse backgrounds but the show was lauded for casting its first openly gay Asian American comedy, Yang being the first Chinese American cast member in its 50-year history.

A whole 24 hours after Yang's historic casting, a 2018 video of Gillis made its rounds online from his podcast "Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast" in which he called Asians by a racial slur. The video was reportedly removed after it was posted online. But NBC News said that the podcast host Matt McCusker and Gillis were talking about the origins of Chinatown. Gillis said that when the area was built people said "Let the f*****g c****k live there." Not only did Gillis drop a slur, he also mocked Chinese people's cuisine, accents and English-speaking abilities.

Not only did Gillis drop a slur, he also mocked Chinese people's cuisine, accents and English-speaking abilities.

In another podcast clip, the hosts complain about comedians like Judd Apatow and call them  “white f****t comics” and “f*****g gayer than ISIS.” He continued to generalize comedians by race, gender and sexuality by saying, “Black chicks are very funny, especially when they’re sassy . . . White chicks are literally the bottom. Ali Wong is making it so Asian chicks are funnier than white chicks.” 

Almost immediately, Gillis took to Twitter (now known as X) to address the controversy. In a now-deleted tweet, he said "I’m a comedian who pushes boundaries. I sometimes miss. If you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you’re going to find a lot of bad misses."

He continued, "I’m happy to apologize to anyone who’s actually offended by anything I’ve said. My intention is never to hurt anyone but I am trying to be the best comedian I can and sometimes that requires risks.”

Yang and other cast members stayed silent about the firing. In 2020, the comedian said to the New York Times , "The reason I didn’t comment on it was because there was a sense of opposition being created between the two of us, right? But a lot of it was invented because it wasn’t like he was making any comments about me specifically.”

September 16, 2019: SNL fires Gillis for "offensive" and "hurtful" language

Five days after the comedian was hired, a spokesperson for long-time "SNL" executive producer Lorne Michaels said that they would not be going forward with Gillis during season 45. The statement also apologized to its viewers because it flagged that Gillis's casting decision and vetting process "was not up to our standard," NBC News reported .

"We want SNL to have a variety of voices and points of view within the show, and we hired Shane on the strength of his talent as comedian and his impressive audition for SNL," the statement said. "We were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days. The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable."

After the statement and the firing, Gillis took to Twitter again to say that he was "a comedian that was funny enough to get SNL. That can't be taken away. Of course I wanted an opportunity to prove myself on SNL, but I understand it would be too much of a distraction. I respect the decision they made."

2021-2023: Gillis releases his Netflix special "Beautiful Dogs" and his career takes off

After the firing, Gillis went on podcasts like " The Joe Rogan Experience ," openly embraced by conservatives, and said that he told "SNL" about the tone of comedy and podcast. Gillis said that Michaels asked him about his work, Gillis said he had a podcast in which, “I say like gay and retard a lot.” According to Gillis, “They were like, ‘Ah, that’s fine, don’t worry about it.’”

His career did not slow down post-"SNL" firing either — it only ramped up. At the center of culture wars and the anti-cancel culture brigade, Gillis' standup was widely received on Netflix. His controversial standup special, "Beautiful Dogs" had a lengthy run on the streamer’s Top 10 in five countries and spent two weeks US Top 10 list. 

The special is said to be walking the line between satirizing conservatives and playing to them, the New York Times reported. Gillis' YouTube, "Gilly and Keeves," where he is seen dressed up as former president Donald Trump in a seemingly mocking way has nearly a million subscribers and a couple million hits per video.

February 4, 2024: Gillis is announced as a host for "SNL"

However, a couple of weeks ago "SNL" announced its Feb. 23 host was Gillis, which came as a surprise to some people. Comments under the Instagram post show varied responses around his return with many angered that Gillis was allowed back, especially during Black History Month.

An actor Jeff Locker said in the comments, "So SNL invites a transphobe up to the stage last week, a presidential candidate who espouses anti-LGBTQ hate on tonight, and next week a guy who got fired from SNL for making racist Asian jokes. This while you have one of the biggest breakout stars in years in Bowen Yang. I've loved SNL my whole life, but JFC Lorne, WTF are you doing? This is not f'ing ok."

Another said, "Bout to be the highest SNL views in a long time 😂"

February 23: Gillis makes his "SNL" debut 

Despite all the blowback and praise that Gillis finally got his shot on the "SNL" stage, Gillis had an interesting night as a host. In his dicey open monologue, he addressed his firing and made jokes about his Black niece, Down syndrome and being the gay best friend to his mother. Some critics think Gillis bombed terribly  and others think it was a thoughtful redemption .

Out the gate, Gillis began, “Yeah, I’m here. Most of you probably have no idea who I am. I was actually — I was fired from this show a while ago. But if, you know, don’t look that up, please, if you don’t know who I am. Please, don’t Google that. It’s fine. Don’t even worry about it.”

He continued frankly, "probably shouldn’t be up here, honestly." He then talked about how members of his family have Down syndrome, “It almost got me,” he said “I dodged it, but it nicked me. It nicked me.” The studio audience's reaction was delayed and awkward, “Look, I don’t have any material that can be on TV, all right? I’m trying my best. Also, this place is extremely well-lit. I can see everyone not enjoying it. This is the most nervous I’ve ever been.”

Gillis said that talking about Down syndrome can make people uncomfortable, but his family members are “doing better than everybody I know — they’re the only ones having a good time, pretty consistently. They’re not worried about the election. They’re having a good time.”

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He added, “I thought that was going to get a bigger laugh. I thought we were allowed to have fun here.”

Gillis joked about his sister, who he said had adopted three Black children and has a daughter with Down syndrome. He joked that if his niece is older and bullied by a white student, “And then three Black kids coming flying out of nowhere, start whaling on that cracker."

Later on in the episode, Yang who was missing during most skits, played an HR manager with Fineman, the rest of the cast and Gillis.

The episode was met with mixed reactions from fans and critics, with people online raving that "the magical thing about Shane Gillis is that his liberal fans think he’s a leftist using shock humor to deliver progressive messages and his conservative fans think he’s a rebellious edgelord who’s triggering the libs when in reality he’s just a dude bein a guy."

Another saying , "Well, Shane Gillis is still racist and unfunny. Big shock.  @nbcsnl  really dropped the ball. One of the worst opening monologues ever."

about Shane Gillis

  • New "SNL" cast member Shane Gillis counters backlash to racist, homophobic comments with non-apology
  • Shane Gillis fired from "Saturday Night Live," robbing world of racist, homophobic originality
  • Even without Shane Gillis, "SNL" has always been a conservative show

Nardos Haile is a staff writer at Salon covering culture. She’s previously covered all things entertainment, music, fashion and celebrity culture at The Associated Press. She resides in Brooklyn, NY.

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Priyanka Chopra Shares Photos of Daughter Malti's Journey from Birth to Present Day: 'Time Flies'

The actress looked back on when her now 2-year-old daughter was born in a sweet post shared on Instagram

first time journey

Priyanka Chopra/Instagram

Priyanka Chopra Jonas is feeling nostalgic over her daughter Malti Marie .

On Monday, the proud mom, 41, took to Instagram to reflect on her parenthood journey while sharing some adorable photos of her 2-year-old daughter, whom she shares with husband Nick Jonas .

In the first sweet snap, the Quantico actress cuddled Malti while smiling for the camera, while in the second throwback snap, a newborn Malti placed her tiny hand on her mom's face.

"Time really flies. 😇🙏🏽🥹 starting the week right. #mondaymusings #nostalgia," the star captioned the post.

Priyanka and Nick, 31, welcomed Malti, their first baby together, on Jan. 15, 2022. The little one spent her first 100 days in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) after being delivered a full trimester before her due date .

While speaking about the difficult time in British Vogue 's February 2023 issue, Priyanka admitted, "I didn't know if she would make it or not."

Priyanka Chopra Jonas Instagram

"I was in the OR [operating room] when she came out. She was so small, smaller than my hand," she shared at the time. "I saw what the intensive-care nurses do. They do God's work. Nick and I were both standing there as they intubated her. I don't know how they even found what they needed [in her tiny body] to intubate her."

The couple made daily visits to the NICU, first at Rady Children's Hospital in La Jolla, California, and later at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, for the first few months. "We spent every single day with her on my chest, on my husband's chest," she continued.

Malti was released from the hospital just in time for Priyanka's first Mother's Day in May 2022, and Jonas marked the special occasion with an emotional Instagram post.

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"On this Mother's Day we can't help but reflect on these last few months and the rollercoaster we've been on, which we now know, so many people have also experienced," his caption read in part. "After 100 plus days in the NICU, our little girl is finally home. Every family's journey is unique and requires a certain level of faith, and while ours was a challenging few months, what becomes abundantly clear, in retrospect, is how precious and perfect every moment is."

Earlier this month, Priyanka shared an insight into her little girl's personality as she posted a shot of her giggling in a ball pit on Instagram.

"R u kidding me?! 🥹😍 @maltimarie is such a champ. She surprises me everyday [sic]. Fearless and spontaneous. Grateful and curious," she wrote of her daughter, explaining that the picture was taken after Malti had "climbed up this slide all by herself and launched herself off on her TUMMY, down the slide landing into the ball pit in a fit of laughter and unbridled joy."

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These Historic Rail Journeys From New York City Revive the Golden Age of Travel

By Hannah Towey

Image may contain Nature Outdoors Scenery City Water Waterfront Architecture Building Cityscape and Urban

Train lovers everywhere wait all year for Hudson River Rail's annual excursions that allow passengers to relive the historic splendor of the 20th Century Limited express passenger train, once billed as the “most famous train in the world.” The popular rail journeys sell out every year—and last year, tickets were snapped up in minutes.

Why? Traveling up the Hudson River in two restored vintage train cars, passengers are transported back in time to the 1940s and 50s, when movie stars and presidents boarded the train via red carpet. The scenic train trips follow the original New York Central Railroad main line between Manhattan and Albany, about an eight-hour round trip.

For those looking to experience the golden age of travel themselves, the United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey has just released the 2024 Hudson River Rail schedule with departures slated from April through July, as well as in October and November (ideal for catching views of fall foliage ).

Image may contain Nature Outdoors Scenery Railway Train Transportation Vehicle Road Plant and Vegetation

The popular Hudson River Rail day trips travel up the Hudson River between New York City and Albany.

Passengers can choose from two classes of service, both of which include lunch and drinks. The luxurious observation lounge, named the Hickory Creek, was the the rearmost—and most exclusive—car on the 20th Century Limited, and is the last-remaining car from the original train. It's since been meticulously restored to its historic appearance, from the signature oversized windows to the vintage carpeting and furniture. If you can't nab one of Hickory Creek's dozen or so seats, then Tavern Lounge No. 43, a lounge car first built in 1947, offers a more affordable alternative to experience the historic route. With seats facing inward and plenty of room to meander, drink, and chat, both of the cars foster a refreshingly social atmosphere on board.

In addition to the day trips from New York City's Penn Station to Albany, this year will premier two new offerings, including overnight itineraries between Chicago and New York. During four one-way and roundtrip journeys in June and July, passengers will sleep aboard the train's historic Pullman Sleeping Cars, indulge in multi-course meals cooked on-board by a private chef, and enjoy the open bar service available throughout the trip.

For the history buffs out there, the 2024 schedule includes a new variation on the classic day trip excursion: the Hudson Valley History Tour. The excursions, slated in May, October, and November, offer a fully narrated tour of the Hudson River Valley in partnership with the National Park Service’s Trails & Rails program.

Tickets go on sale March 15 at 10 a.m., with day trip prices ranging from $179 to $399. The overnight journeys between New York and Chicago are $1,600 for a one-way trip and $3,200 for a round trip.

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