Flying with my two children from the UK to the US this year was something I was looking forward to, but at the same time I was stressing out about what to do for 8 hours in such a confined space. We were quite lucky, because the airline we flew with had individual televisions in each seat back, so there was always going to be something to watch, but you don't really want to spend the entire time watching the television, so we packed up plenty of entertainment in our hand luggage. When you're packing your hand luggage, you have to be aware of the weight though, you don't want to find yourself collapsing under the weight of your back pack.

1. Travel Games: These are available from numerous retailers here in the UK, and I imagine there are plenty of places to buy them around the world. We took Ludo, Draughts (Checkers) and a pack of playing cards. This way we had games that could be played by all of us, just two of us if one wanted to do something else, or by just one person if the other two were feeling unsociable.

2. Paper: Where do you start with paper? You can use it for more games, noughts and crosses, hangman, squares, etc or the children can use it for drawing and colouring. If you're creative you can spend your time creating origami creatures (I don't recommend trying to fly paper aeroplanes though!)

3. Puzzle books: These are great, especially if you buy the ones which have a variety of puzzles, because an entire book of word searches can get a bit dull after a while. The variety ones mean that there's something for all ages, whether it's Spot The Difference, a Wordsearch or a crossword puzzle.

4. DS or PSP: Hand held games are always a winner with children, well actually I enjoy a few DS games myself (Brain Training or Professor Layton).

5. Books: These can sometimes be a bit heavy to cart around in your hand luggage, depending on your favourite author of course, but a book each will pass some time.

With these ideas and the on board television, and of course the interruptions for food, drinks, duty free, etc, we found that the flight just flew by (no pun intended), and we reached New Jersey before we knew it. There was no time to be bored and it was one of the best flights we've had.

Learn more about this author, Louise Cairns.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about How to pass the time on an airline flight?
We want to hear your view. Write now!