My experience of travelling long haul, after what seems like an eternity of coursing the globe across hemispheres and time zones is that there are ways and means to survive such journeys relatively undamaged. In making this assertion, I am consciously setting aside (for now) the dangers that such journeys pose to the longer-term health of the body. Equally I don't propose to discuss the critically important environmental costs of mass air travel. Both these matters have much deeper and more significant implications than this small piece of writing can address. Instead I will speak only in terms of my direct personal experience of long haul travel and the immediate problems it can cause on the journey itself and in the aftermath –that terrible state that we refer to lightly as 'jetlag’! How little that word conveys of the mind numbing, crushing out of body feeling, sleep deprived day-night confusion that a long haul imprint leaves on the human frame.
There is really no one more surprised than myself to hear me admitting that I think that long haul air travel can be ‘survived’! For some time now I have been promising myself that I will put an end to it- and my constant fear of being in an airplane that falls out of the sky is only one of the reasons for that. And yet here I am tempting fate by what must be my silliest notion for some time – the very idea that I could give advice on how to do it well - or rather how to mitigate the very real difficulties that travelling in a metal container over 8 miles above the earth at between 500 and sometimes over 600 mph with other equally terrified people can impose on the fragile body and brain.
If I have any claim to being able to speak on the subject of long haul travel, it can only be on the basis of personal experience rather than serious research and it is that history which lies behind these reflections. I began my travels at the age of four and since then have been to all continents and many countries, often several in one year. Admittedly, this fact is not likely to bring me a mention in the ‘Guinness Book of Records’ but I think I can safely hope to be in with a chance of saying something worthwhile. Note I am not offering the insights of the dedicated traveller a la Michael Palin, someone with awe-inspiring knowledge of different cultures, geographies and ‘must see’ events throughout the world. My journeys have mostly been for pragmatic reasons such as going to conferences, visiting relatives and job relocation. The knowledge I have accumulated over the years about other worlds than my own is, to be clear, rather patchy and the result of a largely haphazard process. I can reasonably assert, however, that what I have to say about long haul distance travel comes from hard won experience. That said, I did not start with travel by air and have something else to compare it with….
See next entry