Life on the road has left me a man of many words of wise devices. You see, you can teach a man how to pre-check in. But you can’t teach a man how to charm an air-hostess into pre-checking in for him. Here are a few tips I have picked up in my many years as a Man o’ the Air.

1.    Never ride the luggage carousel because it’s called a carousel and that sounds like fun. Take it from me, this will end in tears. But not tears that you cry. Tears in your pants. Because there is a sharp hookie thing that will catch your pants when you go through the flappy things and then your pants will tear and people will see that you forgot to put on your favourite palm tree jocks.

2.   Do not, and I repeat, do not play ‘ski-ski’ on the flat escalator thingies. I know that ski-ski sounds like the best game in the world. On a ski slope, I promise you, it is. But in the airports, it should be called the ‘get punched in the face with handluggage game’. Which is a fun game too, but that’s a whole other post…

3.   As tempting as it is to eat the man who has fallen asleep on your shoulder’s free biscuit, do not do it. Huge men on airplanes who fall asleep and leave their free biscuits do it just so a nice oke like you will get biscuit rage while he snores. I have only ever taken the biscuit bait once, and let me tell you, never again. Just leave that biscuit alone.

And that’s it for this time, fellow bloggeroos. I’ll be sure to keep you updated with more tips as I learn them. As it is, my black eye is still fresh from the last one. Til next time,

Trev

You’re friendly neighbourhood uberblogger Trev here. As a back-to-back Scrabble Champion and a Professional hand-modelista, in between the bubbly, the Russian brides and the brew was the flying to different exotic destinations across the world (and Durban to see Mom) and with lots of flying comes fatigue at times.

Now, to be honest, Trev “Tom Thumb” Townsend’s got a couple secrets to beating the poor circulation, swollen joints and lethargy you might come across when flying. Besides chatting up the air hostesses and getting pinched or slapped for it (that’s one way to get the blood flowing) here’s my guide to keeping your body at its best in the air:

1. Stretch your arm forward and point away from yourself. Then curl your arm back until you grab the back of your head. Proceed to stick out your tongue and lick your elbow three times. (This is the warm-up)
2. Get out your seat. Move into the aisle, point both hands to the sky and point your feet down, arch forward and balance your body weight on your toes. Feel free to let off incoherent Michael Jackson-isms (“Hoo!”, “Ha!” “Ow!” all apply)
3. When it’s safe to take your seatbelt off, take your pinkie finger and begin to rotate it anti-clockwise as you tap your feet to the rhythm of Pink Panther (A great one for hand-eye-foot coordination) Necessary for me if I’m making breakfast while writing a blog post

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and say you’ll get my good physique overnight, but with a little bit of practice you could be swapping shirts with the best after winning Scrabble tourneys in Kiev. For more of the typical tips on stretching on planes you could probably look here.

Trev here. Frequent Flyer/Cruiser/Coaster of the interwebs and Master Chef of Awesomesauce (note: always serve hot.) Anyway in between cooking up blog posts and rubbing shoulders with lady friends by the beach (or since it’s winter, up in a loft somewhere by a fireplace) I’m roaming the atmosphere from place to place and just this week, I had an epiphany: we both have something in common: flying…and the less glamorous planning for flying.

I was pretty stoked to find out about TripIt, which takes the hassle out of managing the paperwork of a typical trip. We all know how the high life leaves you with a lot of receipts (airline tickets, hotels, restaurants, maps, gold chains, beach balls…well at least the ones related to travel.)

So whether it’s maps, directions, weather or a bunch of other useful travel details, TripIt pulls in your itinerary (all you’ve got to do is email it to them and they automatically put up all your details on one easy-to-use page) So stay up to date on flight changes, check-in times, book restaurants, rent cars, theatre tickets, and share travel plans in groups online all in one snazzy little site.

Works for experienced travellers such as myself, regular patrons of the sky or newbies trying to keep it all together. Trev says tres cool.

Trev here. International Scrabble Champion. Professional Hand Model. Now, Mr Listmaker, mmm. Flight delays can really put a wet blanket on your parade. Which is why I spent the afternoon experimenting with time-passing techniques to spice up those dreary delays. The following suggestions yielded the most entertaining results:

1. Pretend you’re in a movie and you’re being hunted through the terminal by a sniper. Don’t move too fast, or too slow or you’ll stand out. Hide behind pillars and wagons selling curios. Make a safe base in one of the Spur booths and tell the waiters that they mustn’t talk to you as it’s ‘too dangerous’.

2. Buy a Dan Brown novel and seat yourself next to someone reading Heat magazine. Ask them why they’re ‘reading that trash’.

3. Pick up your handluggage and start cooing to it. Talk to it softly and bounce it in your arms. Tell your luggage that it’s going to ’see Daddy very very soon’.

4. When boarding, fake an asthma attack and tell the people in the queue you need to get help. Run to the front of the queue, and when you get there yell ‘first!’.

5. If you’re in the plane, get up to go to the bathroom. Locate the loudspeaker, and sing R Kelly’s ‘I believe I can fly’ until someone stops you.