Since developing chronic pain that accompanies an autoimmune condition, I’ve continued to indulge my love of travel, but learned to adapt my bookings and my belongings to minimize pain and maximize comfort.
Flights of six hours or so are regular occurrences for me and my family. I’ve had a couple of very painful trips of this duration, but, more typically, I can tolerate them by adjusting my medication slightly and employing a few aids such as wrist braces, inflatable cushions, and hot water bottles.
This winter, I faced the longest single flight I’ve ever taken: 12 hours and 40 minutes just for one leg from Los Angeles, CA to Auckland, New Zealand. The combination of traversing the United States from our New England home (6.5 hours), crossing the Pacific (12.7 hours), then connecting to our final destination of Christchurch, NZ on the South Island (1.4 hours) made for a total time in the air of 20.5 hours.
Of course, one must also add to that total the requisite airport waiting time required by international flight connections, customs, security, and the necessity of allowing adequate buffers in case of delays. At least two full days of my calendar were bound to be eaten up by this voyage in each direction.
After considering many options, I elected to travel in two distinct stages for both directions of travel. This meant parting ways with my husband entirely for the domestic portion of our trip. His schedule doesn’t allow for an unnecessary day spent in transit where tighter connections are possible.†
I was away from home for a total of fourteen days; DH, by taking his domestic and international flights serially on the way out—and heading home on a red eye straight off the international leg—traveled for twelve days.
Though this post isn’t really meant to be a trip report, it must be said: even two weeks is barely adequate for visiting the antipodes. If you can squeeze more days out of your schedule, use them for a trip of this magnitude.
New Zealand is awesome, and well worth every hard won vacation day.
My itinerary outbound:
BOS-PDX on Alaska Air 33, Saturday 16:20-20:10
Three night stay with family in the Pacific NW
PDX-LAX on Alaska Air 568, Tuesday 10:50-13:22
LAX-AKL on Air New Zealand 5, Tuesday 21:40-Thursday 07:20*
AKL-CHC on Air New Zealand 527, Thursday 09:00-10:20
My itinerary for the return:
CHC-AKL on Air New Zealand 574, Friday 20:00-21:20
AKL-LAX on Air New Zealand 2, Friday 22:50-13:35**
Overnight hotel stay at the Crown Plaza LAX
LAX-BOS on Virgin America flight 1360, Saturday 07:05-15:34
Itinerary adaptations to reduce pain
I’ll repeat what I feel was the single most important adaptation I made to my itinerary to accommodate my autoimmune condition and its symptoms: I took extra time.
Travel. Stop. Recover. Repeat.
Heading west, I took advantage of family who live near the Portland airport who don’t seem to mind my visits, spending three nights at their home. This sleepover gave me time to recover from the initial cross country flight and ease my body’s adjustment to a change of three time zones.
Upon arrival in New Zealand, I had already acclimated from the Eastern to Pacific zone (USA West Coast) which represents half of the total time shock. Though the flight is lo-o-o-o-ong, most of the travel between California and New Zealand is in a southerly direction. You only drop three more time zones on that 12 hour flight.
Heading west is also usually less difficult in terms of jet lag.
Really Wonderful Things 