Tag Archives: Adventures

Advice, Hacks, Travel, Travel Tips

How to Overcome a Fear of Flying (Part 2)

With a few simple tricks you can free yourself from a fear of flying!
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

After only a few minutes in the air, I felt like my life was in danger.

The flight started normally – the door closed, the flight attendants and pilot greeted passengers on the loudspeakers, and we gained altitude. 

Moments later we hit turbulence. 

For a few seconds the plane rattled and shook. 

Ok, nothing to worry about here.

I took a deep breath and tried to rest. 

After a brief pause the turbulence came back. It felt like the clouds around us were shoving our mechanical bird around. This time the jolts didn’t stop and my comfort level quickly dissolved.

The air currents around us were unforgiving and for the remainder of the journey my fingers dug into the hand rests. 

In spite of my dread and acceptance that maybe we wouldn’t land safely, we did actually land safely. The plane ride was over. I wearily staggered into the terminal.

This was the worst flight experience I ever had. Landing felt like a gift.

Little did I know but the emotional scars from that journey stayed with me for a long time. This experience didn’t stop me from flying, though. It did however, make me absolutely horrified of air travel. 

A desire to conquer the fear of flying inspired this and my other most recent previous blog post. After a long time I was able to (mostly) lay the fear to rest.

In this post, I’m going to share some things I did to remain calm during that fateful trip. These strategies became the foundation of my current travel tools I use to stay relaxed while flying.

I still use some or all of them while flying today. Hopefully they can help you feel safe on your next flight!

Note: The tips listed below are based on my personal experience. They are not medically proven or tested. The advice given here should not replace recommendations from a medical professional. Also, this article is not meant to encourage people to fly over other means of transportation. It’s just to provide tools for those who would like to fly but aren’t comfortable. 

Ok, let’s get started!

Safe words, affirmations, and prayers

For a long time I was terrified during plane take offs and landings. On the flight mentioned above I began repeating a comforting word in my mind over and over again to relax. To my amazement it actually gave me a strong feeling of security. 

If you like this idea but can’t think of a word, here’s mine: “ice-cream.” It’s simple and delicious. Try saying this word at least ten times the next time you feel uncomfortable during a flight and it may help. 

A simple positive affirmation like “I am safe” or “I’m protected” can also be beneficial. If you are spiritual then a prayer before, during, or after the flight can create a strong sense of security as well. 

Distract yourself 

Some easy ways to do this would be to read a book, watch a movie, play a game on your phone, listen to something (podcast or music), or try to sleep (if it’s not too turbulent).

If you choose a book, then I recommend a juicy thriller, mystery, or romance novel. Anything that’s a page-turner is golden for a flight.   

Visualize arriving 

Similar to my first post, another strategy to feel safe is to imagine yourself already at your destination.

Picture the conversations you’ll have. Create in your mind the things you’re excited to do.

Personally, I’ve always felt safer when I pictured the reward of arriving at the destination.

Bonus: What’s your favorite and most comfortable method of transportation? Close your eyes and imagine yourself there instead. Maybe it’s not a plane you’re on but a boat, bus, or dinosaur (let your imagine have fun).

Enjoy the views 

If you’re flying during the day and happen to have a window seat then something that works for me is to direct all my attention to what’s outside. Maybe you’ll see a cool mountain, river, or cloud formation.

I usually don’t focus on the wing but everything else around it. There’s a lot of beauty out there to behold. 

Talk to people

I honestly am not always up for starting a conversation with the people next to me on a plane. This being said, one of the best ways to overcome a fear of flying is to talk to people.

Learning about someone else and having a conversation has many benefits: your mind goes away from yourself (your fear), you practice some social skills, and time usually flies by (pun intended) if the chat is interesting. 

During turbulence: Observe the vibe 

What I mean by this is to gauge the energy of the other passengers and crew. When there are a few bumps it’s helpful to see if anyone else is reacting to the sudden changes.

I learned that paying attention to (but not staring the whole time like a creeper) the flight attendant’s reaction to turbulence helped calm my nerves. Their body language should tell you how serious any turbulence really is.

So far I’ve never seen a crew member panic and all my flights thankfully have been safe (besides some turbulence). 

My favorite: Be creative 

Finding an activity that requires your complete attention is a great way to distract yourself during a flight. For me, doing something creative has always helped.

Writing is my inflight activity of choice. For example, the first draft of this post was actually written during a flight.

Also, most of us have smart phones so another idea would be to create a video collage of some recent photos or weed through old ones you want to erase. These all can be surprisingly engrossing. 

Bonus: Remember this

Photo by Sterry Larson on Pexels.com

Flying is the safest way to travel and the airline’s mission is to get you where you want to go safely. The crew are also people who want to remain alive just like us. Turbulence is natural. It doesn’t mean anything bad is happening to the plane.

You can do it! The world is waiting for you!

****

Have a great day and I hope you enjoyed this post. If you missed my first entry about getting over a fear a flying, check it out here!

Take care,

Daniel

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Asia, DACKasia2019, Travel, Travel Guide, Travel Tips

Letters from Bangkok

Today is Sunday, at least in Jack’s and my part of the world.

At this hour, our friends and families in California are most likely getting ready for bed. However, in Bangkok, Thailand the sun is shining and shortly it’ll be lunchtime.

It’s hard to imagine that our trip to Asia started exactly a week ago, and that tomorrow we’ll bid adieu to Thailand’s bustling capital. At 6am we’ll be boarding a bus to Chumphon, a small city along the southern Gulf of Thailand, then hopping a ferry to a small island named Ko Tao.

Our farewell to Bangkok commences a two-week excursion around three Thai islands: Ko Tao, Ko Pha Ngan, and finally Phuket. All three are in the countries’ southern region and they’ll offer a pleasant contrast to the massively populated Bangkok.

We chose Bangkok as our trip’s starting point for a handful of reasons: It was one of the cheapest airports offering flights from San Francisco, and more importantly because one of our best friends happens to be residing there.

Eric Umile has been a close buddy since first grade and he’s been an expat in Bangkok for a couple years now. He offered to show us around and we felt like that was an opportune way to catch up with a great guy and also start things off.

Thanks to Eric, we’ve managed to get a taste of Bangkok and see why he’s chosen this city as his home. After one week, here are a few things I’d like to share about this interesting city in the Far East. Bangkok is a city of abundance; not only there exists an abundance of people, but there are plenty of other things.

1. Heat

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Exiting the Singapore Airlines flight and walking through the airport in Bangkok, the first thought that scurried through my mind was:

Frick, it’s hot.

Bangkok’s high temperatures are unforgiving. The humidity is also dense like an invisible curtain that you can’t seem to walk through. If you’re someone who doesn’t break a sweat from Mother Nature, then a second source of burning might come from the wide variety of savory yet spicy dishes that exist in a typical Thai menu. The food here is on point, however, I have burned my palate a handful of times since arriving here.

2. Malls

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Some of the most impressive aspects of Bangkok are its abundance of super malls. It’s natural to assume that a cosmopolitan capital of over eight million people enjoys shopping, however mega centers such as Terminal 21 are so much more: They’re gathering places for all classes of Thai citizens, a destination for buying every product known to humankind, equipped with expansive cafeterias, bars, and nightclubs. If the zombie apocalypse ever occurs, you can find me in the Gourmet Market at Siam Paragon.   

3. Rooftop Escapes

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Perhaps my favorite aspect of Bangkok is its bountiful supply of rooftop lounges, bars, restaurants, and clubs. A week wasn’t enough time to acquaint ourselves with the complete scene, but Eric showed us some fun places such as Above Eleven and Octave. Taking in the lights of Bangkok after dark, a chilled beverage in hand, while a DJ spun Reggaeton records, was a memory that will stand out in my mind for a long while.

4. Traffic

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Despite the existence of a well developed public transit system such as the Sky Train or buses, plus waves of tuk-tuk taxis, motorcycle taxis, and Grab ride-share cars, Bangkok suffers from a mind-numbing traffic jam epidemic. The bumper to bumper congestion is heavy enough that pedestrians can be seen wearing masks to protect themselves from car pollution. A muggy haze engulfs the horizon at all hours and the air quality is visibly lower than back home, but I’m not sure if this is solely a result of excessive car emissions.

5. Contrasts

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Bangkok is a hive of distinct landmarks. On one hand, a visitor can easily be left speechless from historical wonders such as the Grand Palace or Temple of the Emerald Buddha. A similar sensation can be gained from an elevator ride to the observation deck of the recently designed MahaNakhon, a pixelated skyscraper that stretches seventy-seven stories towards the clouds. The city has as many Wats (Buddhist temples) as it has construction sites where the sound of hammers and drills ring in progressive harmony. Additionally, stray dogs could be seen scurrying outside the Mandarin Oriental, a 5-star hotel where Jack and I treated ourselves to a memorable breakfast buffet. Despite the noticeable chaos of historical and modern, clean and dirty, poor and wealthy, everything seemed to blend together like a savory cocktail called coexistence. I must also add that nearly every person we’ve encountered has been very helpful and friendly.

So, after this random blog post, why should you go to Bangkok?

Besides offering anything from an extra plate of spicy chicken balls, boom boom, foot massages, or fried scorpions, this curious place can give you something else:

A feeling that you’ve reached a land of opportunity for adventure, for new beginnings, and for a reminder that we need to enjoy life as much as possible.

Thanks for reading, more updates on Jack’s and my whereabouts are coming soon!

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Advice, Europe, Germany, Travel, Travel Guide

Thirty Hours in Bonn, Germany

On Sunday my good friend Lieven and I found ourselves in Bonn, Germany.

This wasn’t by some random coincidence.

I had been catching up with Lieven and his family in Ghent, Belgium and we decided to pay another close friend a visit.

Lucia, a former roommate in Murcia, had recently moved to Bonn and invited us to come and check out the city that she now calls home.

We both had time off from work, neither one of us had ever been to Bonn before, and Lucia was one of our best friends. This combination made booking a train ticket to see her very easy.

Despite living in a completely separate country, it only took roughly four hours to arrive to Bonn from Ghent by train.

Ghent to Brussels, Brussels to Cologne, Cologne to Bonn, train station to Münsterplatz.

By eleven in the morning on Sunday we had reached our destination and were already enjoying a sunny morning breakfast in Münsterplatz, one of Bonn’s centrally located plazas. With a Berliner pastry in my hand and views of a Ludwik Van Beethoven statue in front of us, we had about thirty hours to enjoy this western German city.

Time was of an essence, and Lucia made a suggestion that sounded perfect:

“Do you guys want to go and rent some bicycles?”

We were experiencing some nice weather, so renting a bike to tour around her city sounded pretty great.

Immediately after paying an affordable rental price (10 euros for the day), it became clear that Bonn was a city meant for cyclists. At all corners one could find a lone or pack of bikes parked in front of houses, cafes, and scattered all about on fences.

Bonn’s claim to fame is that it was once the capital of West Germany, as a result of the country being separated at the climax of World War II. Ludwik Van Beethoven was born there in 1770, the delicious candy company known as Haribo was founded there in 1920, and the University of Bonn provides a eternally youthful presence. Cologne is 15 miles away, and the wide flowing Rhine River dissects the city in two.

We followed a bike path along the Rhine, towards a district of Bonn called Bad Godesderg to check out a food-truck event that was taking place. All along the way we found ourselves passing scores of joggers, walkers, rollerbladers, and of course many over cyclists.

Lucia told us that the winters there were long, so it appeared that any trace of fair weather brought out everyone to bask in its temporary glory.

Bonn is clean, the buildings are wide and in the words of Lieven, very “state-like.” We could see elements of what was once a capitol. We didn’t know if one building was an embassy or simply university housing.

After the food truck event, we continued to some other places of interest like the Bad Godesderg castle, which has a trendy looking lounge inside and boasts one of the best bird-eye views of Bonn. We ventured further down the Rhine, look a ferry across the river’s rapids, and locked our bikes in Königswinter. Schloss Drachenburg was constructed to be the palace of a baron named Stephen von Sarter, however the former banker passed away before its completion in 1884. What remains is now a really cool museum for those willing to hike a long walk above Königswinter. We found out the hard way that it closes early, and opted for some nice scenic photos once at the top of the hill.

After returning the bikes, we spent the rest of the evening relaxing and Lucia cooked us a delicious Spanish style tortilla.

The next day we checked out a hipster coffee shop called Black Coffee Pharmacy, wandered around some souvenir shops, walked through the city’s expansive botanical gardens, and ended our stay with a taste of some German schnitzel at a brewery restaurant called Bönnsch.

It felt great to be in Bonn. Firstly it was refreshing to be in a new city, to experience a place that wasn’t overcrowded with tourists. More importantly we got to hang out with Lucia. She’s a close friend, and it was nice to see where she’s relocated.

Saying farewell was tough, but we have grown accustomed to saying bye in one place and then hello in another. There’s another meet-up pending, perhaps in Bonn or maybe in some place that we can’t even predict. 

Until that happens, I wish her the best.

Thanks for reading this blog, have you been working out? Keep up the good work!

-Dan Catena

 

(Bonner Münster Church)

(View from the castle in Bad Godesberg)

(Botanical Garden)

(Ferry crossing the Rhine)

(Schloss Drachenburg)

(Haribo Store)

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