Flights UK 2021: the travel essentials you need for a comfortable in-flight and airport experience
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We all know the feeling - you’re travelling and you just wish you had a certain device or product with you to make your life easier.
Sometimes, a few simple purchases can make all the difference, and dramatically change your experience of travelling for the better, especially when it comes to long stays at the airport or jumping from plane to plane.
There are a number of different products on the market - from noise -cancelling headphones and sleep masks to make your air travel experience more serene and enjoyable, to pieces of tech such as portable wireless chargers that mean you can stay connected on the move.
In this article, we’ll be looking at these products as well as others that help offer the best air travel experience possible.
The first thing to address on our list here is comfort.
Making sure you’ve got the right footwear is a vital aspect of that and we love these ‘breathe’ options from Mahabis. Straddling between an outdoor shoe and a slipper, they’re supremely comfortable and have a very fine mesh like structure allowing your foot to breathe.
Perfect for plane journeys when conventional shoes or boots can get hot, sweaty and uncomfortable.
They have a few options, and if you’d like a little more padding and toe support, the Curve options have also been tested and again offer excellent comfort and quality.
There are a few affordable items in the world that once purchased, you wondered why you ever managed without, and this Groov-e wireless charger is one of those.
If your smartphone or device is wireless charging compatible, simply pop it on top, but it does come with USB charging options should you need these too.
Powerful, handy, importantly for travel lightweight and able to keep your devices charged up on the go. Very handy.
A good bag is a worthwhile investment when travelling and can keep things more organised so you can focus on the task in hand.
We liked this offering from Chrome Industries that operates as both a rucksack or a holdall - useful slip pockets on the front and back, as well as a handy full-length single opening zip on the front, saves you fiddling around with complex arrangements and keeps everything tidy inside.
Tile is an ingenious bit of kit for travelling - allowing you to attach to valuable devices such as cameras and laptops and keep track of their whereabouts using a Bluetooth connection to your smartphone or device.
We’d especially recommend these for important bits of gear you can’t afford to misplace, and we liked the look of these snazzy new limited edition versions too.
Bellroy are experts at creating thoughtful, handmade wallets, pouches and bags for travel.
We especially liked their travel bundles, offering a customisable cross-section of their products including small bags, passport holders and wallets to keep all your documents tidy.
Once you’ve used products such as these, you’ll never look back, so we highly recommend these to ensure to stay on top of your paperwork and organised for your trip.
For comparatively little money, an ultralight travel pillow can totally change your experience of air travel.
We really like this option from outdoor gear experts Sea to Summit - their products are well thought out and built, as well as being lightweight and durable.
Easy to inflate, with an adjustable neck closure to ensure your head has full support whilst you’re sleeping - this is a great option to allow you to catch forty winks when on a plane.
Zip-lock bags for your toiletries are prone to breaking; fiddly, and often leave product smeared across other bottles in the bag.
Not so with the Space NK Travel Bag, which will handily store your in-flight toiletries, lying flat to avoid spillage, and opens wide to allow you to access moisturiser or toothpaste mid-flight if you need.
You’ll also have no trouble at the security gates. Long-lasting, utterly essential.
Blocking out unwanted sounds and distracting noises whilst in the air is a must in our book, and although there are plenty of excellent over-ear headphones that do a great job of this, we rather liked the sleek new Jabra Elite noise cancelling earbuds.
Earbuds like these are a great option for travel, as they’re easy to carry around, lightweight, discreet and can slip into your pocket which means you’re not carrying around bulky items when navigating the airport.
Thirty-six hours of battery power mean these would be our preferred wireless noise cancelling options when on long flights.