Having recently flown, and having flown various distances down the years, I figured now may be a good time to write about my experience of jet lag. Anyone who has flown long-haul to any degree will have experienced this rather unpleasant sensation.

Simply put, to me it’s sheer exhaustion. It’s all to do with crossing time zones, and having to then adjust to the difference. For example, fly from London to New York at 8pm, fly for eight hours (the average flight time), and you’ll arrive at 4am UK time, but it will be 11pm New York time (due to the five-hour time difference). This isn’t necessarily too bad, because it’s going to be late anyway, so you may recover a bit if you go straight to bed. On the other hand, if you have slept on the plane, you may not immediately feel like sleeping, so you’ll be out of sync. On the third hand (heh), if you are like me, you’ll be so knackered from lack of sleep (I cannot sleep on planes) that you’ll collapse into bed and snooze quite comfortably.

Flying home again, leaving at 8pm, you’ll land at 4am New York time, but it will be 9am UK time, setting up an even worse scenario. Your body will believe it is super-early in the day, but you’ll find yourself in daylight, and sleeping off the flight during the day might not be wise, even though you’ll hungrily want to.

This meerkat finds the entire process of flying to be very tiring. I appreciate that sometimes, you have to, because a lot of the best holiday destinations, especially when you live on an island, are not accessible via train! That doesn’t mean I don’t feel shattered, even after a relatively short flight. Part of that is down to the rules of air travel. You have to get to the airport well in advance of your flight. This can be a very early start, such as a 3.30am alarm, in order to get to the airport for 4.30am, to get checked in for a 7am flight. That’s obviously going to be tiring, and that’s before spending three hours on the plane itself, which always feels physically tiring to me. Expand that three hour flight to an eight, 10, or even 22-hour voyage, and the fatigue reaches ridiculous levels.

Such was the experience, some 20 years ago this year, of the flight to Australia. It was a glorious, wonderful trip, but the flights (a 12-hour stint, followed by another that was roughly eight hours) really do leave you jet-lagged. This is before we even consider all the internal flights, required to get anywhere in a remotely decent time in such a huge country. I was a young meerkat then, whereas now I’m rapidly becoming a greymuzzle, not able to hack such vigorous travel.

It is more than conceivable that I will fly again, though when and where are up in the air (oh, give me strength). Still, if the next holiday is in say, Scotland, I am opting for the leisurely experience of a train ride!