I had a 40 hour journey coming back from Malaysia. This is how I survived.

In January 2024, I had the incredible opportunity to go to Malaysia for 17 days. I made the spontaneous decision to go there after learning my cousin, who lives outside of Kuala Lumpur, was planning on moving back to her home country in March 2024. By October, I had booked my tickets, and discovered I had quite the journey.

The nearest international airport to me is Dulles Airport in Virginia, which is about an hour and a half (with no traffic) away from me. I had to book a $200 Uber to get there, and then my 25 journey to Malaysia would begin. But get this: coming home was 40 hours of traveling.

I flew alone to Malaysia, but coming home I had my sister. I’d actually done this before coming home from South Korea in 2018, when I was in high school, but, like you probably are, I was scouring the Internet for tips on what to bring and how to entertain myself during this period.

So I thought to share what ended up saving my sanity during this period. Let’s get right into it, shall we?

You’re going to really want some compression socks to save your legs.

Ever since my sister read that women on birth control were more likely to get blood clots while on long haul flights, my family has been very into compression socks for our flights. I borrowed my mother’s for this plane ride specifically, but learned the hard way that after 25 hours going, these are going to stink.

Don’t be like me when it comes to traveling—stretch your legs whenever possible. During my fifteen hour flight, I was conveniently right next to the bathroom, so when I ended up needing to finally pee, I got up, went in the bathroom, and did some stretches in there. Walk up and down the aisle whenever possible, please!

But I think my legs would be been a lot worse without those compression socks. They were helping with the pain, and by the time I got to Malaysia, my legs were honestly really starting to hurt from all of the sitting I was doing. When I had a six hour layover in the Abu Dhabi airport, I walked 6,000 steps just to get that time in.

Bring two pairs if you don’t want to stink by the time you get off of this flight!

Layers of clothing is the name of the game, and so was a neck pillow.

Planes can be either really cold, or really hot. It honestly depends on the day, if the windows are open, and who’s controlling the ventilation. I kept oscillating between the two temperatures in the middle of my flights, which meant I was really glad that I put on layers of clothing.

First, I had on a Glossier hoodie, which I use when I’m cold anyways. I wore leggings and a t-shirt underneath it, and I even had contemplated putting sweatpants on over the leggings before I left the house. I decided against it because I was going to a tropical country, but the layers really saved me here.

When I was cold, I took the hoodie and put it on. When I was warm, I took it off. As I got ready to sleep (more on that below), I ended up putting the hood of my hoodie up and passed out with my neck pillow around my neck.

Y’all, I was not a neck pillow girl before this trip, but I am now. Going to Malaysia I refused to use my inflatable neck pillow and instead put my head to the side of the Etihad chair, which had a weird portion sticking out. That hurt my neck so bad, and my shoulder bothered me when I was trying to go to bed in my cousin’s home that night.

Going home, I tried the inflatable neck pillow, and it was such a game changer. I also slept so much better because of it, which meant that I was well adjusted for when I arrived back into Eastern Standard Time.

Melatonin is really helpful for passing the time with sleep.

Before I left my home in Baltimore, I packed an entire bag of melatonin from my sister’s stash. And when I got bored on that plane, I did something I definitely would not do if I wasn’t on a plane for the next fourteen hours. I reached into the stash and popped two melatonins.

That knocked me out until the first dinner service, which I ate sleepily, then promptly fell back asleep once they collected my trash to put in the trash. I ended up sleeping through most of my 25 hour journey there, which means I arrived in Malaysia without much of a jet lag.

Going home, I slept through a chunk of the first seven hour flight without any melatonin, and I slept in the Abu Dhabi Airport chairs with my sister. They were solid chairs in the E/F gates to sleep on, but my knees hurt so bad after I woke up two hours later.

When we boarded our 15 hour flight back to Dulles, I popped another melatonin after I had eaten dinner and watched two movies. I simply got bored of existing in this space, so I tried to sleep as much as possible. I slept all the way up until the lunch service, then passed out after watching three more movies.

That flight was incredibly painful being awake, so I’m truly glad I slept it away.

The vegetarian special ordered meal saved my stomach.

I had no idea what to expect on Etihad when it came to their meals, and the Internet was kind of useless while going. Little did I know I was going to be served three meals for each flight, and I would’ve better prepared myself if I knew this.

I did not order a special meal going to Malaysia. From Dulles to Abhu Dhabi, they fed us three meals, and I ended up ordering the curry options. Well, with one hour of the flight left and having finished my second meal, I began to feel really nauseous after eating the pearl couscous. I’m pretty sure the excessive lemon in it messed my stomach up.

I ended up throwing up everything in the Abu Dhabi Airport, then found some Vimto at a store to drink with tea. On the Malaysia flight, they thankfully had some vegetarian pasta, and when I arrived in Malaysia that night, I booked the Oriental vegetarian meal going home.

That was basically just vegetables, tofu, and rice. The side dishes were the bread with butter, a little salad, and some fruit. They also gave me a veg sandwich and my meals before everyone else, so it was perfect for me. I honestly just wanted the salad and fruit, which were fresh, and the tofu was pretty good honestly for plane food.

If I had to do it again, I’d order that vegetarian special meal just for the fresh items.

A Kindle and downloaded Netflix episodes saved the day.

Even with all of the movies available on the entertainment system, there was a hot moment when I just wanted to watch my little Korean dramas peacefully on my phone. It was a smart idea to download them in advance, and I had a blast just clearing through an entire Korean drama over the course of my flights home. Knocked out two birds with one stone here!

My Kindle also came in handy, as I was able to catch up on my backlog of reads. As a book blogger, it’s kind of impossible not to be reading, and I’m just passionate about it. I had fun catching up with my advanced copies and plotting out my reviews.

But I wished I had good quality over the ear headphones.

My Airpods started to hurt in my ears, so this trip convinced me to invest in some quality over the ear headphones. And man, I wish I had them earlier. Bring something like this on a long haul flight for maximum comfort!

Overall, though, I wouldn’t do this again when I have the money to not do this.

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