Long Haul Flights with Kids: Our Tried And Tested Tips

Long-haul flights with kids can feel so daunting, especially if you’re trying to keep everyone entertained and comfortable, as well as getting at least some sleep (for the kids and for yourself!)

We’ve flown long-haul with our boys dozens of times at different ages and stages, including several flights to Japan as well as flights to Korea, Mexico, and later this month we’ll be taking them to China! We’ve made lots of mistakes (and had a lot of bad flights!), so along the way we’ve learnt what works for us, what isn’t worth carrying, and what you definitely shouldn’t leave in your hold bag! (A toddler with a raging temperature taught us that lesson the hard way!)

Our approach isn’t particularly fancy. I’m not going to give you a long list of expensive things you need to buy! Just comfy clothes, familiar favourites, plenty of snacks, and a realistic attitude to screen time. You don’t need to buy a suitcase full of travel gadgets, and you haven’t failed as a mother if your kid won’t sleep on the plane!

Here are our tried-and-tested tips for long-haul flights with kids, covering what to pack, how to keep them entertained, and ways to make the journey easier for everyone. This guide focuses on toddlers, school-age kids and older kids, rather than flying with babies.

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Quick Guide: Hand-Luggage Checklist

Packing the right things in your hand luggage is half the battle for a successful long-haul flight with kids. So if you don’t want to read the whole guide, I’ve put together a simple hand luggage checklist that will make your life easier:

• Tablet or device with downloaded films, games and music
• Comfortable headphones (overhead options work better than in-ear headphones for young children)
• Reading books and compact activities (we love colouring, activity, and sticker books)
• Snacks
• Spare clothes and wet wipes
• A familiar comfort item
• Essential medicines (including Calpol)
• Chargers for phones and devices, but check airline rules before packing a power bank

If you don’t already have hand luggage for the whole family, we SWEAR BY Cabin Zero backpacks. They’re lightweight and easy to carry, but they hold so much! We were gifted these for the boys, and liked them so much we went and bought them for Mike and myself too!

👉 The Best Underseat Backpack For Travelling With Kids: Our CabinZero Review

Pack A Goody Bag

There’s nothing smaller kids love more than new toys: often any new toy, it doesn’t matter how big or small! Nowadays my boys are content with their hand held consoles and a puzzle or activity book.

But when they were younger I would buy:

• Play Dough
• Small figures (farm animals and dinosaurs were a big hit)
• Colouring kits
• Fidget toys
• Stickers
• Fun snacks
  

Little treats that would keep them entertained at intervals, and break up the journey for all of us.

As an added bonus, and to make the whole thing a little more exciting, I would also wrap them up in wrapping paper (nothing special, whatever we had left in the cupboard!). Then at intervals throughout the flight (usually whenever they were feeling restless) I would give them another parcel, and they would happily open it and play with the contents inside. This really helped my kids to associate long haul flights with happy experiences too.

Top Tip: Avoid anything noisy, too messy, or with small parts that can be knocked on the floor. We love magnetic puzzles and magnetic games for this reason. I’ve put links to our 3 favourites (that the boys still love and play with when we travel) below:

🎁Magnetic construction tiles with tin
🎁Magnetic hangman travel game
🎁Magnetic bingo travel game

Check Your Kids Hand Luggage

This tip applies mainly to parents with older kids, especially ones you would expect to be able to pack their own bag! When you’re rushing around checking your travel documents and packing your suitcases, checking the kids backpacks is probably the last thing on your list. They pack them themselves every day for school, right? But make sure you do. Being prepared will make the trip go smoothly, and kids (even the biggest kids) often won’t pack all the right things in their backpacks.

Check that they have packed reading books, activity books, games consoles, and toys (even my 13 year old will pack some Lego figures and blocks to entertain himself when he can’t look at a screen any more). Card games are good for this reason too. But we never have time limits on electronics when we fly: I know it wouldn’t work for all families but it definitely works for us.

Some of the essentials kids are unlikely to pack but I think they should? A change of clothes in case of spills or accidents, an empty water bottle, and my boys love their comfortable neck pillows.

Top tip: Although many airlines will provide cheap in ear headphones (check with your airline if you want to use these) they generally aren’t very comfortable, especially for children. That’s why I recommend packing your own, comfortable children’s headphones so that they can watch the in-flight movies, play with their game devices, or listen to music.

Download Entertainment Before You Fly

This is one of those things it’s so easy to forget to do, but it could make or break the ease of your flight experience! If your child plays their favourite games or watches their comfort shows online, you need to download these to their device BEFORE you fly!

Have we learnt this the hard way? Yes we have! Watching our oldest jabbing at his screen (on a short haul flight, thank goodness) wondering why his games and shows wouldn’t play or open wasn’t one of my finest moments.

Of course, most airlines will offer in-flight entertainment on long-haul flights, so your kids can choose from their selection of films and TV shows, but these will be limited and are unlikely to include their favourite shows. If you know this will make a difference to their enjoyment of the flight, get downloading now!

Comfort Is Key

One of the best ways to make a long haul flight easy for kids is to make sure they’re comfortable. Put them in comfy clothes (jogging bottoms are better than jeans, cozy hoodies better than knitwear) and choose layers because the temperatures on planes can be so variable.

We always pack cosy socks too, and a compact blanket. Not every child likes them, but my boys both love their eye masks and neck pillows too. We also let them take their ‘special teddies’ for comfort, and for a chance of a nap!

Top Tip: Pack a change of clothes in your children’s hand luggage. It doesn’t matter how old they are, spills and accidents can happen. And there’s nothing worse than spending a long haul flight sat in trousers covered in sticky juice!

Help Kids Sleep On A Long-Haul Flight

One of the biggest questions people ask about long-haul flights with kids is about sleep. Will they sleep? How much sleep will they get? And honestly? This is a question that really depends on the child.

We pack several tools to help our boys settle down when we want the to sleep: eye masks, neck pillows, and their favourite teddy bears all help to create a comfortable sleep environment (or as comfortable as you can be in a flying tin can packed with hundreds of people!) When they were younger, we packed their pyjamas and changed them just before we wanted them to sleep, which acts as another familiar signal that it’s bedtime. Turning off screens and playing gentle music also used to help to get our youngest to sleep on the plane (and it’s an approach we still use for him now, at 10 years old)

But our oldest? He’s almost 14, and he’s always stuggled to sleep on planes. He manages a few fretful hours of tossing and turning, but proper sleep? Never. That’s the case for some children (and some adults too) so I won’t promise you a magic potion to help your kids sleep….I can’t get my own son to sleep! But I will say that making the environment as calm as possible and sticking to familiar routines (even in unfamiliar environments) can help.

Bring More Snacks Than You Think You Need

Hungry kids are angry kids. And bored kids are hungry kids! Bring snacks, then when you think you have enough snacks, pack some more.

It can be tempting to pack easy, high sugar snacks (sweets and chocolate) and some of these will definitely be well received. But if you want to reduce the amount of sugar you’re giving your children, cereal, vegetable sticks, hard boiled eggs, and rice cakes might not be conventional plane snacks, but they’re all good options! Honestly though? Long haul flights aren’t an everyday occurence, so they most important thing is that you’re choosing snacks your kids will actually eat! It might not be what you would give them on a normal day, but you shouldn’t be treating flying days like normal days!

Top Tip: On the subject of food, make sure you order kids meals from the airline! You would think this would be as standard, but it isn’t on every airline. Most airlines also stop offering kids meals at a certain age (for some airlines it’s 10, others 11) but if you have fussy kids you can still order them the plainer kids meal.

Keep Essential Medicines In Your Hand Luggage

We learnt this one the hard way! A perfectly healthy small child getting on the plane can quickly turn into a sick small child, and there’s no pharmacy in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We always pack all the meds you could think of (I’m a ‘just in case’ kind of mum, and we have a suitcase pharmacy!) but the one time we needed our travel meds on the flight, we’d packed them in our hold luggage. One toddler with a raging temperature later, and it was the worst flight of our lives.

Now? We always take a rudimentary medical kit in our hand luggage with us. Calpol is a no brainer (you can get sachets, rather than the big bottle so that you can take these through security, and I also take plasters and antiseptic wipes for my accident prone boys. If your child suffers from motion sickness then anti sickness bands and anti sickness medication could be a real life saver too.

Plan For Connections If You’re Not Taking A Direct Flight

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that we’re budget travellers. Meaning that non-stop flights are a luxury we can rarely afford: we often have connecting flights with long connections at awkward times. In fact, in April I put the boys to sleep on benches in an airport terminal in Korea for 8 hours after our flight landed at midnight, but our connecting flight wasn’t until 10am!

If this sounds familiar, and you have to contend with kids on layovers as well as kids on long haul flights, my advice would be to bring plenty of snacks and (if possible) water or empty water bottles. There wasn’t a single shop open in the airport in the middle of the night, so we could only give the boys what we were carrying with us. I also recommend bringing extra activities, card games that you can play as a family (it’s a great way to connect when everyone’s feeling fed up) and small, streamlined blankets for sleeping. I also packed a small wash kit: you have no idea how nice it felt to be able to splash water on our faces and clean our teeth half way through what was an epic journey home!

Long-Haul Flights With Kids FAQs

What Should You Pack for a Long-Haul Flight With Kids?

Our essentials are comfortable headphones, downloaded entertainment, reading or activity books, snacks, spare clothes, wipes and any essential medicines. We also pack the boys’ favourite teddies and the comfort items they actually use, such as neck pillows and eye masks.

Keep the things you’ll need regularly in a bag you can reach easily. You don’t want to be searching the overhead locker every time someone wants a snack!

How Do You Keep Kids Entertained on a Long Flight?

Variety works best for our boys. We switch between films, games, books, snacks and activities rather than expecting one thing to keep them occupied for the whole journey.

When they were younger, small surprise activities helped break up the flight. Now they’re older, their handheld consoles, puzzle books and reading books do most of the work. Download entertainment before leaving home, and check that games work offline.

How Can You Help Children Sleep on a Long-Haul Flight?

Comfortable layers, a familiar teddy and a quieter activity before settling down can help. Our boys also like their eye masks and neck pillows, although every child is different.

We try to make sleep possible without turning it into a battle. Some flights go better than others, and a night flight doesn’t guarantee that your children will sleep! Just don’t force it: You don’t want to start your trip shouting at your kids about something beyond their control. If you’re kids can’t sleep, encourage them to rest and relax instead.

Do Airlines Automatically Provide Children’s Meals?

A lot of airlines do, but don’t assume they will. Children’s meal availability, age eligibility and advance-order deadlines vary by airline. Check your booking before travelling and request a suitable meal if one is available. We still bring familiar snacks, because airline meal times and your kid’s appetites don’t always line up.

Final Thoughts and Further Reading

Long-haul flights with kids won’t always go exactly to plan. Someone might spill a drink, refuse their meal (I’m looking at you Big Explorr, who won’t eat on the plane then wonders why he feels sick!) or stay awake all through the night. That doesn’t mean the journey, or your holiday, is ruined!

For our family, the things that help most are fairly simple: comfortable clothes, enough entertainment, familiar snacks and keeping the essentials within reach. We relax our usual screen-time rules, pack the special teddies and accept that getting everyone to the destination is an achievement in itself. Routines? We don’t have them on long-haul flights, because we don’t try to treat these weird, unfamiliar days like they’re normal days. But flight is the beginning of your adventure, and being organised is a great way to feel like you have some control if you’re nervous. A little preparation can make the whole thing feel much more manageable.

For more help planning your journey, you may also find these guides useful:

👉Korean Air Review 2026: Is Korean Air Good? Is It Really The Best Economy Class Airline?
👉How To Get Cheap Airport Parking: Our Tried-And-Tested Tips
👉The Reality of Long-Haul Flights With Kids (From a Parent Who’s Done It)

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