10. Try to strike up a conversation with the stranger you’ll be sitting next to for the next X hours. I’m not even an extrovert, but this is my favorite part of flying. I’ve sat next to some really interesting people. Some folks don’t want to chat but in my experience that’s pretty rare.

Some strangers I’ve previously sat next to: a retired nurse flying to take care of her mother in law who had dementia; a radiologist who had previously been a physicist at fermilab returning from an MRI conference; a bar tender/stripper; an evangelical who hosted asian exchange students; a heart surgeon who specialized in ablasions for treating a-fib; a 60’ish year-old man flying for his first time; a nanny/aupair; a Jewish grad student from Cape Town.

The flights pass so much more quickly when you’re engaged in conversation, and it’s pretty easy to get most people talking. Two of those passengers mentioned above I ended up in a car with. I gave the evangelical a ride to his hotel since it was on the way home from the airport for me. And with the radiologist we missed our connecting flight and rented a car together to drive the last 150 miles.