Alsacienne,

You could fly westerly but it's a much longer flight, will mean more connections and therefore probably cost more, but the jet lag will only be the same. Regardless of whether you travel east or west, surely if you're going to the same destination the jet lag will be the same as it's the same time difference? The average person adjusts by about 1 hour per day when changing time zones. You can minimise the effects of jet lag, but you can't avoid it. It's just one of the down sides of long haul travel. There's a long list of airlines you could fly with via a US hub.

Darren

I'm sorry I don't have the answer Alsa but I've found a little info that might be of interest to Dazbo. It suggests that jetlag is usually worse when travelling West to East.

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/travelhealth/Pages/Jetlag.aspx

Thanks both of you for your help! My jet lag has been worst west to east and that's what I hoped to avoid by flying westwards .... suppose it's really a tale of two halves, but I do appreciate your replies.

shirley h,

That's normally the case assuming your destination is to the west or east. But if your final destination is the same, I can't see why jet leg would be any different. If you're travelling to a country that has a time difference of +8 GMT, whether you fly west or east to get there, the time difference is still +8 GMT and therefore the jet leg shouldn't be any different if you see what I mean. What will make a difference is flight time, it's shorter east bound from Europe. If that's where you want to travel to, you have to accept and adapt to jet leg. There's no avoiding it. Travelling west to the Dom Rep for example is -5 GMT, the Maldives is +5 GMT depending on the island so that would make a difference. I don't find jet lag to be a problem in the main and try and adjust a few days before travel if I can. I've found east bound travel to be worse than west bound too, but everyone is different.

Darren

Thanks for the explanation Darren. I see exactly what you mean

I've been long haul three times and haven't once suffered from jetlag at my destination but have had it to different degrees on returning home which was travelling West to East. It was awful the first time we came back from the Dom Rep (first long haul holiday for me) it took days to stop the disorrientation etc but it was a lot better the second time we came back from there and also from Mexico.

shirley h,

You get used to it after a while. The more long haul traveling you do, the easier it gets for many as you work out the best ways to minimise it for yourself and just get on with it.

Darren

We fly trips to Goa and also to Thailand every year, in addition we've also flown to Australia about ten time, sometimes straight through, sometimes with a stopover. The perceived wisdom is that jet lag is much worse flying east but we've found the reverse. I put it down to the exitement of arriving at a holiday destination bucks you up and, in our case, appears to minimise the effect. conversley on your return home most people are on a bit of a downer, at least we are, and that seems to make the jetlag worse. At least thats our experience. Of course everyone reacts differently, my wife suffers much more than me, and takes longer to recover, especially on our return home. Another factor is, that one is advised to stay in sunlight as long as possible to help get over it, but on our return to darkest Scotland the week before Xmas, from Goa, the sunlight was in very short supply !!.
Alan

We have suffered jetlag going east to west. It was worst when we arrived in Vegas early afternoon and with an 8 hour time difference we were spaced out and unable to function by 7pm so went to bed, only to be wide awake any time between midnight and 2am unable to get back to sleep.

When we fly with BA we don't arrive until evening and manage to stay up until a reasonable time such as 10pm. We then manage to sleep until about 5am and it's been fine doing it that way.

I used to suffer really badly coming home west to east and actually felt ill and disorientated for about 10 days. Each time I would say I wasn't going to put myself through that again as I felt so awful. However as Darren says, it seems to get easier the more you do it and now my jetlag only lasts 2-3 days and it's as severe as it was.

luci

Its not the clock adjustment that gives me the problem-find that the major problem when flying West to East is the lack of sleep !! I can't sleep on a plane properly and since most of those flights involving UK airlines are "overnighters" eg returning from Caribbean or outward bound to Kenya, I'm always struggling for the first day or so. The only time that I've flown W to E during daylight hours was a return from Canada and I don't remember having any problems adjusting after I came back.

Our main holidays are taken in SE Asia. We don't find the flight west to east that onerous. These days we fly on the Middle Eastern airlines (Emirates,Etihad, Qatar) so we get a break and leg stretch approx half way through the journey. We started doing this to avoid problems with DVT but found as a bonus that although the journey takes a few hours longer we did not feel so jet lagged. After a day chilling we are up a running, doing the sites and enjoying ourselves. To be honest its the flight back that feels worse, but I put that down to psychology - i.e I'm no longer on holiday.