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I hate travelling. I travel all the time. These two sentences best describe my existence as a reluctant - and decidedly unglamorous - jet-setter. My mode of travel is cheap and not cheerful. My reasons personal rather than professional. No business-class upgrades, plush hotel rooms or padded expense accounts for me. My transatlantic, bicoastal weekend schedule is a matter of exhausting necessity - that peripatetic logistical nightmare of heartbreak and headache known as "the long-distance romance." Not that I'm complaining. (That's a lie.)

Now that Christmas is coming (don't those last three words make you want to die a little?), many of you will be joining me in my suffering - camping out in airport lounges, sweating it out on the tarmac through hours of de-icing, trying to determine that one special mid-size black Samsonite from all the others on the baggage carousel. Ah, the joys of being mobile but not upwardly so.

In honour of this season of pilgrimage, I have decided to share my tips for the road. Herewith, the impoverished jet-setter's guide to surviving the excruciating indignity of economy holiday travel:

1) Wear a hoodie. Preferably a cashmere hoodie, but any old hoodie will do. The deeper the hood the better. Pull it up whenever you want to sleep or dissuade others from taking the free seat next to you. For best results, accessorize with a scowl.

2) Eschew all silly travel accessories and accoutrements. Beanbag neck pillows, travel blankets and book lights are all more trouble than they're worth. Comfort is about avoiding hassle, not creating more of it, and that's exactly what you're doing while fiddling with your portable Obus Forme 10,000 metres above sea level. Leave such stuff at home, or, better yet, don't buy it in the first place. The one exception to this is a sleep mask, but most decent airlines provide them anyway.

3) Learn how to enter a waking trance - whether by reading, mediation, iPod or daydreaming. Surviving the misery of a bad flight - or any traumatic experience - is all about the act of dissociation. Obviously, lack of consciousness is the best way to achieve this state, so sleep wherever possible.

4) Carry a snack. Economy travel requires all passengers to think like a diabetic. Keep an edible pick-me-up on your person at all times in case of unforeseen emergencies and delays. You remember that scene in The Godfather: Part 3 where Michael is negotiating with an adversary and he nearly keels over into a diabetic coma from the stress? Luckily, a servant arrives with some chocolate and freshly squeezed OJ, and the Godfather's blood sugar is revived. This will not happen to you.

When you find yourself in an idling shuttle bus on the tarmac waiting for a faulty staircase to be repaired, I can guarantee you that no one will come by with a silver platter bearing restorative delicacies. Similarly, when the flight attendant trundles up with her cart and informs you there are no more overpriced sandwiches for sale - sorry! - you will find yourself starving and out of luck. If you have a snack, offer to share it with your hungry seatmate. They will probably weep with gratitude. Snacks are good for making friends.

5) Speaking of friends, avoid making new ones on airplanes. This is not because I don't like people (although, with a few notable exceptions, that's true), just that being open to chit-chat while in transit is a dangerous game to play. Economy travel is too tedious to risk being trapped beside a well-intentioned grandmother bemoaning her candida infection all the way to Singapore.

6) Accept and consume all complimentary booze.

7) Do carry-on only wherever possible. Pack lightly and stuff everything into the smallest possible container. Hide overflow in a giant handbag and hold it over your shoulder and behind your back to avoid having your hand luggage go over the weight limit. Ignore people who give you dirty looks for filling up the overhead locker. This is the reason hoodies were invented.

8) Make sure you have water with you. Most flight attendants will react as though you've pinched their bottom if you dare ask them to fetch one. Buy a bottle (or fill up your existing container), but only after security; otherwise, they'll take it away from you.

9) Don't expect to be dropped off or picked up from the airport unless you are willing to do the same in return - even if that means driving two hours across town at rush hour only to wait at the arrivals gate for four hours for your Uncle Mike's delayed flight from Fiji. Unless I'm arriving in a completely terrifying foreign place, I always refuse offers of transportation to and from the airport, for fear that I may one day be forced to return the favour.

10) Bite the bullet and buy an upgrade. It's a whole different world up there. Not that I'd know.

lmclaren@globeandmail.com