Today is the third day I have been home from a quick trip to Taiwan with one of my sons, and I feel awful. Getting up was awful. The thought of heading to work and trying to be productive was even worse. Even after falling asleep at a reasonable hour, the morning was not fun.
Now that I am at the office, my eyes hurt and I feel totally lethargic. Generally, I adjust fairly well to new time zones. But sometimes I have unfortunate bouts like this week. And one thing has consistently held true…
Jet lag is worse going east
I’m just agreeing with the science here. I’ve always found this to be the case, and I’m glad that claim can be backed up. Every time I’ve needed to adjust from Western Europe time to Pacific time, it’s been a breeze. Ditto for California to China, and California to Australia.
But California to Europe? Brutal. Both when I traveled to England a decade ago and the trip my wife and I took in 2016 resulted in rough mornings and nights where you wake up at 2:00 a.m. The trip I took with my older two kids last year was better, but I’ll attribute this to powering through essentially two days until we were utterly exhausted. They didn’t sleep on the plane and woke me up enough that I effectively didn’t either.
The same even holds true for my work trips back east. My first couple mornings in Virginia are awful. I often need to leave the hotel at 6:00 or 6:30, which is brutally early when you’re arriving from Pacific time. But heading home is a cinch. I even try to dial bedtime back a bit, which helps me have even more productive morning time. My coworkers give me the stink-eye, though, when the coffee pot warmer turns off at 8:30 after its 2-hour cycle. 🙂
Go west, young man
It hit me that this asymmetrical jet-lag adjustment phenomenon can be applied to an around the world trip. It now makes more sense to head west rather than east. Rather than making Europe your first stop, consider Hawaii. Then maybe Australia. Then slowly advance across Asia until you get to Europe before jet-setting home again.
You can even plan such a trip rather cheaply, given the abundance of low cost carriers. I’ve done some research into a few different itineraries, although I have typically started off with a cheap Norwegian flight to Europe. You can match this with the previously suggested hop to Hawaii, followed by a Jetstar flight down under. The following itinerary should ring in about $1,100 in economy, stopping at each of the locations shown.
You could break up the flight back to California, but nothing really beats that $147 LEVEL flight from Barcelona as far as deals go. Besides that flight, none of the hops shift you more than 4 hours at a time.
Conclusion
Jet lag is no fun, and it is one of the tougher parts of air travel, especially for a quick trip. But the good news is adjusting for just a few days in Asia or Australia is the easier of the two. You’ll just pay for it when you return home.
Maps generated by Great Circle Mapper – copyright © Karl L. Swartz.
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Absolutely Round the World trips should go west! Except for my last RTW19 2.0 which was eastbound to position to Tokyo for the return portion of my ANA required RT, I always gone west from the first in 2013 dca-dfw-sfo-(to fly on CX B747)-hkg-sin-hkg-cpt-Lhr-dfw-dca)
Added bonus is walking up early and watching sun rises
I love sunrises. Some of this preference may be influenced by the fact I am a morning person. But it is still remarkably easier to adjust to time changes going west.
Very true, head west. However, an east direction is possible. The key is to cross the Atlantic via YYZ, ORD, BOS, EWR, IAD or (usually) JFK to LHR on a daytime flight that arrives at LHR anywhere from 9 pm to 10:30 pm or so. Flying to India from Europe is a killer but maybe stop in Dubai?
You end up with a short day, though, don’t you? Maybe if it is combined with an initial super early wake up (I.e. 4:00 a.m. for an 8:00 a.m. flight?
East is a Beast, West is Best.