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Flying Far for the Holidays? How to Enjoy a Wood Jigsaw Puzzle On the Plane

Flying Far for the Holidays?  With 3 minutes of preparation (see below), you can enjoy one of our puzzles on the plane. It's a great way to break up a...

Flying Far for the Holidays? 

With 3 minutes of preparation (see below), you can enjoy one of our puzzles on the plane. It's a great way to break up a long-flight, and is a fun way to have "quality" time with your kid/companion without making as much noise as most 2-person activities.

Here's our tried-and-tested tips for how to enjoy a wooden jigsaw puzzle on a plane:

  • Choose a small or medium-sized puzzle:
    • Note lighting may now be great, so best to pick something with some bright colors like Circle of Time or Fabric Owls.
    • Also, you're going to want to finish it in one sitting, so pick something a bit on the easy side.
  • Rubber-band or tie with twine the box shut. The magnetic clasps aren't strong enough for travel. Don't just tape because you'll need to re-close it :). 
  • Pack a 2-3 feet segment of aluminum foil in your carry-on - I usually fold it up and pack it next to my magazines, but rolling it up works fine too.
  • Before you take the puzzle out on the plane, get out your aluminum foil, and make a little tray to work on, by doubling up the foil for strengths and then folding up the edges to make a "tray". I like to fold up a roughly 1" wall on all 4 sides. 
  • Put your box inside the tray, and get the pieces out. Pieces should never leave the tray!
  • The aluminum tray makes it easy to:
    • rotate the whole thing when you need a fresh perspective
    • fold it up and "store it" if food comes or if you don't quite finish
    • get more surface area to work with than the airplane tray
    • the surface will make it harder for pieces to get knocked around and go flying 

Flying Business Class?: Good for you!  Puzzling by yourself is great in Business Class due to the larger trays / space (but still - use the aluminum foil tray, otherwise you will lose pieces!). However, be warned if there are two of you in Business Class it's almost a bit hard to puzzle together with the fancy business class seats these days. However, you can make it work by making an extra thick (e.g. 3-fold or more) aluminum foil tray and balancing the tray on the shared armrest. 

We don't think this will work for most of our puzzles, but this blog post from the Really Wonderful Things shows you can even do our 54-piece Kessel Shells puzzle right-in its box: 

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