I'm always fine returning from Europe and don't really mind getting home at 3pm otherwise 8pm but prefer later because I can just go to bed.

The flights to Europe are harder for me because I don't sleep well on plates. I much prefer to arrive there around 11am, check in early if possible (usually easy to do), nap, and sleep lightly because my body is confused but the first full day is always fine.

Opinions will vary. As background, I am a natural morning person.

For about a decade, I travelled often to London. I always flew home on (what was then) UA-923, usually a 767-300ER. It left LHR around 0815 UK and landed IAD around 1130 ET.

I spent the night before at a hotel airport, waking up around 0500. I had a nice hot breakfast with a double espresso in the Star Alliance departure lounge while reading The Times.

I would go to bed at my usual time that night. Worked very well for me. Probably would not work for a night owl.

The later flight is better, as long as you can get a late check out, or have a good plan for your luggage after checkout before your flight

I don't like getting up early for a morning flight especially at the end of a vacation. Enjoy the morning!

Leave earlier. If there are mechanical issues or weather there is still a chance of you getting home same day.

On our last 3 international flights we encountered the following:

--mechanical issues, causing flight to be cancelled
--weather issues, caused us to land in another east coast airport.
--unknown cancellation, Delta cancelled our flight from Amsterdam. We did not find out until we got to the airport.

We will always take the earliest international flight in the future. You have a higher likelihood of getting home the same day if you have to make unexpected flight changes.

Later. The bigger European airports are an absolute shitshow, with crazy long security lines and total chaos. We got to GDG 4 hours before our flight, and still had to sprint to make our plane, even with some kind agent pulling the soonest-departing passengers out of line. Same at Schipol-- it was a little more organized, but just as mobbed.

With 4+ hour lead times, pick the latest flight you can get. Otherwise you're up and on your way to the airport before dawn, and that's a lousy way to ennd a vacation. Get home, go straight to bed.

Later. Landing at Dulles at 3pm with every other flight is a guaranteed $hitshow

Always later, there is no benefit to leaving early going west, other than having to get to the airport early in the morning.

In our experience it is departure time that matter more than arrival time: you need to account for getting to the airport, going through security and border controls, etc. Do you really want to start your very long day very early in the morning? We always choose noon/afternoon flight: have a nice morning, leisurely get to your flight and at home just arrive and go to bed.

We flew back from Italy in April. We connected through Zurich Our flight left Zurich around 1:00 pm and landed at IAD around 5:00 pm. It was an 8 hour flight. None of us slept on the plane coming home. We got home and went to bed at our regular time. It worked fine with little to no jet lag.

My personal preference is DC to Europe: leave at night, try to sleep on the plane and then stay up the whole day when you get there. Europe to DC, leave in the morning, if you need to nap, do it early in the flight, when you get home, stay awake until bedtime.

I think it depends on whether you're an early bird or night owl.

I'm from Paris. I like to leave on the midday flight, which gives me time to pack last minute stuff and get to the CDG airport without having to wake up at the crack of dawn. Counting the inevitable long wait in the Dulles Border Control line for foreigners, I arrive home in the evening, in time for a quick dinner and bedtime.

Check out arrivals. There seem to be a lot of planes arriving around 2-3pm from different European cities, leading to longer queues at immigration and customs.

All else being equal, I would probably do the later flight for the reason you mention and because a 10 am flight probably means checking out around 7 am or so and I’d rather have a relaxed morning.

My instinct says to book a flight that leaves at 3 pm (7 pm arrival) vs 10 am (2 pm arrival) due to the fact that you would be able to better acclimate to the new time zone better if you are well rested before the flight, and essentially will have no temptation upon arrival at home to nap or go to bed early as you will get home close to bedtime anyway.

My husband thinks we are better off leaving early and getting home in the afternoon.

Help us settle this!