Morning. Absolutely. A late flight sounds tempting, presuming your kids may sleep if the flight is during bedtime, but what happens when you arrive at your destination? They’ll be awake, and cranky as you get off the plane, get luggage, go to the car rental, get to the hotel etc. It will be totally fractured and miserable. Always add an extra day for a travel that you don’t “count “as part of your trip!

Don't accidentally leave the diaper bag at security like I did once! Or at least stash a couple extra diapers and wipes in your other bags, just to be safe.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An afternoon flight to CA means arriving around 11 pm east coast time doesn’t it? I’d probably avoid that all things being equal.

No, you've got it backwards. You will arrive earlier in the day than it feels to you. Like if I leave DC at 2pm EST, I will arrive at LAX by 5pm Pacific but it will feel like 8pm to me. As an adult, I kind of like this, but for kids it can be tough.

You're thinking about the return trip, which yes, is just a lost day.

No I had the direction right, I was just thinking of a 5 pm flight not a 2 pm flight (but I understand 2 pm might closer to “afternoon” than 5 pm)

Anonymous wrote:An afternoon flight to CA means arriving around 11 pm east coast time doesn’t it? I’d probably avoid that all things being equal.

No, you've got it backwards. You will arrive earlier in the day than it feels to you. Like if I leave DC at 2pm EST, I will arrive at LAX by 5pm Pacific but it will feel like 8pm to me. As an adult, I kind of like this, but for kids it can be tough.

You're thinking about the return trip, which yes, is just a lost day.

I'd do morning assuming it's not something crazy like 5 am