How I Travel: Christina Ricci Strives to Be the First Person on the Plane

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Yellowjackets centers around a group of teenage girls trying to survive in the woods after a plane crash—the harrowing flashbacks of the accident might unnerve even the serenest of flyers. Christina Ricci, who plays one of the survivors as an adult, gets nervous on planes herself. But she can’t blame it on the show. “It’s more reality-based. I started being afraid to fly when I had my first child,” says the actor, who recently received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. “I deal with that fear by trying to take my loved ones with me as much as possible. If I go down, we all go down and we won't have to worry about leaving everybody in the lurch.”

Before the season three finale of Yellowjackets, which airs on Showtime and is available for streaming on Paramount+, Ricci chatted with Condé Nast Traveler about her rules for traveling with kids, the city in Canada she loves, and the ongoing battle for overhead compartment dominance.

Her priorities when planning a vacation:

Really, what I think about first is [ensuring] the kids will have something to do. So if it's a beach resort, I want to know that it is family-friendly and that there will be other kids so that my son could potentially make a friend. But I really am a lazy vacationer, unless it's Paris and you're going to spend every day walking to every museum, or Rome where you're going to walk the city and that's the whole point. Generally when I go on vacation, I like to lounge. I like to lay on a chaise lounge at either a pool or a beach—a non-windy beach, no windy beaches, please!—and just stay in the shade and get drinks brought to me.

What’s in her carry-on bag:
I try not to check luggage as much as possible, so usually a couple sets of clothes and my toiletries and chargers. I always travel with a portable lock for the hotel room door. And if my lock doesn't fit in the door, I make them come and bring me another auxiliary lock, because people should be mindful of things like that in hotels.

Her preferred mode of transportation:

I'm always happy to drive, but I also really love boats. You don't get a chance to be on a boat very often. I wish that the U.S. would invest in some high-speed trains. This country's so big, I feel like we could really take advantage of some high-speed trains. I love being in Europe because I love traveling by train—I think that’s probably my favorite.

How she spends her flight time:

I'm really good at sleeping on planes. Ever since I was a child, I’ve had a Pavlovian response to getting on a plane. But what I really like to do on planes is read. I find that it's the most conducive environment to really getting into a book, or whatever scripts or IP I have to read for work. Before I had a production company, I would pretty much spend an entire flight reading a book, and trying to finish the book before we landed.

What she looks for in a hotel:

I like it to be quiet at nighttime. I'm, like, 87 years old. But I love hotels. I like a beautiful lobby and bar. I need 24-hour room service, and it’s [got to be] good room service. I have to have a bathtub. And then I like to have either some sort of balcony, or a window open. I don't like being sealed into things. My favorite thing at a hotel is to have a drink at the bar and then go to your room, take a bath, order room service, and eat dinner while watching a movie or television. So I need to be able to access Netflix, although recently I've been traveling with my Apple TV so I just need them to give me access to the HDMI port.

The greatest vacation she’s ever been on:

I haven't gone on that many vacations because I travel so much for work, but a lot of times I will vacation during a work trip. I spent a month in Berlin over a summer and that felt like an absolute vacation—exploring the city and the beautiful restaurants and nightlife, but also driving out of the city to all the lakes, and just having amazing days with my son. It was before my daughter was born, so I was swimming in the lakes with my son and my husband Mark. It was so beautiful and picturesque.

The city she could never tire of:

My top three are Paris, Rome, and London, which I know is not very obscure, but I really do love them. Plus, if you go to London then you can just take the train to Paris for a day trip.

Her tips for traveling with kids:

I think it’s entertainment, and lots of snacks, a tremendous amount of snacks. It's always a crap shoot. You just never know how it's going to go with children below the age of four. I think my son Freddie is such an experienced traveler now. We travel all the time. We're actually flying to Kansas City together [soon], and he's got it down. He knows the routine and he's great to travel with.

But my big thing about people flying with kids and babies—and I have to do it, too, so I know it can be a struggle—is they have got to wear headphones. We got my son toddler headphones when he was two, and he could not watch his iPad unless he was listening to his headphones. We have that situation now with my daughter Cleo, who's three. She doesn't like to use headphones very much, so she watches the iPad without sound. They just have to learn that that's part of what we do as citizens of the world.

The destination she thinks is underrated:

Halifax in Nova Scotia. I've shot there a few times, and they had the most incredible food and restaurants, such beautiful scenery and nature and fishing and fun stuff like that. It's small and really drivable and just absolutely gorgeous.

Her travel pet peeve:

I really don't like when people take the overhead space above somebody else's seat, unless it's the end of the flight and there's no other room. The overhead space above your seat is your overhead space, sir, not mine. And I hate it because I'm small, so I’ve literally had people reach over me and take my overhead space as I'm struggling with my own suitcase. I only travel with a carry-on, so I’ve got to get that carry-on in that overhead space! I always try to make sure I'm the first person on the plane. Now I'm that obnoxious lady who waits in line in the middle of the [gate] and I don't care. When I was younger, it was so easy and nice. The whole thing of “Why is everybody so stressed? We all have a seat on the plane,” that was actually true. There was no reason to stress out! But now, I have to get on there first, otherwise I’m going to lose my overhead space. It's really annoying.

Where she’s never been that she’d like to see next:

I've never been to Florence and I'm dying to go. I would really like to go on a safari in Africa, but that's really expensive. I'm trying to do it for my mother. It's always been her dream. She's older now, so I'm trying to figure that out for her while she can still comfortably enjoy it.

Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler