‘Rawdogging’ Flights: What Is The Wild Travel Trend?

There’s an episode of “Seinfeld” where Elaine Benes, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, takes a 22-hour flight with her on-again-off-again boyfriend, David Puddy (Patrick Warburton). She pulls out a book, starts to read, then notices that Puddy has no book. In fact, he has no form of entertainment whatsoever.

She quizzes him ― will he read a book? No. Does he plan to nap? No.

“You’re just going to sit there, staring at the back of the seat?” she asks, perplexed.

It turns out that this behavior (over which Elaine eventually and inevitably detonates the relationship again) isn’t just a gag on 1990s Must See TV. It’s happening on actual planes ― and, of course, on TikTok.

“Rawdogging travel,” as it’s unfortunately being called, is the act of boarding a flight ― long-haul or otherwise ― with no headphones, no book, no form of entertainment or diversion other than the ever-present digital flight map.

Of course, we live in an increasingly stimulating age, where not even a flight can stop you from connecting to Wi-Fi, getting work done or engaging in the same kind of endless scrolling we do on the ground. For some people, a flight is the only time to really disconnect. In that way, it could be considered a meditative experience.

But for other people, hours of sitting alone with your own thoughts sounds like torture ― especially if you have flight anxiety. Distractions may be the difference between having a somewhat pleasant experience (or at least a tolerable one) and full-blown panic.

Josh Firestine, a Washington-based comedian, recently tried the approach while en route from Dallas to Chicago for a performance.

“I saw this trend online and I thought it was really funny ― totally a bro thing to do, just challenge yourself for no reason,” he told HuffPost.

He said he’d never done such a thing before, or even thought to do it, but his less-than-ideal seating situation inspired him to try it out.

“I’m a bigger guy, I got to my seat and the man in the middle was twice my size,” he said. “I know the middle seat is the worst, you’ve got no comfort, so I just gave him the armrest and sort of sat there with my arms folded into myself trying not to get hit by the cart. I’m kind of miserable, and I go, ‘You know what, at this point, I’m just going to commit and raw dog it. No headphones, no sleeping.’”

Firestine, who went so far as to decline any refreshments from the flight attendants (“I don’t recommend the no water…