Bon voyage: 5 essential rules royal family must abide by when travelling

The royal family embarks on many trips annually — scheduled and otherwise.

While they can hop on a flight for an emergency tour or such and bypass their planned duties, what they can not work their way around is a strict code of rules for travelling.

Though these rules may range in the nature of their severeness, none of them are avoidable.

Here are the most eye opening ones among them:

The Royal Flight

Both planned state visits and urgent ones require that members of the Crown travel by the official royal fleet, named The Royal Flight — depending on the monarch, it may also be called King’s Flight or Queen’s Flight.

Pack black clothes

A bit on the morbid side, the royal family is required to travel with black clothes in the case of an unexpected death while they are on board — a rule which has been implemented since 1952, when Queen Elizabeth’s father passed away and she had flown in from her tour of Africa without a black ensemble.

Bring Blood supplies

The royal family travels with their own supplies of blood, to ensure medical safety even when they’re flying.

Two weeks of travel

While the royals used to go travelling on official state visits for months on end at a time, they are no longer permitted to do so — the new rule states that official royal tours should not last more than two weeks, forcing family members to squeeze in as many engagements as possible in their limited days of travel.

Respect the culture

As the foremost representatives of their country, the royal family members are required to attain basic lessons regarding the language and customs to whichever nation they travel to — a rule which can also extend to their clothes and accessories.