I love travelling, it’s one of the greatest things you can do in your life, embracing new cultures and trying new dishes, but one of the negative trade-offs is spending hours in airports.
However, this time doesn’t have to be wasted, if you prepare in advance and work out what you’re going to do, this time can be spent really well.
Plan Your Holiday Itinerary
Sure, you might have a general idea of what you’re going to do each day, but this is a great opportunity to get it perfectly scheduled. If you feel like being a complete nerd (like me), you could put it in a Google Sheet with general timings, so you know what time everything is happening and when you have to leave by.
This will also help to highlight gaps in your itinerary, such as if you haven’t worked out where to eat (time to start researching restaurants) or a big gap in activities one day. Just the same, you might find that you’ve overloaded one day and it would be impossible to get between landmarks.
Learn Some Of The Local Language
This is something I regularly do while in an airport. I mean you’re not going to learn a huge amount, as you’d need a lot more than 30-60 minutes for that, but learning the basics like hello, goodbye, thank you, menu please and sorry are normally enough to get you by.
There are plenty of apps if you want to gamify it, or if you have headphones then you can watch some YouTube videos, which will help with pronunciation, my biggest weakness.
Play Games
We’re talking about downloading a game so that it can be played offline. Whether that’s on a laptop ideally if you’ve brought one, or looking at mobile games that can be played offline, this is a great way to burn some time, but you can’t really download them once you’re at the airport so it’s best to prep in advance.
I banned myself from playing Football Manager as I felt it drained away my life, but if you have 4 hours to spare, why not spend it winning the Premier League?
If you like a cheeky punt as well, you could try an online casino, who knows, maybe you can win big and start sipping on champagne while you’re on holiday.
Clear Space On Your Phone
Have you ever got on holiday, started taking photos or videos and then seen you’ve hit a physical phone limit? Ok, this doesn’t happen as often nowadays and everything can be backed up to the Cloud, but I sometimes like to clear space before a holiday as I know I’ll be capturing a lot of content.
Admittedly, this one can always be left for the plane, as you can do this one offline, but if you do want to ensure everything is backed up properly then you will need to do it while you have access to WiFi in the airport,
Download Tickets & Documents
You might have tickets for activities you’re going to do, or booking confirmations for hotels, whatever it is, if you lose internet connection just as you enter, this can be a massive headache, so I like to download them directly onto my phone wallet.
This can sometimes feel unnecessary at the time, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been relieved that I’ve done this when there really is zero connection or they can’t find evidence of your booking.
Charge Everything
Sure, this should really have been done in advance, but this is also your last chance before you get on a plane, so it’s worth checking the battery on your headphones, phone or anything else you plan on using.
I always choose the restaurant or area I want to sit in based on whether they have charging points.
Fill Your Water Bottle
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m always confused why people pay for water or a drink in the airport, when the vast majority have water fountains.
These are verified as drinking water and are a nice money saver. You just pack an empty bottle through security and then fill it up in the airport. Admittedly, with the rule changes, you can bring some water in, provided the bottle is see-through (it’s still not allowed with flasks), but you have a max amount of total liquid allowed through, therefore I find it easier just packing an empty bottle and filling once I’m inside.
