how do you guys spend your layovers? do you count these as travel

I think it's cool to "be there" and only mention my layovers in passing during conversation; but in general they don't count.

I usually read stuff on my itouch

>>1192752
If the visa process isnt too much for a short stay I usually try to get a stopover and make a day trip of it.

I love layovers, it's my favorite part of travelling. Just plan ahead. It's a great way to see countries you might otherwise never visit. My 2 favorites were Istanbul, and Dubai

I definitely want to go back to Istanbul

Dubai was okay, but it just felt like a shitty Las Vegas, it was cool seeing the mall, but it was 110 degrees with 100% humidity. Needless to say I smelled like shit on my flight.

>>1192760
>If the visa process isnt too much for a short stay
Where would this be the case?

>Dubai was okay, but it just felt like a shitty Las Vegas
Are you sure you don't have that backwards? Dubai has a lot of things Vegas could only dream of. Maybe you were thinking of Maccau as the shitty LV.

>>1192765
>I love layovers
> It's a great way to see countries you might otherwise never visit

>>1192775
>Where would this be the case?
Wherever you get a visa-on-arrival without any cost. Lots of the ME Gulf states are sort of alright for this, for most passports.

>first ever layover coming up in a few months
>Amsterdam for almost 6 hours
Kind of awkward timing due to the streamlined transfers at Schipol. Not sure if it's worth going in to the city after a 13 hour flight.
What do, lads?

I normally just watch movies on my laptop and shitpost here and on Quora.

If I don't have any electronics, I'll write a journal or read a book.

I've got two 12-hour layovers in the Madrid airport coming up.
I've never gotten a good impression of that airport; are there any secret spots?
I'll have my passport stamped so I could go into the city if I wanted to, but I don't know if I want to.

Protip, if you're not on any kind of schedule, and you're about to book a flight with a layover in a random country, see if you can book two separate flights for the same price, while allowing yourself more time in that country.
That's how I got to spend 10 days in Sri Lanka, for no extra airfare cost. I would never have otherwise thought of visiting there.

>>1192799
Smoke weed

>>1192799
Schipol is huge, if you've never been there before you will need at least an hour to get to your destination inside the airport.

You can get to the city itself quite easily with the sprinters but I doubt it's going to be worth the hassle, especially if you only have 1-2 hours there.

>>1192752
It counts if you get a stamp

>>1192823
No reason to mope at the airport. You can easily get to the city and back with the metro, so go for it.

>>1192799
6 hrs... That's tricky.
If you don't need a visa and have no delays, you might want to look around.

It will be around 15-30 mins from the time you park at the gate to get to the exit area. There the lines can be anything from 5 mins to even an hour depending how busy it is.
I would check ns.nl for train updates before going any further. Many times they just cancel all trains to and from Schiphol, in that case just stay put and just walk around Schiphol.
If the trains are running, then you can get to Amsterdam Central in 40 mins and that includes getting the ticket and waiting. Get a return ticket so that you don't have to bother with it on the way back.
Basically I would just walk to the Dam, walk to Oude Kerk, and then back to Amsterdam Centraal. On the way there's plenty to see, plenty of bars and cafes to just grab a drink at quick.

Don't do it if you have any delays or if the passport check is over 15-20 mins.

Schiphol is awesome, but still it's good to be there 3 hrs before if it's a flight outside Schengen, those security lines can go from zero to an hour long in a blink.

>>1192799
Dutch here. 6 hours is a bit tight, but Schiphol is pretty efficient. You can use 9292 to use public transport to get to the tourist attractions you want to.

I'd say decide when you're their, because you can be tired as fuck after flying 13 hours.

I managed to get myself a 19 hour layover in Singapore on my way to Australia.
It was either that or 2 hours.
Definitely going to visit the city/country but I arrive at 3 in the goddamn morning so I've yet to find out if there are any decent areas to sleep a few hours for free, in the public area of course.

>>1192859
>>1192882
>>1192916
Thanks for the input, guys.
Last transfer I had there was only one hour between flights, so straight off the plane and into the next queue for boarding the long haul. Same this time for my way out.
I can't remember how it works with me coming back from outside Shengen (?) area, if I'd have to go through all the security measures again to get in and out of the airport. Pretty sure I just stayed in the departures area and didn't have to go though it all last time. I'm flying home to the UK from there.

>>1192752
I'm an American and love visiting Central and South America, so I have a lot of layovers in Miami. They're always around 4-6 hours, so I take an Uber to the beach and chill for a while.

I've never had a problem making it back in time. A little spendy, but worth it to spend a few hours on the beach instead of the airpot. Especially since I'm from Minneapolis, where most of my life is cold, snow and freshwater lakes.

Otherwise, I hit the bars, sleep, read, normal stuff.

>>1192974
>>1192975
Careful with that edge, you underaged /pol/tard virgin.

>>1192752
>how do you guys spend your layovers?
Sleep.

>do you count these as travel "destinations"?
I used to up until very recently, now I try not to. The reason being that my friends/coworkers always ask me about my travels, and some of them ask more about the layover destinations than my actual travel destinations.

http://www.sleepinginairports.net

File: Tokyo-International-Aiport.jpg (2MB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1920x1080px

>>1192752
What's the deal with this place? I just realized that they want me to fly into NRT but leave from HND, in the same day?

Why do this? Did anyone else have this experience?

>>1195351
japanese 2 style

>>1195351
With the limited context given to me, I can only assume that it's just a matter of scheduling.

I'm assuming your itinerary looks something like this:
>A > NRT > HND > B
A being your departure point, and B being where you ultimately want to be.

Ideally, you would want one of the following:
>A > B
or
>A > NRT > B

I can only assume neither of these are possible because there is no B flight from NRT that meshes with your schedule.

So that leaves you two choices: Go to HND, then go to B, or stay in NRT for an ungodly number of hours while waiting for a B flight. And this is assuming the latter option is even possible (it's either not, or it's so unbelievably inconvenient that it would be cruel to give you this option).

Why did this happen? Because you're one of the small minority of NRT customers who needs to go from point A to point B. If more people were like you, things could be different. However, since very few people actually have the same needs as you do, you're left to get what you need (ie. a flight to point B) at another airport.

>>1195740
Yeah. In retrospect that makes a lot of sense.

No prob, I've got several hours between flights so I cdn prob take a train to HND