14 Ways To Use Your Long Layover Time Effectively

Pausing your entire travel day to land in another city and wait for a secondary flight is a nightmare for most travelers, but sometimes you simply cannot avoid a layover. Whenever you have a stop of less than 24 hours, it qualifies as a layover. While it's not fun to elongate your trip like this, there are a few good reasons that someone might opt for a trip with an indirect flight. 

Certain destinations are just too far to reach in one go unless you're aboard the longest nonstop flight in existence. Additionally, flights with layovers can be much cheaper than nonstop ones due to the obvious inconvenience they impose. It's also very common for a layover to be required if you're flying from a small, regional airport because there are less direct flights that leave from them. 

Like it or not, most travelers will have to tolerate a couple of layovers during their lifetime. The good news is there are lots of great ways to use this time productively. The next time you have a few hours to kill during a long layover, consider filling the time with one or more of these airport-friendly activities. 

Today, 4.7 million American workers do their job remotely at least half of the time.If you're one of those millions, you could actually get paid for your layover by getting a bit of work done. While working at the airport might sound like a drag, it can actually make the hours of a layover pass by much faster.  

There are quite a few sections of the airport terminal that can be calm enough to provide a good working environment. Several major airports like Changi Airport in Singapore, Hong Kong International, London Heathrow Airport, and Los Angeles International Airport have business centers that are specifically designed for travelers to be able to work without interruption. If you can't find a business center, you can escape to the airport lounge or a quiet zone in the terminal as long as you don't need to speak in a meeting. When all else fails, you can try to find a tucked away corner near your gate to get some work done while you wear headphones. 

One way to make your layover feel less daunting is to get lost in the world of a book. There are way more benefits to reading during your layover than just making the hours tick by quicker, too. Reading books has been found to strengthen your memory, make you relax, improve brain function, and even decrease your chance of developing Alzheimer's. If you can't quite get into a book during your layover, there are several other brain-boosting activities that you can do during your layover. 

Journaling can be an equally effective way to keep your mind sharp and it can teach you more about yourself, plus it's easy to do right from the terminal. A few great journal prompts to get you started on your journey of introspection could be "How does your work make you feel? In what ways could it be better?" or "What things in your daily life bring you the most joy?" . For days when self-reflection feels a bit too heavy, you could go for a listening to a podcast to fill the time. According to PodRanker a few of the top educational podcasts of the year are "Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay",  "Learning Guitar Now", and "The Learning Leader Show". 

Many travelers wrongly assume that every amenity at the airport is a bore, like vending machines, luggage storage, and phone charging stations. On the contrary, there are some very entertaining amenities and even downright bizarre attractions at airports across the world. Changi Airport in Singapore wows travelers with a giant butterfly garden. 

There is a whole aquarium that's home to 20,000 species of underwater flora and fauna at the Vancouver Airport. Travelers passing through the San Francisco International Airport can get through their layover by completing a session in their yoga room or dancing away the time at their in-terminal silent disco. At Munich International, you can sip on a Bavarian beer from the airport's on-site brewery. There are all types of interesting or useful amenities your airport could offer, so if you have time on a layover make sure to check them out. 

Committing to a stretching routine is like a gift from you to your body. Stretching promotes good circulation, helps fix back pain, makes you more flexible, lowers stress levels, and can even remedy a headache. The practice can be even more invigorating in the midst of a travel day when you're spending hours confined to a tight plane seat.  

While it might sound embarrassing to do a stretch in the middle of the terminal, there are plenty of airport-friendly stretches that won't attract too much attention. An easy neck stretch is clasping your hands on the back of your head and gently pulling your chin toward your chest. You can work your spine by twisting in both directions from a seated position or you can grab your ankle to tug your leg into a thigh stretch. Doing a few of these simple stretches can make you feel a lot more limber after a long day and it eats up some of your layover time.  

Meditation can be done anywhere in the world, including the airport, and it can have a wide range of positive impacts on one's life. According to the Mayo Clinic, it has been found to improve sleep quality, increase creativity, decrease negative emotions, improve self-awareness, and even have physical benefits like lowering blood pressure. It just so happens that all of these things can be very useful during a long travel day. 

Even if you've never meditated before, anyone can do it and a layover is the perfect time to test it out. Practicing a bit of meditation might even help to soothe any plane anxiety you could be experiencing. All you have to do as a beginner is sit somewhere comfortable and close your eyes. 

Then, bring all your focus to your breath as your chest rises and falls while keeping all other thoughts at bay. As simple as it sounds, this heightened sense of presence can be a challenge for newbies. Once you get the hang of it though, meditating can be a very blissful way to spend your layover. 

Don't worry, people watching is nowhere near as creepy as it sounds off the bat. People-watching is an effortless way to kill time where you find a spot to hang out in a public place and just witness the strangers around you go about their lives. Although it seems a bit silly, it can actually be a very good stress reliever during a hectic travel day because it brings you out of your head to keep you in the present moment. This activity has also been known to make you more empathetic since it gives you the chance to get a glimpse into the lives around you if only for a second. 

For travelers who feel uncomfortable staring at the other people around them, there is another similar activity you can do on your layover — plane watching. Airports can send off up to a thousand flights every single day and it can be a soothing activity to watch them as they leave on all their adventures. This is a particularly entertaining way to spend a layover with young kids who could be mesmerized by the giant aircraft flying into the sky. 

Fill your layover time with an activity that will better you as a person, like learning a new language. This is such a crucial skill for travel lovers because it can help them overcome a language barrier when visiting new countries. Plus it has tons of other benefits like strengthening cognitive function in general. 

These days travelers are lucky because there are so many effective apps that can help them get a grasp on a foreign language on the go — even while they're sitting in the middle of an airport. According to CNET, the best apps to learn a new language right from your phone are Duolingo, Drops, and Memrise. 

If you're not in the mood to start a language learning journey or you're already bilingual, you can use your layover to master another useful skill. If you have a laptop with you at the airport, you can head over to a website like Coursera or Skillshare for classes in all types of subjects from animation and website design to entrepreneurship and photography. Travelers on a budget can use The Open University to discover free courses on a range of topics that would all look stellar on a resume. 

Instead of keeping your camera in your bag until you arrive at your destination, you might consider taking it out during your layover to snap a few candid photos of travel life in action. With standard portrait photos, the subject is very aware of the camera and it can make the shot feel stiff. Candid photography on the other hand captures moments without the subjects realizing they're on camera and it can create a much more authentic photograph. 

While the airport may seem like a boring place for photos, it can actually be a treasure trove of film gold. During the long wait of a layover, you have the opportunity to catch planes taking off from your gate and travelers running around in their element. You never know, you may walk away from your layover with one of the best photographs you have ever taken. 

You can turn your layover into a precious keepsake or potentially even a side hustle by capturing the whole thing in vlog format. A vlog is a video diary where you showcase what happens to you during a particular experience, such as embarking on an exciting trip or even killing time during a long layover. While you might think that nobody would care about what you do at the airport during your layover, there is actually a large community of people who love this type of content. 

After all, there are around 307,000 successful content creators on YouTube from the United States alone. You could very well be the next one if you start recording engaging content throughout your adventures. If you don't feel like you can come up with stuff to talk about on the fly, you can always make a quick content plan before you start recording yourself. As a Reddit user in r/NewTubers suggested "It helps to have an outline at least if you don't already script your videos. Breaking whatever your talking about into bullet points will help you make sure you hit all of the points you want to make and will most likely make the video more organized and longer." 

A layover can drag on for five, eight, or even 12 hours or more. Many people assume that they will be helplessly trapped in the terminal this whole time. However, travelers are free to leave the airport and explore as long as their passport is eligible for visa-free entry to the layover destination. The only thing to keep in mind is that it's not recommended to attempt to leave the airport unless your layover is at least five hours long. 

Don't feel confident about navigating a new place and getting back to the airport in time for your flight? That's okay because you can just book a comprehensive layover tour to bring you around to see the sites. Singapore's Changi Airport extends a city tour to anyone who has a layover longer than 5.5 hours and shorter than 24 hours and the experience is completely free. 

If your airport doesn't offer these excursions themselves, you can always find a local provider to pick you up. For instance, this Heathrow Layover Tour brings you all around the top attractions of London like Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. The exploration can last anywhere from three to eight hours depending on the length of your layover and at the end they will bring you back to the airport for your flight. 

A long layover is the perfect time to recharge and catch up on your sleep, but it can be pretty difficult to fall asleep in a crowded airport. Thankfully, this problem has been solved by sleeping pods. These futuristic-looking amenities are by far one of the best ways to sleep in an airport comfortably. Nap or sleep pods are similar to a capsule hotel where you rent a mini room by the hour and have a snooze without being surrounded by wandering travelers. 

Despite sounding claustrophobic, they're actually quite relaxing as one Reddit user in r/travel stated, "Those sleep pods feel eerily like coffins but we did 3 hours in one last year and I passed the f out! Was a nice solution for the really long layover we had." They typically cost around $10 to $25 per hour and come with things like power outlets, televisions, WiFi, a lighting system, or even access to a private bathroom. Sleeping pods are becoming much more common to find around the world as well. Philadelphia International Airport, Berlin International Airport, Heathrow International Airport, and Abu Dhabi International Airport all have nap pods available for their passengers to rent.

Treating your skin to a little spa moment is a lovely way to get through a layover. It can be even more nourishing at the airport because flying in planes completely dries out your delicate skin. You can do things like cleansing your face, using under-eye cream for any dark circles that accumulated throughout traveling, and putting on a creamy moisturizer. If you don't mind looking a little wild in the terminal, you can throw on a refreshing face mask to really make yourself feel brand new. 

You can also use your layover time to go through your whole hygiene routine and guarantee that you stay fresh for the remainder of your journey. This could include doing things like brushing your teeth, scrubbing your hands clean thoroughly with soap, or changing your contact lenses. Not only will all this stuff make the layover go by in a flash, but you'll actually feel restored from spending all day in the airport and on planes. 

When you have a few spare hours on a layover, feed your excitement for your trip by developing your day-to-day plans a little further. Although you will probably have a rough itinerary for your trip by the time you're at the airport, it can always be improved. One Reddit user shared their trip planning method in r/TravelHacks by saying "I check Tripadvisor, and Facebook pages for travel tips for the places I'm going to visit (some of those pages are VERY active). I start putting everything I'm considering into my own Google map, and see what things are listed near where I'm visiting that look interesting." 

Another way to bolster your itinerary right from the airport is using TikTok to plan your next vacation with insights from locals and people who have visited the area before. You should also follow Rick Steve's key piece of advice for planning a successful trip as you're coming up with ideas for how to fill your vacation days. He urges all travelers to fit a couple of break days into their itinerary, so they don't get overwhelmed by stuffing a million activities onto the schedule. 

Your layover can do wonders for your body when you spend it completing your own mini walkathon. Did you know that walking just a little bit each day is one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself? According to the Mayo Clinic, a fast-paced walk can protect you from heart disease, make your muscles stronger, give you a boost of energy, improve your immune system, and even lower your stress levels. 

It's also a simple way to burn a bunch of calories. Depending on your weight, it will take approximately 20 minutes of walking around the airport to burn 100 calories. Lots of people swear by regular walks as the secret to their well-being. One Reddit user explained in r/DecidingToBeBetter "The more and the longer I go for walks, the better I feel, the clearer I think, the more directed, motivated and productive I am. It's one of the most valuable activities in my life."