The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: May thirty-first, with pursuing pleasurable airport pastimes.

With tighter security, the need to show up earlier for flights and inconvenient connections, many travelers are spending more time at airports. Unless you bring your own entertainment, airport layovers are spent sitting in a stiff chair watching a watered-down version of CNN. Still more airports are providing diversions for passengers in-transit.

If you have a few hours to kill in Miami International, head for the airport hotel in Concourse E, where for $5, you can use the rooftop pool and spa. Hotels at many other airports offer similar diversions. Baltimore Washington Airport has a 12.5 mile recreational trail and an observation gallery with a flight simulator. In the airside concourse at Pittsburgh International, passengers can shop, work out, get a massage or perm, even have their cholesterol checked.

Overseas airports also take passenger entertainment seriously. In addition to a fitness center and tanning salon, Schipohl Airport in Amsterdam has a casino and cyber golf course. In Berlin, you can catch a cabaret, while Frankfurt Airport has a disco, bowling alley and movie theater. Passengers at Heathrow in London can shop in Harrods, Burberrys or Liberty. Paris' Orly airport has a branch of Maxim's restaurant. Travelers at Tokyo's Narita Airport can enjoy nearby botanical gardens and an aeronautical museum. Changai airport in Singapore offers free movies, a science center, fitness complex and city tours. Sydney has an 18-hole golf course just three minutes away.

FMI For direct links to airports around the world, www.123world.com/airports

Back to May 2002 Main

Look through the list of fascinating places and off-beat features we’ve covered. Search text versions of past episodes and articles in our archives.