The Most Tragic Oversight of Flying
A few tips to feed your insatiable wanderlust on a budget.
It was 2018 and my previously-thought irrational flight anxieties finally became realities. I won’t go into any great detail as to why, but I suddenly found myself stuck in New York City, without a flight, and absolutely broke.
Did I mention that I needed to be in Nepal in two days?
I had scheduled a flight that would have me in Nepal nearly a full day early to give me time to rest and explore before my life became consumed by a conference. An airline-who-must-not-be-named declined to let me board because — a personal oversight — I had not obtained a visa, and my long layover would have exceeded the 24-hour limit for even being in the airport without a visa.
Although I could not see it at the time, it was likely the best misfortune that could have ever befallen me.
With limited financial resources — I had actually eaten nothing but NYC’s “famous” $5 pizza-and-soda meal for the past two days — I made the difficult decision to book whatever flight that I could find on my credit card. The cheapest flight, by far, landed me in Nepal nearly two days later than originally planned — I would miss a day of my conference. After a bit of panicking and grieving, I decided to take a closer look at the flight itinerary:
LGA → MXP (22 hour layover) → DXB (14 hour layover) → KTM
…This was going to be awful.
After Googling the airport codes (I didn’t have quite as much international travel experience at the time) I found that I would be spending nearly an entire day in Milan, Italy and an evening in Dubai, UAE.
Not too shabby for a country boy.
Tip #1: Book the layover.
I immediately began to look up things to do on a dime and decided to use the precious hours I had in Italy to make a trip down to Rome… We can discuss whether that was the most efficient use of my time another day.
Tip #2: Run…
(Efficiency and some exercise after a long flight.)
Upon landing in Milan, sometime in the mid-afternoon, I sprinted to the closest train platform and made my way down to Rome. Unfortunately, the Coliseum had just closed for the evening when I arrived. I opted to go out for pizza, a glass of wine, a taste of gelato, and an evening of wandering around the streets of Rome. Around 1AM I found the bus station (the cheapest mode of travel for a return trip) and took the overnight bus back to Milan, making it just in time to board and start the next leg of my trip.
Tip #3: Don’t be afraid to take the overnight bus.
Landing in Dubai in the evening, I took the local light rail into downtown for dinner, sights of the Burj Khalifa, and meanderings around the Dubai Mall. I returned to the airport in the wee hours of the morning to board my next flight. Fortunately, coffee vending machines are quite popular around the world…except for in the US.
Tip #4: You can always sleep later. Have some coffee.
After what felt like a trip and a half in itself, I arrived in Kathmandu to begin my “real” trip.
I never would have imagined being able to see some of the sights highest on my bucket list as a result of the misfortune of a missed flight, and I will never make the same mistake of overlooking layovers again.
For example, I tried to somewhat reconstruct my previous circumstances and find a flight. Two of the three “best flights” that Google offered me were approximately $1300 and got me to Kathmandu in a relatively reasonable time (and for a relatively reasonable price, I’ll admit). Alternatively, the third of the “best flights” provided me with very long layovers in both Mumbai and New Delhi…for nearly $500 less.
Adventure time? I think so.
Tip #5: Do not discount what seems to be a painfully long flight. It may be just the adventure you never knew you needed.
