With the long Easter weekend around the corner, many of us are taking the plane to reach their Easter break destination. And you won’t be the only one! Airports across the globe will be filled with eager travellers. Many of the airports will reach or even exceed their capacity resulting in long queues and departure delays. But all this doesn’t mean you can’t have a great airport experience. Let us show you how to make the whole experience a pleasant or even exciting one:

First of all, stay calm at all times. Yes, this is easier written than done, but it’s the key to getting through the airport in the best possible way. There are, however, a few tricks you can apply to keep yourself calm: Play a little game. When you are with someone else at the airport and are queuing for check-in, try 2 different queues and have a bet among each other who’s quickest. Or try this: one queues and the other has got, say, 3 minutes to find a specific object mentioned by the other and take a photo of it on their phone. And so on, you got the idea! If you are alone in the queue, however, fear not, there are always people around you in similar circumstances. Get over your shyness and speak to the person in front of you. You never know where it can lead to! At the very minimum a few minutes go past quickly.

So now you are checked in and are waiting in the departure lounge for your delayed flight. Again, there are tons of things for you to do! First of all, check our site and see if we’ve written about the specific airport you are travelling through. If so, then follow our recommendations and you’ll have a lot of fun! Otherwise, there are always a few general things you can do. Again, it’s play time!

1. Play the Flacon game
   Go to the duty free shop and find the best and the most hideous looking perfume bottle (flacon) and see if the look corresponds with the smell (we’ve played this game a while back at London’s Stansted airport, read it here)
2. Play the Magazine game
   Every airport has a newsagent. Go there and browse through the available magazines. Depending on the country, magazines have a lot of physical extras added to “help” you choose them. Find the one with the most ridiculous extra and buy it! Then judge on the content. If magazines don’t have any extras, find the one with the most appealing content on a particular page (e.g. page 24), then buy that one and see if the rest is as good.
3. Play the Exercise game
   This one is for active people: If there are two or more of you, challenge your “opponents” to a race. You start in the middle of the terminal and each of you chooses an opposite corner. You then see who can reach the corner and get back the quickest. You might have to add a ‘no running rule’ as otherwise it might be too dangerous.
4. Play the Airline game
   Since you’re at an airport, there’s a chance airplanes are quite close by. Find a good viewing position and try to guess which one is leaving the gates next. Or play the “I spy” game with someone else. This surely brings hours of fun, especially with kids!
5. Play the Disguise game
   Imagination is a wonderful thing. This little game will test you and your imagination. Think of a specific persona (let’s say you imagine you are famous TV presenter from a different country). Walk through the airport like you are that person. Enter shops and inquire about products with giving away little hints about who you are (e.g. in an accessories shop you look for a special tie for your next TV appearance or in the duty free you ask the shop assistant which of the sunglasses are best to wear in front of cameras, etc.). You can be as flamboyant or as harmless as you want, one thing is guaranteed, you will see the airport in a very different view!
6. Play the invention game
   You probably guessed it, here you invent your very own airport game. Possibilities are endless. Why don’t you think of one, try it out and write us what you came up with and how it worked out?

Have a great, fun Easter and travel safely!

[Photo from Flickr, altered from the original by LateDeparture; Some rights reserved by aburt]