Best and Worst Airports in Europe

Pros and cons of travel

As all travelers, nomads and vagabonds will tell you, a life of travel is all they could ask for. It offers new discoveries on a regular basis, friends and acquaintances in places some people have not heard of and the convenience of being your own boss (if you are your own boss, that is). To me, nothing can compare to the thrill of travel, but like with everything else, there are setbacks in travel as well.

For instance, as the title of this post suggests, it is rather unlikely that you will come across somebody who loves hanging out in airports and the airport experience in general. It is always time–consuming even if you arrive right before the check-in ends (which I do not recommend anyway) or, furthermore, have checked in online and arrive only for the security check and the boarding. (Maybe it’s not so bad if you hang out in the best airport lounges of this world, but since I have not joined the elite club just yet, I’m talking about us regular people here.) There will always be a person who will create a queue by either losing his passport or a boarding pass or having twice as many liquids or some other issue, the queue will be getting anxious, tensions will rise, etc.

If you come too early, you might want to work a bit on your laptop. But there’s almost always the socket problem or it will be too hot or too cold or too crowded or too much stuff online and you think, “Down with work! I’d rather just surf!” (or is it just me?) Not to mention airports always insist on having uncomfortable chairs…

The food is expensive, too many boutiques and tax-free shops somehow have double to triple prices on regular products. The list goes on and on.

Here are three airports that I think offer their customer the worst airport experiences:

Worst airports in Europe

Day 39-42: Barcelona: English speakers, La Rambla, sunglasses and sleeping on the bench

I arrived in Barcelona after 4 hours of sleep in Paris (boy, am I always sleep-deprived or what?) and a slight hangover… after having half a bottle of moderately expensive French wine? That sounds weird to me as well, but maybe it was just something in the air.

In Paris I had my first Ryanair flight delay (by about 30 minutes only) as well as a carry-on size check. Luckily, I was somehow overlooked in the queue and safely got away with carrying my huge DSL in my hands (or rather… stuffed into my winter coat), but having to hide it was far from pleasant.

My little “project” of not reading anything on any destination backfired a little bit as I landed in Barcelona and wanted to go to the center with train only, even though bus was right out there and seemed like a good option. So I had to walk a long way to the train and finally hop on it at the last minute (not without some confusion with the ticket machine beforehand). I knew the airport is not far from the city itself and I saw people massively exiting the train at several stops, but I only realized that Barcelona had been left behind as the train entered some fields... I had to exist in the middle of nowhere and take the train back to town. Which brings me to my next point.

How to pack a carry-on for 10 days (and 4 countries)?

I just returned from my extensive and eventful 10-day trip around 4 popular destinations in Europe, namely

Oslo, Norway

Paris, France

Barcelona, Spain

Porto, Portugal

and will be posting reports on those locations shortly, however first things first.

A 10-day trip is not an overnight stay or a even a weekend somewhere else, it’s a full-on trip. Especially if it includes so much shifting between climate zones. For example, when I stopped by Oslo, the average temperature there was -15C, Paris was already warmer with -2-0C, Barcelona was almost shocking with its palms and 14-16C and Porto completely knocked my socks off with 18-20C during the day.

It was easier to navigate through such weather changes than one might think though and overall it was an extremely pleasant itinerary for me, except maybe I would’ve taken one day off Barcelona and spent it in Porto instead.

Now, straight to the facts. I own a standard suitcase and a regular-size Puma backpack, regular in this case means 40x30x20cm, so it’s even smaller than Ryanair’s permitted 55x40x20cm and I managed to travel with that for 10 days. It is similar to this backpack here. Looking back, it doesn’t look plausible to me anymore, but indeed that’s all I had for 10 days.

Here’s the breakdown of the things I managed to stuff into the backpack:

• passport
• insurance
• 6 boarding passes
• Couchsurfing print outs
• paper+pen
• underwear
• socks
• jeans
• 2 T-shirts
• light sweater
• shirt
• light and flat sneakers
• additional pair of glasses
• ziplock bag: toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, shower gel
• hairbrush
• cell phone
• cell phone charger
• mp3 player and cable
• sleeping bag (!)

At the same time, I was also wearing

• pants
• tights
• t-shirt
• woolen sweater
• scarf-o-hat
• winter jacket
• winter boots

and I had a wallet in my pocket and a watch on my wrist.

Overall, the weight was 5-6kg and 1.5kg of it was the sleeping bag. Honestly, I could’ve taken many more things with me if it wasn’t for the bag, it took most of the space and I used it only for 4 days, however it proved to be absolutely necessary. As it appears, most apartment buildings in Barcelona do not have central heating and it can be quite chilly at night.

Of course it was always an adventure closing my backpack, I couldn’t sit on it because of its size, but I was squeezing it alright. Things got a little bit worse when I for some reason bought a replacement pair of jeans and 2 shirts in Oslo, which was right after my first flight, so I had 5 more to take. Obviously, there was no more space at all. The old pair of jeans had to go and I had to put even more layers on, even as I went south and I had to have my DSLR camera outside the bag. That could’ve proved to be a problem with Ryanair as they are quite strict on their one-bag rule (you can take up to 10kg worth of stuff, but it has to fit in one bag), so I had to hide it in my huge scarf or dissemble it and put the two parts into the pockets of my jacket… It could have been fun if it wasn’t so stressful. But I made all boardings safely and peacefully.

However, I see this incident as one more reason to sell the DSLR and get a regular camera that fits easily into the palm of a hand or pocket, it makes things easier.

And while I am on the topics of electronics, I should also highlight the fact that I didn’t take my laptop with me. Mostly for the sole reason of lacking space for it whatsoever, not because I wanted to be cut off Internet for a while. But it was a very liberating experience, my time online was limited to about an hour or two on the Internet (which is next to nothing, obviously) and once I even survived the day without being online and that let me enjoy the cities in a much more convenient way, I didn’t have to tear myself away from the screen as I always have to do when I get too absorbed. That said, I don’t think I’ll be brave enough again to leave my laptop behind. It feels strangely weird without the surfing.

To sum it up, I'd say that the answer to the question how to pack a carry-on for 10 days is, just take the stuff you need, no excessive clothing, material or books you won't read, cosmetics you won't use, just take the basics and wear layers if necessary.

And before I forget:

10 Days in a Carry-on - a photo guide to packing the right way, I'll adopt some of the techniques next time I do a similar trip