Image credit: Andrey Belenko, January 2010

The first stage in taking a flight, particularly for the first time, is to get to the right airport and the correct terminal.  Many airports are so large these days that even being at the right airport but the wrong terminal may cost you your flight because it can take so long to get to the right place.  And if you arrive at the wrong airport you will likely stand no chance of getting to the correct one before your flight leaves.

Our advice is to ensure well ahead of time that you know exactly which airport your flight departs from, and the terminal that you need to get to.  You should find this out for all of the airports that you will visit on your journey.

Different cities, different problems

Finding the right airport in New York can be quite daunting for a first-time traveller.  The Big Apple is served by: JFK airport, LaGuardia, Newark,  Westchester and Long Island airport.  JFK alone has 7 terminals.

At the other end of the scale, in some cities it is pretty easy.  For instance Cape Town has a single airport serving commercial flights.  After the massive rebuild there, there is now a single combined terminal, with international and domestic arrivals and departures all within the same concourse.  There are still challenges though as the rush hour traffic can add an extra hour’s travel from the Cape Town central business district to the airport.  In the Cape’s wet winter it can get a lot worse.

Modern airports are big.  Beijing Capital International Airport, the main airport serving the Chinese capital, has three terminals and is truly gigantic – one part of terminal three is separated from another by two kilometres!  And worse yet, it is not the only airport: Beijing Nanyaun Airport serves domestic and regional flights operated by China United Airlines.

Moscow has three airports: Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo (which is for domestic flights).  Sheremetyevo has two groups of terminals (totalling six in all) that are a 20 minute bus ride away from each other.  In common with most large cities, Moscow traffic is bad and you need to allow at least an hour extra to get to the airport.  You can also get to Domodedovo by train, a journey that takes two hours.

The apron-side shuttle bus at Dubai airport takes 30 minutes to travel from terminal 2 to terminal 3.

In Paris there is the Charles de Gaulle airport.  There is also Paris Roissy airport.  These are two different names for the same airport!  To complete the confusion, it was originally known as Aéroport de Paris Nord.  The other main Parisian airport is Orly.

Transit passengers

Do not think that because you are transiting that this will not affect you.  It may!  In some cases you will even need to obtain a visa for the country you are transiting in.  For example, at Heathrow airport, only BA fly out of terminal 5.  So if you arrive on BA but depart on another airline, you will need to go through customs and catch the tube to another terminal, in order to continue your flight.

On one of my China trips I had to go through customs, leave the airport and catch a bus on the freeway to get to the right terminal of Being Capital International for my regional flight!

Even if you do not change flight number, you may still end up in the terminal if there is a refuelling stop.  (Refuelling stops are not always indicated on the itinerary.)  I do not know of any transit passengers (with the same flight number) who have had to move to another terminal to resume the flight, but very often the gate you enter by is not the same one as the exit one.

Size of terminals – finding the gate

With airport terminals so large, even when you have the right airport and terminal, you may still be faced with a Herculean task to get to the right gate.  Emirates have exclusive use of terminal 3 in Dubai.  So if you are travelling on Emirates you may think you are going to be fine.  If you are flying to London, then you probably are – you will usually depart from one of the 24 “A” gate numbers, which are in the main building.  But if you are flying to maybe Dusseldorf then it is another matter.  You are going to have to walk rather far.  After you have walked the full length of the main terminal you will turn right and then keep walking.  There are another 50 “C” gates!  Here’s the ugly little secret – Concourse C is actually part of the old terminal 1.  You have walked all the way to the next terminal.  The area around the “C” gates looks old and out of date.

In Dubai a brisk walk from terminal 3 to the far end of terminal 1 takes 45 minutes!

This image and any images not specifically attributed, Copyright DIY Travel Expert.

If you are determined to go to a specific place on a specific date, pick your preferred airline and stay in a predetermined hotel you are likely to pay the most of all.  This is one reason that business travel is so expensive.  If you are prepared to show a little flexibility you can reduce the costs significantly whilst enjoying a higher standard of travel.

Dates

Check whether your proposed dates are high-season, shoulder-season or out of season.  Out of season is cheapest.  But the proviso is that some places can be quite nasty when out of season – their main attractions may even be closed, or the weather could be extreme.  It may be that by moving your date by as little as a week you can realise a nice saving.

Destination

If you want to see the Sistine Chapel in person you have no choice as to destination – it is at the heart of the Vatican, which is embedded in Rome, Italy.  To state the obvious: it is a building and never goes on tour to other places.  And if they are selecting a new pope at the time, you are not going to get in unless you hold the rank of Cardinal in the Catholic hierarchy.

If, however, you decided to see “Italian Renaissance Art” instead then your possibilities broaden considerably – practically any region in Italy will have rich treasures to please you.

Find the nearest transport hub

Some of our best adventures have come from having a variety of modes of transport, even on the same day.  (There are exceptions: One of our team loves flying so much that any journey that can be done by air, however impractical that may be, is going to be done that way.)

For instance, though it is possible to fly to Galway from Dublin, you are going to get a magnificent experience of the Irish countryside if you take the train instead.

Work back from the furthest part of your journey and add the links as you go.  If you are lucky, your chosen destination is a major city that is a transport hub.  But more often than not, you are looking at something prettier and smaller and it may be a problem to find the right hub.

For instance, there a number of wonderful Adriatic cruises that start and end in Dubrovnik, Croatia.  However, getting to Dubrovnik, which is only a minor regional hub, can be expensive.  After doing some further research you will find that it is as much as €200 more per person  than going to Venice.  Then you find out that there are Adriatic cruises that leave from Venice!  (And a number of those cruises stop in Dubrovnik anyway, so you still get to see the city.)

Break the journey at connections

DIY Travel Expert recommends that you break your journey at connection points and make them secondary destinations.  This is particularly true of long-haul flights with multiple connections.  If you stop over on the way there you reduce the journey to a series of shorter hops.

A number of carriers route their flights via their main hub.  If you are flying between Europe, Asia and Africa on Emirates, for instance, you are going to spend some time on the ground in Dubai.  Etihad go via Abu Dhabi.  Qatar will put you in Doha.  You may visit Istanbul courtesy of Turkish.  Who cares if those places are not destinations that you would have picked for your holiday?  You have your main destination picked out already.

A stopover at one of these places incurs zero additional transport cost!  It is almost a free destination.  (Okay, you may have to pay for visas, and there will be excursion costs, but the transport is free.)  In fact, it gets better than that… it is often cheaper to travel via the carrier’s primary hub (even though the distance is further) than it would be to fly direct city-to-city.

You probably do not want to stop over on both the forward leg and the return, so you get to pick.  Sometimes, if the place you are going through is particularly nice, you might want to plan to spend a few days in one direction and just one day, without a sleepover in the opposite direction.

If you follow this advice, instead of minimising your connection time, you may find yourself expanding it so that there is time for an excursion at the carrier’s hub city instead.  It is exactly why they brought you there in the first place, but you can turn it to your advantage.

Image credit: TristanB, August 2004

There are tourist traps in every country that work in pretty much the same way.  We believe in letting your buck go further and in line with that, here are a few suggestions for saving money.

Airport duty free shops

There is no automatic saving in duty-free shops, and in many cases we have found that the prices are the same as in high-street shops.  (In some airports such as Heathrow, direct price comparisons are regularly conducted to ensure that you are paying no more than you would at a shop in the city.)

The bargains that are to be had in duty-free are on articles with high levels of duty, which are generally in “luxury” goods such as alcoholic drinks, and fragrances.  If you are a devotee of luxury goods then duty-free is probably going to work out well for you.

Airline duty free

When you are flying with Emirates and Qatar you have an option to put a sticker on your seat-back top which has a sleeping face, then they will skip you when they come around with the duty free cart.  If you want to save money, that is the way to go.  Airline duty-free prices are not usually all that wonderful because their profit margins are often fatter, but if you know the price elsewhere then you may be able to score a rare bargain by comparing prices.

Tourist attraction curio shops

These are often the worst offenders in charging top dollar.  One way that you can tell if a place is a tourist trap or not is by finding out if the locals buy there.  For instance the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is supported mainly by tourists.  By contrast, however, the Egyptian or Spice Market is frequented by locals buying their spices for use at home.  The quality is spoken of (positively) in hushed tones, and the prices are keen.

If you want to support the local economy by buying trinkets you will often get the same thing from a local supermarket, or even a street vendor, at substantially lower rates than at the shop at the airport.

Of course, you may have forgotten to get gifts for relatives or friends, in which case if you remember in time you can buy them a present at the airport, but then you should be prepared to pay for the convenience.

Restaurants

If you eat the local cuisine you will pay less than if you go for foods that are exotic in that location.  For instance, in Hong Kong there is a wide variety of fare from all over the world.  But even in a touristy place like Victoria Peak you will pay Yuan 50 for Chinese food, and probably over Yuan 100 if you want an Italian-style meal.

The author also experienced this in eating at a German-themed restaurant in Dalian, Northern China.  Expensive!  If you want more bang for your buck, get your teeth into the local cuisine and enjoy what the country you are visiting has to offer your palate.  After all, if you wanted to eat food from home, you could simply have stayed at home!

The key to not being caught as a tourist is to shop and eat where the locals do, where it is safe to do so.

low vision

Everyone worries about the absolutely blind and those in a wheelchair.  Not many in the aviation industry give much concern to those who have some vision, say enough to get around without a guide-dog.  This could be travellers with low vision, or simply someone who needs glasses to get around, but may have had them trodden on by an elephant in Thailand.

People with any sort of sight problem may largely have to take care of themselves!

The first and very useful thing to know, is that most airlines offer what is called a ‘meet and assist’ service.  This is often free and is available for check in, transit and arrival at the final destination.  You would have to provide certain particulars about yourself and why you require the service.  If you’re legally blind or partially sighted, it would be very unusual if they did not confirm your request.  Some airlines don’t offer this and it would be best to check, before paying for your ticket.

Now that we’re on-board and seated, what next?  Entertainment provided on-board helps pass the time on a long flight and has us feeling much more relaxed on arrival.  How can you make this more enjoyable, with low vision?  By making sure that the airline you’re travelling with provides you with your very own screen.  Not one of those flights, which I recently experienced, where there is one screen up on the bulkhead.  The Middle Eastern carriers, like Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways, have state-of-the-art entertainment systems, where you have access to video channels, music channels and flight tracking.

Some South African Airways long haul flights have one tiny television-style display at the front of the cabin.  Frankly, the chances are that if you are not already visually impaired at the start of the flight, you will be well on your way by the time you land.

The following advice may sound totally arbitrary, but it really works.  An airline with a logo that is bright and can be seen clearly, is a help.  This makes it easier to find the right check-in counter more quickly.  If you wish to ask for assistance, that is fine, but if you don’t, this is just one of the ‘tricks’ to travelling by yourself, independently.

Reading the departure boards (which in some cases is the only way you can find out the departure gate) can also be a difficulty for low-vision travellers.  The suggestion given by one observer, “use binoculars”, though maybe useful in other contexts is just going to mark you as a potential mugging victim.  You may need to swallow your pride and ask for help.