haniboo

if you do sleep while waiting for a flight, do you feel comfortable? do you take any precautions--not to have your bag stolen, be accosted or miss your flight?

obscure2k

I never sleep while waiting at an airport. Never!

haniboo

so i have a different question for you: how do you stay awake when/if you are exhausted?

peachfront

I strap my money, credit cards, etcetera under my clothes after I have passed security. I sleep better if I wash my face and brush my teeth first, so I have to visit the little girl's room anyway. Sometimes I have brought a pillow case that I can smash full of coat and miscellaneous clothes to make a pillow. I have a New Zealand sheepskin coat that's perfect for this. Who's going to "accost" you in the airport with five zillion people around while you are sleeping? At some point you have to sleep. In theory, someone could break into your house or your hotel room or wherever and "accost" you while you were sleeping. Or a tornado could blow your roof off. Everything in life goes better if you are well rested. A little common sense and you too can sleep at the airport. I also carry two watches with alarms, in case one of them doesn't go off. The second one goes off a few minutes after the first one. These are dive watches purchased for less than $10 each at Wal-Mart and some of the best travel items I've ever bought for peace of mind.

I'm not sure how I will do this when I'm older. In many airports, you have to sleep on the floor because of those miserable arms they have on the chairs. Is there really a problem of homeless bums sleeping in airports in the "sterile" area? If there is, TSA has a lot of explaining to do. If there isn't, why can't legitimate travelers stretch out? Knock on wood, at this point, I can still get on/off the floor easily though. I guess all that yoga my mom made me do as a kid wasn't entirely bogus.

cawhite

Does falling asleep while waiting in the security line at oh-dark-hundred count?

Analise

Never

l etoile

Since this isn't specifically related to women, please follow it in Travel Buzz.

l'etoile


And, to respond to the topic, I've slept quite well in the LH IFL sleeping rooms. I've also been so darned tired on a layover in HNL that I unintentionally fell asleep sitting at the gate and missed my onward flight.

777-100SP

Many airports make it difficult by having repeated taped announcements and putting armrests on the seats.

There's a website with comments for different airports. I think it's sleepinginairports.net

clarence5ybr

One of my worst travel experiences was when I was forced to spend the night in DEN. Everything going out was canceled, so no hotels were available by the time I got in. It was late at night, and there was only one food place open, so I had to wait in line over an hour to get a meal at Burger King. I went to the gate where my flight was scheduled to leave from early the next morning, and was awakened constantly by a recording blasting "CAUTION: THE MOVING WALKWAY IS ABOUT TO END" triggered by a sensor whenever someone got close to the end of the walkway near the gate.

vicarious_MR'er

Don't know if it's still the case, but Fumicino (sp?) in Rome had the BEST black (p)leather lounge chairs in the terminal, and YES, I've put them to good use! Those chairs were co good it was as if they WANTED you to take a siesta there.

I had a 7ish (or more) hour layover there once (can't remember, but it was LOOOOONG), and I had myself a good little nap.

As for security, I always use a very small purse, so I put the strap across my body and kind of snuggle it up to my belly with an arm on it as I slept. (I am a side sleeper, of course!) As for other thins, if I don't have much of significance in my carryon, then my attitude is "let 'em steal it!" In that case in reverse-psychology terms, my mere non-protection of it probably indicates to thieves that it wouldn't be worthwhile to try and steal anyway.

When I travel with a laptop or other valuable, I usually wrap the shoulder strap around the bag, through the carry handle, and then put the remaining loop around my wrist. That way, a potential poacher can't access the zipper and unload the bag without moving the strap and pulling my arm first.

While you can catch some decent ZZ's at the airport when necessary, I think it's still hard to get to sleep deeply enough that someone trifling your things under your very nose wouldn't wake you up. But who knows. I've been lucky, at least.

For that matter, though, I wonder how someone stealing from you when you're sleeping in the airport is so drastically different than someone pilfering from coats & bags in the overhead of an aircraft while you're sleeping or in the loo? Unless they stole something that was very identifiable, they'd probably get away with it there just as easily as they would anywhere else.

RichardJOtter

Great question by the OP ^

MapleLeaf

Yes, I have slept on couches in airports more than once... put backpack with personal effects under head, it becomes pillow, I sleep.

Simple really

747LWW

I have accidently napped in a chair sitting upright at airport due to exhaustion but streached out + sleep...not me.

Rejuvenated

Too paranoid to sleep waiting for a flight! Never.

amy45888

a couple of weeks ago i was flying redeye from lax to east coast. i went to the usairways lounge to watch american idol. when house started, i started getting the "heavy eyelid" and decided to close my eyes for "one second". i completely passed out. the usairways lounge person woke me up and asked me if i was on a red eye flight. i said yes, and they said..."your plane is almost done boarding!" nothing happened to my stuff, i passed out for 1 hr! if the person hadn't woken me up, i definately would have slept half the night there!