Building Your Ground Game: How to Sleep in Airports

Awesome! You just booked that slick priced flight that’s 700% off what everybody else pays, and you are going around the world in a few months. Barely able to contain your excitement, you splatter your itinerary and that sexy low price you got all over your social media accounts. As you share your itinerary for the millionth time, that one or two stop itinerary starts looking less appealing. You have an 18 hour layover at night — WTF.

You chose the budget price in the first place to save money, but leaving the airport and sleeping at a hotel takes a lot of time, can be confusing depending on the layover city, and costs more money! Well, what about sleeping in the airport?

Learning to sleep in the airport can be a great way to save money, alleviate logistical headaches with leaving and returning to the airport, and save lots of time to keep your final destination the focus.

Over the years I have slept in at least 15 different airports, probably more, and my journey was filled with mistakes and beautiful lessons learned. I have saved an additional 20–50% of my travel budget (sometimes $1000+) just choosing to sleep in airports. It’s not the easiest thing to do, but nothing is that’s worth it.

Follow my tips below to harden that mind and body for the ground so it softens your wallet. Are you sleep warrior - will you enter the slumberdome?

1) Know Your Airport

Doing research in advance, is probably the most helpful activity you can do. It will determine how prepared you will have to be and give you confidence in choosing whether it’s worth it.

The number of lounges, terminals, bathrooms, and info desks is important to learn for what your sleeping arrangement could offer and the resources available. Crucial as well, is knowing if there will be construction going on, or any other special projects and changes airports are conducting. How do you gather this intel? The best resource I’ve discovered is sleepinginairports.net. For years, countless layover ninjas have been sharing and crowdsourcing their knowledge into a surprisingly organized and helpful start guide to the world’s most popular airports. Tons of information is here, even including grades and rankings on “sleep-ability”. Doesn’t get much better than that.

2) Get Lounge Access Somehow, Someway

Long layovers are helped IMMENSELY by access to lounges. If you find yourself flying very frequently (more than 5–10x a year) with layovers a consistent part of them, definitely buying lounge access to the most common ones will offer a delicious respite in your journey in the form of free food and drink, comfortable chairs, consistent wifi, calm environment, and even showers at some.

An easy way I attained lounge access to one of the largest networks of lounges was through my credit card. I attained the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card, and it offers full access to Priority Pass Lounges across the globe. Two layovers inside of 24 hour lounges in Hong Kong were heavenly in comparison to times spent on cold floors in Italy or Beijing. I was able to shower, eat, watch TV in private, and sleep on comfortable chairs for hours at a time. The annual fees on these kinds of cards can be high, but come with tons of other perks that more than outweigh the cost of having it if you fly even semi-frequently.

3) Prepare Your Body

If you’re a true soldier, you’ll sleep on the ground at home leading up to harden your body for the trials that await you. I did this for about a year in my personal home life, and I’d have to say sleeping in airports was barely a sneeze for me when my body was already so adjusted at home. This isn’t required since it could be a hard adjustment, followed by an even harder one which certainly doesn’t make traveling to your destination fun.

One of the worst mistakes you can make is being unhealthy or giving your body a weak immune system prior to sleeping on the floor. You will not, I repeat not, have great sleep if you’ve never done it. Being almost sick and then pushing your body to it’s limit could be bad. I learned this lesson in Vancouver on my way to Thailand, and started to get chills and flu symptoms in the middle of my night on the terminal chairs, and had to actually come out of pocket $140 for a nigh in the hotel attached to the airport just to get some warm tea and a remaining good night’s sleep so the rest of my trip wouldn’t be ruined.

The takeaway here is to be HEALTHY days or a week before the trip in question. Don’t risk letting that one bad night give you a more aggressive cold flu like my first week in Thailand.

4) Setting up for the Ground Game

So all else has failed and you will definitely be hunting out some chairs, or preparing for the linoleum. It’s not that bad, but you absolutely want to be prepared so it isn’t that bad, and trust me, I’ve been on both sides of that statement.

My worst experience sleeping on the ground was in Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, where I did not pack properly and slept incredibly poor on the ground

Since then I have learned much, and even when going to warm places or having only a carry-on, you should always include:

• a light button/zip up hoodie that you’ll wear on the plane
• ear plugs
• socks
• eye mask
• optional: foam travel pillow, or enough layers you don’t mind smushing into a pillow

The actual sleeping arrangement would not need a blanket or something to cover the ground, because you’re a Night or Flight Warrior, not some first class, nonstop flying little vienna sausage weenie with his 3 piece suit, top hat, and monocle. Once the spot’s been picked, keep your bags close or under you, and using your carry-on as a pillow can be helpful if you wrap it with clothing or pack clothing on top of it. If it’s a cold airport, wearing many layers and using that hoodie will be needed. For brightly light and louder airports, the eye mask and ear plugs solve these issues.

5) Location, Location, Location, Baby

After you’ve done your research in advance, you’ll have an idea of the airport layout and perhaps advice on the best terminals or sections of the airport that could be ripe for sleep. Once you’ve realized where you’ll have to stay based on your arrival and where they trap you inside of the airport, it would be wise to make scouting the perimeter as one of your earliest activities. From there, you can pick a few priority sets of seats, ideal ground spots, or food court padded benches.

Claiming popular spots as early as possible (within reason) is very important since at certain airports, the competition for sleep-able spots can be intense and you’ll be stuck with a cold spot in a drafty corner like me at Dublin Airport. I was too lackadaisical with my scouting, and lost out on all of the amazing food court wide padded bench seats. Don’t be me.

Picking places with padded seats like food courts where they allow you to sleep, or padded sets of armless seats, or especially prime spots like these next to outlets is a fast step you should prioritize.

6) Get Friendly

You’ve got time to kill, so why not get to know a few people and let them know you plan on sleeping in the airport and could use their help. I’ve had a number of instances help fortunately arrived, and now it’s become a staple I seek out, and you should too:

• In Beijing airport twice now, I have gone to their information desk and secured blankets from them to sleep. Be friendly, respectful, and courteous, while also pointing out how huge the airport is, and how difficult it must be to heat an enormous warehouse that has 5 story ceilings for no reason. Get to know Information Desk Staff
• In Kiev, I became friendly with the 24 Hour restaurant manager, and asked their policy on if people sleep in the restaurant over night. He said it wasn’t typical, but that he would introduce me to the custodial staff once they clocked in and he would recommend I’m a nice guy who he should let stay. It worked out beautifully. Get to know restaurant and custodial staff if needed
• In Hong Kong, their Priority Pass lounge is 24 hours, and I was very friendly with the manager there and he allowed me to stay beyond the minimum time limit and sleep. in the almost empty lounge overnight. It was great. Get to know Lounge Staff

The key theme here is talk to people, be friendly, and let them know your plight. Help will come from all angles if they know you mean well and just need basic human assistance in getting some shut eye to your fantasy locale.

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