The Guide to Sleeping in Airports | Hacker News Reader

The Guide to Sleeping in Airports

sleepinginairports.net

114 pointsDerekBickerton51 comments

Quite an interesting guide - and it’s literally a guide with searchable locations listings etc.

I’ve done a lot of camping “in the rough” and sleeping outside and honestly airports are incredibly easy to crash at. First of all most people have a reason to be there in the first place so you’re unlikely to be roused, theyre pretty safe/secure, clean-ish, there are bathrooms(!), and food/entertainment facilities. In my experience the biggest difficulties of sleeping in airports are the noise from overnight cleaning along with lights never turning off.

My biggest concern would usually be making sure to not miss the flight.

Edit: specificity

Grab airpods pro 2 or a bose qc-35. The ANC blocks out most noise. You can always play some soft brown noise to drown more out. Also, get earplugs (I can’t because it aggregates my tinnitus).

Also get a sleep mask

I use my scarve as a joint sleepmask/pillow. I always travel witb my scarve for this reason. It is incredibly handy at odd moments like this. Also, when in the plane, a scarve can be tied against your chair with your head in it

I suffer from sleeping issues (insomnia). I take any edge that I can get and overanalyze it. So far, it helps!

Stick post-it notes on you that say "please wake me at 7 AM" (or whatever time). Someone will.

But even that isn't necessary. Most of us carry phones that will double as alarm clocks.

Aside from sleeping overnight in an airport, there’s also a bit of a “life hack” a friend taught me: lay on the ground with your calves and feet up on a chair. Elevating your feet makes for a very soothing and relaxing nap/rest/meditation session, it’s a great antidote to the stress of an airport. (You do look a little weird, but learning to tolerate looking a little weird in public is potentially a useful skill too)

It’s the airport, all social mores are lifted there. Pop your feet on a chair, show up in pajamas, visit a wine bar at 8am :)

Hahaha, so true! One person was sleeping in the airport lounge I was at and he kept the whole room awake! Except for the people who were part of the "Earplugs Club", of which I am a proud member, whenever I go to airports (well, okay, I use Airpods Pro 2 and turn noise cancellation on, same thing though).

How did he manage to keep everyone else awake? Was he snoring? I also agree that earplugs and a sleep mask are essential while traveling, just due to how much more important sleep becomes as a means of recovering from stress as well as the unpredictability of the circumstances in which one will be sleeping.

Yea he was snoring, I should have mentioned

For me, the issue is I have severe sleep apnea. I was recently at the Hawaii airport and my layover got delayed 12 hrs. None of the power outlets worked. I was like, guess I'm not allowed to sleep. I was awake almost 48 hrs by the end of the trip.

And no help from airport staff? One would think "passenger with medical device that needs charging" would be a common-enough scenario to handle somehow :/

The particular airport I was at was something else. Looked like it hadn't been changed / updated in 40 or more years, and had nothing more than skeleton crews working. I vowed to never fly Hawaiian airlines again, a nightmare all around.

Delta was having issues so they moved me over to a Hawaiian flight (they aren’t really partners) The flight attendants where so rude (and other problems) I’ve vowed the same.

Airport staff and help are metaphorical antonyms in my experience.

They are notoriously unhelpful bordering on openly hostile to any sort of disability accommodation. It depends on the individuals you run into but it's widely known in disability communities that when flying you need to prepare to fight to even keep your medical devices with you, and then have a backup plan for if they don't allow it and then negligently break your device.

Why not bring something like this?

https://shop.thesleepdoctor.com/products/medistrom-pilot-24-...

Yeah, I have something like this, but wasn't thinking I'd be needing it this trip. Learned the hard way.

There are portable devices: https://www.resmed.com/en-us/sleep-apnea/cpap-parts-support/...

Do you mean you need a device to sleep ?

Probably a cpap machine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_positive_airway_p...

Yep, keeps me alive.

Would you die of apnea in while sleeping ? IMHO the biggest risk is increase of cardiovascular problems (in the long run). Some may die from ventilation reflex deficiency but that not necessarily linked to sleep apnea, and don’t even if this trouble exist and its frequency.

It's not really sleeping if you take like one good breath every minute and your O2 saturation is around 80% max.

You wake up more tired than you started, plus you're sweating and your throat is sore.

Source: have sleep apnea, tried sleeping without my CPAP for two nights (forgot it at home, noticed when I was 200km away and already late). Haven't forgotten it ever since.

My issue is I can't even sleep without it anymore. I used to be accustomed to the constant waking (since you have low O2 you typically forget), but I've had it for over 10 years now, so if I try to sleep without it I wake up constantly with my heart racing / gasping.

It's something that gets riskier the older you get. Folks don't understand how much of a killer it is since it's just reported as so and so had a heart attack and died in their sleep. Basically just rolling the dice as to whether you'll wake up.

What happens if you fall asleep without the device?

Are you able to go camping?

OP probably has the risk of slowly dying in his sleep without the machine as the brain is not getting enough oxygen.

As some with ~120 AHI (> 30 is considered severe) I often go camping with a battery. I can only do long stays at places with a charging station. Also I've found that hammock camping helps a lot since position affects how bad it is.

Edit I was measured 120 AHI in the lab (hooked up with a ton of sensors and monitored by someone in the next room) originally - I suspect it's gone down since then as I've lost weight. But for nearly a year before getting tested I was a walking zombie.

People usually bring power banks/batteries/generators with them.

Look up most reviews on various "solar generators" and a vast majority of them are about keeping CPAP machines powered during outages, camping or off the grid situations.

I’ve read of people taking large batteries with them to power machines while camping, RVing, etc.

While in the service I once slept on my pile of gear in front of the ticket counter desk and awoke to people in line behind me.

My favourite quote from this site when researching Jeddah airport in the past:

"I have personally had one immigration officer FALL ASLEEP while checking my documents. He actually left his post to go splash water on his face, but then fell back asleep immediately upon return." – a traveller

Second or third job

I have been to over 20 countries and recently had an overnight layover in AMS. Without a doubt, the worst airport I have even been to, so I think this guide is a little outdated (it was 10th best for 2019)

> . Without a doubt, the worst airport I have even been to, so I think this guide is a little outdated

It depends on where you're traveling from/to, but Schiphol has Yotel within one of the terminals, which means you can rent a small hotel room to sleep in for a few hours (you don't have to book a full night - they know their market). They even have showers available.

I used it once on a long layover in a very long trip, and it was honestly indispensable.

The guide mentions this in-terminal hotel, so that's accounting for some of the rating.

When we talk about an extended nap and a quick shower, I hope we're talking under 20€, even under 10€.

I spent the night in AMS last year. Unfortunately, it was before security and it was awful. I needed to catch an early flight and with the worker shortage last year, I decided to go the night before and camp out.

I got 2 hours of sleep (maybe) and it wasn’t good. Around 5am I went searching for the line to access security and when I finally got to the end, it was 2 hours long.

The cookie consent pop up on that site is a doozie

Good list of essentials on the sleeping in airports-specific subpage. Never considered an inflatable something, that makes sense though as they can be stowed and carried. A full raft is probably too heavy if you truly are traveling, though... but now I want to try.

Things that were not mentioned but would be essential for me- a GaN wall-wart (I use an Aukey Omnia Mix 65w), which you could use to charge both a phone and a laptop; and a pre-charged power brick for when you can't find a free outlet to just give your phone or other small device a little juice.

$25-$50 iPhone sized power banks good for 10,000mAh or more are now pretty common!

I tried “sleeping at the airport” in JFK after a 11pm international arrival and before a 7am domestic departure. Wasn’t I surprised to find no staff anywhere in the departures area at all. I can’t believe delta let me book such a terrible connection!

If you’re stuck in the same terrible situation, the hotels in Resort World are reasonably priced relative to the gross airport ones nearby. Don’t even bother at the TWA hotel, you can’t book for a few hours even if they have a room available

> Don’t even bother at the TWA hotel, you can’t book for a few hours even if they have a room available

11pm to 7am is definitely “one night” and you should be charged for one night.

It's probably closer to 12 to 4

The total cost of servicing that room is going to be extremely similar regardless of a few hours difference in the person physically being in it. They still need to check you in and out (potentially involving a person, though not always), they need to change the room the next day, and it's still not available to another traveller (granted that doesn't exactly apply to a last minute booking like this). Maybe they'd use a bit less electricity but I doubt that's a significant part of the cost. They'd also probably not have a shower but there's no guarantee of that from the hotel's perspective.

In the US you generally don’t want to stay at any hotel that lets you book a few hours.

In-airport hotels aren't usually used for those kinds of reasons.

There are very few in-airport hotels in the US. Most major airports have a bunch of regular chains right next to them with free shuttles but they definitely don’t do hourly nor would they be convenient to because of the inconvenience of the shuttle and being outside of security.

Nothing beats Englishman being woken up at 4am by a group of elderly German tourists singing their favourite worship songs.

Apart from that airports are good for overnight stay.

I have sometimes wished that I traveled with a small backpacking tent and sleeping mat that I could set up in the corner. I'd worry a little that I'd get in trouble over it, though.

I slept in the bushes near Lisbon airport twice. It was fine.

LPT: centurion/priority pass lounge. Comes free with many higher-end credit cards and often pays for itself.

Cool guides, I would say it’s not only for sleeping though.

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