19 ways to kill time during a stopover

It’s Sunday evening, there’s nothing to watch on Netflix and you can’t bring yourself to do the ironing. You end up browsing Cheapflights.co.za for some holiday inspiration, because, really, what else is there to do? You hit that search button and then you see it. Flights to Los Angeles for only R5071? And return?! What?! But wait… there’s an 8-hour stopover in Addis Ababa. 8 hours? Really?

Does this scenario sound all too familiar? Fear not! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with stopovers, not when you can pay peanuts for a long-haul flight. So here are 19 ingenious ways to kill time during a stopover (that are all completely serious, of course)…

Facebook check-in, so you can let the world know where you are and make everyone jealous.

Recreate the famous airport scene from Love Actually and hug as many people as humanly possible.

Just out of curiosity, check Cheapflights.co.za to see how much the direct flight would have cost, and enjoy feeling just a little bit smug.

Start a flash mob. Ideally to Britney Spears’ Toxic. The costume is optional, although highly recommended, and use of luggage trolleys as props are encouraged.

Try all the free samples in duty free. And we mean absolutely all of them.

Try to blag your way into the first-class lounge.

Play a massive game of hide and seek with your fellow passengers.

Start a Mexican wave on the escalators…

Choreograph a dance routine on the moving escalators.

Buy the local version of  a South African trashy celeb magazine and try to spot the Lexi Van, Nonhle Ndala and Blue Mbombo lookalikes.

Play our Airport Scavenger Hunt and see how many of these fliers you can spot.

1. The backpacker 2. The Snapchatter 3. Someone about to miss their flight 4. A child on a ride-on suitcase 5. A pilot 6. Someone hogging the charging point 7. A driver holding a sign 8. Someone taking a nap 9. Someone in a floral shirt

Challenge someone to a race of walking up the escalators when they’re moving down.

Try to take a ride on someone else’s wheelie suitcase.

Wear sunglasses and pretend you’re a local celebrity who’s hiding from the paparazzi.

(Warning: shameless self-promotion) Pick out which destinations you’d like to travel to from the departures board and check the flight prices on the Cheapflights app.

Build yourself a luggage-fort. Ignore the more ‘adult’ adults judging you…

Go up to every sleeping passenger and wake them up by shouting “you missed your flight, the plane has gone without you!”

Fill an empty bottle of vodka with water and pretend you’re drinking out of the bottle in big gulps, just to see the reaction of fellow passengers.

Become friends with your fellow weary passengers, and invite them to hang out for the remainder of your stopover in your awesome fort.

See, a stopover doesn’t seem so bad after all… and it can be worth it to score that amazingly cheap flight.

Still not convinced? It’s true that some of us want to get to our destination in the quickest time possible, whatever the price. And there are those of us who want the best of both worlds – the smartest balance between flight cost and duration. Well, here’s some good news, Cheapflights.co.za not only compares thousands of airlines all in one place, but also gives you the option to choose from the quickest, smartest or cheapest flight options available. Pretty clever eh?