Travelling alone with an international stopover?

Question

Have you travelled by yourself with an international stopover?

How long did you have to stay in your stopover city?

Did they speak your native language?

How did you cope with navigating yourself through the area?

Did you go sight-seeing?

Did you stay in a hotel/hostel close to the airport?

Did you feel safe?

Did you feel vulnerable?

Thank you for taking your time answering my questions.

Answer 1

Travel by myself with international stopovers all the time.  If you're just connecting flights, leaving at least 90-120 minutes in between flights prevents some of the connecting stress of exiting the flight, looking for the new gate, even collecting luggage and any delay from the arriving flight.

If the stopover is for fun and you want to look around, one to one and a half days is a good reconnaissance period.  It's enough time to look around at the highlights and decide if one day you'll return for a proper visit.

If English is not widely spoken at the destination, invest in a local phrasebook.  Lonely Planet and Rough Guides both do a good range of convenient sized books.  Most major airports will sell these in the bookstore or newsagent.  Hotel concierge can also help with useful phrases, city maps, local sightseeing suggestions, as well as the hotel address in the local language for taxis back.

The hotel's city map will be enough to see the highlights in the limited time you have.  The concierge's suggestions will be good too, and unlike the US, you don't need to tip them just for giving you advice.  In Asia Pacific, 5-star hotels are good value for this as well as the better room.  5-star hotels will also feel safer, and quite a few have women-only floors so that female travellers can feel less vulnerable.

From experience, hotels near the airport should only be used for the convenience.  In most cities the airport is a fair distance from town, so staying at the airport hotel means you're quite far from the city action.

Answer 2

Have you travelled by yourself with an international stopover?

Yup, i certainly have

How long did you have to stay in your stopover city?

7 hours..(but it was fun)

Did they speak your native language?

Yup they surely did.

How did you cope with navigating yourself through the area?

Through the signs and from the information counters

Did you go sight-seeing?

Nope...Was satisfied in the airport (Had fun watching planes land and take off)

Did you stay in a hotel/hostel close to the airport?

Nope....Didn't think it would be worthwhile

Did you feel safe?

Well at first, i felt pretty uncomfortable...But then as the hours passed by, i got a grip of myself...

Did you feel vulnerable?

Not quite...

Have a good day

Answer 3

Great question.  Yes I have traveled to Greece many times with long layovers through Amsterdam.  One time it was 6 hours of waiting.  They did speak English, but mostly Dutch.  Most international airports have people that are bilingual.  I did not leave the airport to do anything.  I felt safe as long as I was around a lot of people.  As for being vulnerable...not really.  As long as you are in the main part of the terminal where there are a lot of people, I was fine.