Extreme Day Trips

[whole diary]

[LiskeardRich]

I don't think I've NOT queued to get through the scanner - and if it looks to them as if you are in a hurry, you become a prime suspect for a full body search....not worth leaving it late, frankly.

I’ve flown 6 times since November, when I was deemed fit to fly after my illness of the last couple of years. My longest queue for security at Bristol has been 6 minutes. Last Tuesday it took longer to walk round all the barriers than get through the security check!

[PrestburyRoad]

I don't think I've NOT queued to get through the scanner - and if it looks to them as if you are in a hurry, you become a prime suspect for a full body search....not worth leaving it late, frankly.

I’ve flown 6 times since November, when I was deemed fit to fly after my illness of the last couple of years. My longest queue for security at Bristol has been 6 minutes. Last Tuesday it took longer to walk round all the barriers than get through the security check!

You've been lucky.  My experience in recent years is that the security check can be fast and can be very slow.  So I have to allow a long time for it because I don't want to miss my flight.  It's just one of the airport processes I have to undergo and over which I don't have control.  All of this adds to my jaundiced view of flying nowadays.

[grahame]

You've been lucky.  My experience in recent years is that the security check can be fast and can be very slow.  So I have to allow a long time for it because I don't want to miss my flight.  It's just one of the airport processes I have to undergo and over which I don't have control.  All of this adds to my jaundiced view of flying nowadays.

Forgetting any security at checkin - what about immigration checks on arrival?  Sometimes very quick, but certainly (2023?) I have had to queue at both Catania and Dresden having flown in with a low cost airline.   And - though on a cruise - the USA immigration at New Orleans managed to cut two full days in the city on our cruise down to an evening and a day as it took them six hours to process everyone coming off the ship.   At least we were called off in stages, but it was still painful - literally - for those who are not "disabled" but cannot stand for hours. 

Long overseas day trips are NOT for me personally any more. Part is environmental.  Part is that I prefer to have the freedom to get up and walk around rather then being packed in (and, yes, a prefer a train with 40% seats taken than 90%).  Part is the time and procedures at the airports.  Part is the home to airport and back journeys, and the delicacy of public transport connections to the final service of the day.  And part is wanting to spend longer there.

Lisa and I are planning a trip.  But not day - fortnight.  And not flying - trains and ferries. 

[PhilWakely]

You can never simply walk up & get on - even without luggage.

Whilst we had to go through Norwegian security on arrival at Tromso on my day (or rather night) trip from Exeter, we simply walked from coach to aircraft when returning to Tromso airport, with no checks whatsoever.

A complete contrast when just transiting at Los Angeles on a (rather longer than a day) trip to New Zealand ten years ago! All I did was walk from aircraft to transit lounge and back to the aircraft 90 minutes later, but much of that break was spent going through (hardly!) LAX security - body scanner, fingerprints taken, etc, etc. Obviously no luggage check as that was still on the aircraft.

[grahame]

From The Metro

American tourist’s £660 ‘extreme day trip’ to Ireland raises a lot of questions

No, we’ve never done that either.

However, a man called Kevin Droniak did just that. The American travel influencer went on a day trip to Ireland from New York, and filmed it all for Instagram.

In a video breaking down the cost of his trip, Kevin revealed he paid close to $900 to spend a few hours on the Emerald Isle — with time for just one activity.

[grahame]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce84zd68242o

When Riley and his mum Rhona Paton board a plane to Norway at the weekend, it will be his 40th flight - an impressive milestone given he is just six years old.

The mother and son from near Glasgow are part of a growing community of people who travel abroad and return the very same day.

Rhona told BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Radio Scotland Breakfast she has "lost count" of how many day trips they have taken, but they have visited countries such as France, Italy, Switzerland and Latvia.

[ChrisB]

Really nothing new - there were a large group of us that did this all over Europe 40 years ago when Thompson's ran day trips - Berlin the day before the night the wall fell anyone? I have a lump of wall somewhere.

[grahame]

Really nothing new - there were a large group of us that did this all over Europe 40 years ago when Thompson's ran day trips - Berlin the day before the night the wall fell anyone? I have a lump of wall somewhere.

There is - rarely - anything new, Chris  ... I would in past times have said "good for them - good for their education", but these days I temper that slightly with an environmental concern / veneer.   Taking a light hearted and pleasurable (for them - I dislike airports) event, I have much more serious throughs as to all the fossil fuel burned by all these planes flying around. One side of me celebrates the reconsideration of so much air travel that's being bought on by the war in the Gulf and there's a lot positive in my mind for a refactoring of fossil fuel flight to a lesser level.   And don't get me thinking about the environmental, economic and especially human cost of the war itself.