How We Review & Research

Trust matters when you're planning around a tight connection or an overnight wait. Here's how we put our guides together and where our ratings come from.

Our layover score

Each airport gets a layover score out of 10. It weighs the factors that actually matter when you're stuck between flights: places to sleep and rest, food quality and value, showers and wellness facilities, how easy and fast it is to reach the city, and how much there is to do airside. A beautiful terminal with nowhere to rest scores lower than a plainer one with free sleeping zones and a quick train downtown.

The factors we weigh most heavily, roughly in order, are: rest and sleep options (free zones, pods, transit hotels), shower and wellness access, food choice and value, speed and predictability of city access, and the range of things to do without leaving security. We deliberately favour the practical over the photogenic — a calm, well-signed terminal with 24-hour food and a fast train beats a famous one that empties out and locks down at night.

What informs our guides

We draw on airport and airline information, transit and immigration rules from official government sources, traveller reports, and on-the-ground detail about terminals, facilities and transfers. We focus on the practical specifics — connection times, transfer durations, what's airside versus landside — rather than marketing copy.

When sources disagree, we favour primary and official ones — airport authorities, transit operators, and government immigration sites — over aggregated or promotional content. For anything that changes frequently (prices, lounge access terms, visa eligibility), we describe how it works and send you to the current official source rather than freezing a number into the page.

What we won't do

We don't invent specifics to fill space. You won't find made-up prices, fictional hotel names, or visa "rulings" for your passport — where exact figures or eligibility matter and shift, we say so and point to the authority. We'd rather a guide be honestly approximate than confidently wrong.

Keeping it current

Transit rules, lounge access and facilities change. We revisit guides as things shift, and we flag where you must confirm time-sensitive details — especially visa rules — against official sources before you travel. If you spot something out of date, please tell us.

Independence

Affiliate partnerships never influence our ratings or recommendations. We recommend what we'd tell a friend, and we say plainly when something isn't worth the money. See our affiliate disclosure for details.