01
Confirm you can enter
A city guide is useless if your passport has to stay airside. Check the official rule for your nationality before you leave the transit area.
Europe · long-haul · 24–72 hours
The hours between flights, planned properly.
LayoverPath is a set of city guides for travellers with a day, two days, or three between long-haul flights. Six hubs. English first. No itinerary that misses the boarding call.
The board
Batch 1
- DXBDubai · Dubai International AirportA real city day between Emirates long-hauls, if you pick one district and respect Terminal 3.30–50 min by metro after you exit
- DOHDoha · Hamad International AirportThe closest of the Gulf hubs to a real walk: Souq Waqif and one museum, then back.20–35 min by taxi or metro once you are out
- ISTIstanbul · Istanbul AirportA magnificent city attached to a far airport. Twenty-four hours works only if you go straight to Sultanahmet and stay there.45–80 min to Sultanahmet by bus or taxi
- AUHAbu Dhabi · Zayed International AirportOne monument done well. The Grand Mosque or the Louvre, not both, and not a hop to Dubai.25–40 min by taxi to the mosque or Corniche
- CDGParis · Paris Charles de Gaulle AirportRER B into one neighbourhood. Versailles is the mistake. The terminal walk is the other one.35–50 min on RER B, plus a long walk inside CDG
- AMSAmsterdam · Amsterdam Airport SchipholThe easiest city on this list. A train, a canal, one museum if the ticket is already yours. Do not rent a bike.About 15–20 min by train to Centraal
How to use a layover
02
Pick a length, then a district
24 hours is one neighbourhood. 48 hours is a night and a second plan. 72 hours is the first gap that can hold a day trip without lying.
03
Be back three hours early
Usable time is the gap on the ticket, minus immigration, minus the rides, minus three hours in the departure terminal.
Who this is for
European travellers, and anyone else routing through these hubs, with 24 to 72 hours on a long-haul ticket and a passport that can actually enter. The guides assume you would rather sleep in a city than in a terminal, and that you still intend to make the onward flight.
DXB Dubai
DOH Doha
IST Istanbul
AUH Abu Dhabi
CDG Paris
AMS Amsterdam