So, I had this trip planned, and I was actually looking forward to a layover. Yeah, you heard that right. I wanted to break up a super long journey, maybe even sneak in a quick city exploration if the layover was long enough. But man, finding flights that let you easily see and choose good layover options? That turned into a whole project.
I started where everyone does, you know, the big-name flight sites. Typed in my origin, my destination, and my dates. And sure, they showed me flights. Lots of them. Some had layovers, some didn’t. But trying to filter specifically for, say, a layover in a particular city, or one that was between 8 to 12 hours long? It felt like I was asking too much. Most of them just showed me the “fastest” or “cheapest,” and the layover details were buried, or you couldn’t really tweak them.
My Deep Dive into Layover Searches
I got pretty frustrated. I thought, there has to be a better way. So, I dedicated a whole afternoon, then an evening, then bits of the next day, to just digging. I must have opened twenty tabs, easy. I was clicking on every “advanced search” option I could find, trying different combinations.
Here’s what I found out through my trial and error:
- Google Flights was one I revisited. At first, it seemed like the others. But then I found that if you select your flights, it sometimes shows you layover durations pretty clearly. What I really started using it for was its “Explore” map feature. I’d put in my origin and a general region for my destination, and then I could see prices to various airports. Sometimes, this helped me spot potential layover cities I hadn’t considered. It wasn’t perfect for managing the layover, but good for ideas.
- Then there’s . I’d heard about their “Nomad” feature for multi-city trips, but I tried it for simple A-to-B with a specific layover idea. They have this thing where they piece together flights from different airlines, even ones that don’t normally partner. This sometimes resulted in interesting layover possibilities, including self-transfers. You have to be careful with those, make sure you have enough time, but it definitely opened up options the more traditional sites didn’t show. I spent a lot of time here, just seeing what combinations it would spit out.
- I also messed around with Skyscanner. I liked that you could search for “Everywhere” as a destination if you were flexible. For layovers, I found its filtering options a bit better than some basic sites. I could sometimes specify a preferred stopover airport, but it wasn’t always super intuitive to find the flights with the right length of layover without a lot of scrolling.
- One that surprised me a bit was Momondo. It has a similar feel to Skyscanner, but I found its visual display of flight times and layovers sometimes easier to digest quickly. It would show these little bar graphs, and I could often spot the longer layovers more easily there. Still, it took some sifting.
What Actually Worked For Me in the End
So, after all that clicking and comparing, did I find one magic bullet? Not really, to be honest. It wasn’t like one site just handed me the perfect layover on a silver platter. It felt more like I had to become a bit of a detective.
What I ended up doing was using a combination. I’d start broad, maybe with Google Flights to get a sense of routes and potential layover cities. Then, if I had a specific layover city in mind, or wanted to see those self-transfer options, I’d jump over to something like *. I’d also keep Skyscanner or Momondo open to cross-reference prices and see if they surfaced different airline combinations.
The key for me was patience and being willing to try different search parameters. I learned that you often have to look at the flight details for each leg manually. Sometimes I’d find a good candidate route, then I’d go to the airline’s own website directly to see if I could tweak the layover there, or if they had multi-city booking options that were easier to manage once I knew the flights I wanted.
My biggest takeaway? If you want a specific type of layover, you’ve got to be prepared to put in a bit of work. Don’t just trust the first page of results on any single engine. I found that by playing around with the filters, even the less obvious ones, and by comparing across a few different platforms, I eventually pieced together the kind of trip I was hoping for. It took time, sure, but I got that nice long layover I wanted.
