Sights in between flights

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Ask Abhijeet Saxena, CEO, Netcore, how his last trip to Europe was different, and he quips: “Lots of fun to know a city like Milan with no interpreter/guide around to show the way, and being looted by street urchins by the end of it,” he says. Push him to elaborate on the second part, and he admits he didn’t like being made a fool of. However, Saxena, who is still trying to get over the loss of his euros, takes away lessons from the incident. “It’s been years that I have been visiting cities in Europe — known for their heritage, richness and sophistication.” He adds humbly, “My transit tour turned out to be not only adventurous, but also a learning experience. I came across a key aspect of human life in few hours of an aimless transiting journey.”

And it is not just Saxena who enjoys the aimless short tours while in transit. Rohit Agarwal of Techtribe, the IT entrepreneur with one leg in India and another in Silicon Valley, has many tales to share. A tourist travelling 5,00,000 miles a year for business and leisure, Agarwal now has a rulebook on stop over destinations to make his sweet, aimless jaunts a success. For him an ideal in-transit stop over must be of two days with a day of sight-seeing, and another for him to explore the place on his own. “And if the stop over is for a few hours only, I would like to be picked up and be dropped from the airport so that I am not stressed out about missing my flight,” he adds. That’s an option to whiling away hours at duty-free shops, diners and treatments at the spa. The stop over, or an in-transit tour — planned during the short period of time in-between flights — is of great value to a passenger on an onward journey, giving him an opportunity to experience and rejoice the myriad facets of a new destination, apart from the set itinerary. In fact, Singapore Tourism Promotion Board provides free city tours to transit passengers who are waiting for more than six hours there.