I am not a morning person, so naturally, I hate early morning flights. I usually choose to 'camp' in airports if I couldn't avoid early morning flights. But of course the ultimate reason is to save on accomodation cost for such a short night.
So far, I've slept overnight in 3 airports throughout my life. My first experience of sleeping in airport was in Miami airport with a friend after our Florida trip. Now that I think back, we were really brave! We just found a corner of the airport, rolled out our sleeping bag and slept soundly. We woke up to a surprisingly busy airport the next day. It was so different as compared to the night before, where it was quiet and dark. Our rucksacks and everything were not tempered with, and we were not harassed by anyone. It was quite a painless experience.
From that first fairly good experience, I felt confident with spending a night at airports. So when I was taking a 5am+ flight from Taipei, I decided to just hang out at the airport the night before to wait for my flight. This time I was alone. Unfortunately I did not get much sleep because I met a guy who kept chatting with me throughout the night! As Taipei airport was quite dead at night, I didn't mind a companion to talk to. When the guy finally left me alone, I managed to get a bit of shut-eye but sitting upright. Taipei airport didn't offer any long cushioned benches which are ideal for sleepers either. So it wasn't too sleeper-friendly.
I overnight at an airport again recently, this time in Lima, Peru. I heard so many scary stories about how unsafe the country is etc., so I was quite apprehensive in sleeping in the airport. But it just didn't make sense for me to leave the airport since my flight was around 5am, and I only arrived from New York around 10pm the night before. I wore my moneybelt underneath 3 layers of clothes (it was quite cold then), used my daypack as my pillow, tied my backpack to my daypack and slept on the cushioned bench. It was surprisingly a good sleep, although we had to bear with the speaker which kept blaring out announcements after announcements of night flights. I must compliment my companion here. He travelled almost 30 hours from Malaysia all the way to Peru, and then had to suffer another bedless night in the airport for the layover. I really respect his perseverance to rough it out with me!
If you ask me, would I do it again? Well, I think I'd do it until one day when my old bones not able to take it anymore... :D
*Tips: Check out this website: http://www.sleepinginairports.net/ before you decide whether to sleep in the airport. It's got airport reviews for sleepers. Very helpful indeed! *
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