Long Layover Tip – Warsaw Edition

When we booked our flights to Russia we were happy to have a particularly long layover in Warsaw. Bella and I had been there before, but the boys hadn’t been, so we looked forward to showing them a bit of the city. We were scheduled to land at 12:30 in the afternoon and leave at 8 PM. You can see quite a bit in seven and a half hours, or you could hang out in the airport. Obviously the latter was out of the question.

We investigated transit options between the airport to downtown.

We didn’t want to take the train or a bus and waste all of our precious time waiting on somebody else’s schedule. Additionally, we’re not JustACarryOn because it’s a cool name. We had carryons with us. Not big ones, but wheeled bags big enough for us to have two week’s worth of underwear and some dried food for the train. Public transportation with bags is always a pain, and then we’d have to drag them around all day. An option to avoid that could be storage at the airport, but at a cost in both money and time.

A great solution we use is simply renting a car. It’s cheap, we all get to ride at our own leisure, and we have storage in the trunk. Sure, there is often a parking fee as well as fuel, but we couldn’t beat this.

So we landed, went through customs and immigration, and picked up a car. Minutes later, we were parked and walking around in old Warsaw.

I can assure you, the pirogies, pasta carbonara, and Tyskie beer we enjoyed while sitting in the main square were worth the trip downtown.

All good things come to an end, so we returned to the airport, dropped off the car, and left to continue our adventure. The rental made it possible and the cost was far less than one would predict.

 

Fuel was negligible since we didn’t drive far and all Sixt charged me was $15.50. Seems like a great deal to me.

~ Freddy