Over at our awesome sister site, HotelChatter.com, they're discussing a very important matter: What are the best airport hotels to get stuck staying in? This is a topic we can get behind, especially when it includes the glorious picture above, of the indoor pool at the Marriott Renaissance Concourse Hotel at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. And you know what, this looks like the ideal plane spotting location for ATL. ]]>
Headed down under? While it's the thick of winter in our hemisphere, they've got the sun of summer coming down on beaches like the ones at Botany Bay, which happen to be positioned within awesome viewing proximity to the jet action at Sydney's Kingsford-Smith Airport.
Pack your camera, swimsuit and towel and head to the following prime spots to catch A380s landing and taking off, and a whole slew of Qantas planes. After the jump! ]]>
Lately in our series of stories on the best places to plane spot, we've focused on warm weather destinations, but some of us won't be taking tropical trips this winter and maybe still want to check out a little aviation action on our home turf. So we turn to Washington DC's Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA), located in Arlington, Virginia, but still within sight of the Capitol and the Washington Monument.
DCA is a plane spotters dream; it has a park with scenic views to the city, over the water, and onto the airport right at the end of the runway. This is Gravelly Point Park, and those biking the paths or picnicking on the grass are usually all here for the same reason: a little outdoors activity on a nice day, with the additional benefit of watching the mostly domestic flights zoom a few hundred feet above them and then make a left turn to avoid restricted airspace over DC. ]]>
Seeing as how it's been a little bit since last we focused on the lovely pastime of plane spotting, we decided to turn our recent Saint Lucia island experience into some useful (not to mention scenic) plane spotting advice for when you too are on the island.
Whether you're heading down on the new Jetblue flight from New York-JFK like we did, or coming all the way from London-Gatwick on the direct Virgin Atlantic flight, you'll want to get a load of the air traffic that sporadically makes its way into St. Lucia's Hewanorra airport at the very southernmost tip of the island, and here's how... ]]>
If you know anything about Venice, you know that it is a city built on water, so it's quite fitting that the perfect location for plane spotting is onboard a boat. But not just any boat, we're talking about the water taxis between Venice's Marco Polo Airport and Venice proper. The airport sits on marsh land right on the coast, while the tourist-filled portion is out in the middle of the lagoon.
Going between the airport and the city of Venice therefore means taking either a private boat or the Alilaguna Waterbus right underneath the paths of arriving and departing flights. While you rock on the waves of other speeding water taxis passing by, you can look up at airplanes from carriers like Alitalia and other major carriers. Smaller LCC airlines like Jaunted personal favorite Germanwings sadly won't be found here, but at Treviso Airport. ]]>
Plane spotting everything from legacy carriers to LCCs isn't all that difficult outside of San Diego International Airport with the hilly terrain, but there's one specific spot that lines up so well with the end of one of the runways that we simply must tell you about it. It's a parking garage.
Specifically, it's Aladdin's Parking Garage, at Kettner Boulevard and West Laurel Street, and it's a multi-level airport parking structure situated so perfectly for watching the activity on the runways at the airport. That said, the parking garage doesn't particularly like their reputation as a prime plane spotting location, and there are signs warning of "no loitering." But until they put up signs that warn "no making out," we'll keep coming back for a little literal Kiss-and-Fly.]]>
As much as we would have loved to have a video of a plane landing over the JW Marriott Hotel in Dubai in this story, it seems as though there is a serious dearth of photos and videos from plane spotters at DXB-Dubai International Airport. So let us then recommend a spot at which to make some: the aforementioned JW Marriott Hotel.
By requesting a room facing the runways, which usually run around $250 per night, you will get for yourself a truly awesome view of takeoffs and landings at the neighboring airport. The hotel sits at the end of a runway, so you won't feel as though you are sleeping at the airport, and it's luxurious enough to banish all thoughts of airport concessions. The key, however, is in asking for that runway-facing room without seeming suspicious. ]]>