10:15
five thirty or five forty in the morning. I just walk through the center of Athens to Monastiraki station and head to the airport. I just spent the last few days in Greece and today I'm flying all the way to Sydney. So, if you don't mind, the last few times I've flown between the UK and Australia, I've used budget airlines exclusively because I can do it and it saves me money. And you know what? The route I use- two Scoot flights and then either EasyJet or Ryanair- is via Athens. What is.Well, I just love Greece. I mean, look at this. So, I'm flying back to Sydney this time and decided to extend my layover in Athens, because why not? So I've just spent the last few days on the island of Aegina with my friend Karen,
and today I have a connecting flight to Sydney from Athens via Singapore. And I wanted to take you with me because I do n't always take you on these flights, and I think it's good for people to know about it, because it's not an obvious option. When you travel to the other side of the world, I think people assume you're flying on one of the big airlines, which can be very expensive, but that's not necessarily the case. So let me show you what it looks like. So this is Monastiraki station, and you can actually just tap your card when you enter and exit, which is great. But be sure to follow the signs to the airport. Yes, it's in that direction.
I see my flight: 9:00 AM, Scoot 041-046. It's not that bad. It looks like it will take about ten minutes. I came across some panic-inducing videos on TikTok about people waiting at passport control in Athens for 2-3 hours, so I was a little worried, but everything is fine here. Oh, this is a great lounge. It's luxurious here. Let's take a nice seat by the window. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, and we settled in for breakfast. I took a sandwich with Thessaloniki bread, some vegetable soup, and a brioche bun. I arrived at the Goldair Handling lounge. If you don't know, I have a Revolut Ultra subscription. I pay £48 a month and as part of that you get a Lounge Key. It used to be Dragon Pass. Now it's Lounge Key. This essentially gives you unlimited access to
airport lounges around the world. Which for someone like me who travels quite a bit and is often in airports, oh my god, was the best investment I could have ever dreamed of. Because if you were to pay separately for entry to one of these lounge areas, it would cost around 40 pounds. And I would never do that because I feel like I never get a service worth 40 pounds. And maybe I will. But I know I would have spent more if I had just spent money at airport restaurants. These halls also have fairly reliable free Wi-Fi. But this is an open Wi-Fi network. Which is not a problem, but it brings me nicely to the sponsor of today's video -Surfshark. Because when you are connected to an open public Wi-Fi network where no password is required to
log in, your device is at risk of being hacked through that connection. Yes, I know, you don't think something like this could happen at the airport, but it's entirely possible. However, there is a solution. When you turn on Surfshark, which is a virtual private network, it acts as a virtual shield for your device so that no hacker can gain access. Not only that, a VPN has a whole host of benefits, and one of my favorites, especially since I travel a lot, is that your device's virtual location to any country in the world. This means that if you've ever had the problem of not being able to download something, not being able to watch something, not being able to watch BBC iPlayer or ITVX while in Athens or Australia, you can watch
any show from home. But with one click of a button on Surfshark, you select the country where that service or content is available, refresh the page-and you're done. It's like magic, and I honestly don't know what I would do without a VPN these days because I use it every day. So, if you have n't already, download Surfshark, start your 7- day free trial and get four extra months free using my code backpacking, or just go to surfshark.com/backpacking. So, since Scoot is a budget airline, that means that even on long-haul flights, they don't offer food or drinks. You can buy them. There is a menu on board and you can pay for these meals, but I find that when I fly budget airlines I want to save as much as possible. I think
if you're going to save money, you should save it to the fullest. However, I have my own strategies. I usually buy snacks before I arrive at the airport. To be honest, I completely forgot to do it yesterday, but don't worry. Of course, I'm in the waiting room now. And my tactic is this: I'm going to eat as much as possible here. But without fanaticism, so as not to make things worse. And I'll also take some food with me: I'll pick up a little bit of everything that I can easily grab with me . This first flight to Singapore takes 12 hours. It's long, but it's quite realistic, and I'll show you exactly what I decided to take on this flight. So, let's go.
This is what I'm taking on board with me. This is my sleep mask cover, but I already took out the mask. I think it would be great for sandwiches. So, I have four sandwiches. Actually, can I squeeze in more? No, four is probably enough. I could definitely cram another one in there. I'll go get another one. In short, I have an apple and a huge banana. And I also grabbed a few bottles of water. I've already passed security. I don't think I'll have to take it again in Athens, so I hope there wo n't be any problems with all this. I'm very happy that I have an aisle seat on this flight. I usually prefer window seats, that's my standard choice. But for a 12-hour daytime flight, an aisle seat is actually convenient because I can get up and
walk around whenever I want, and I should definitely do that more often. that if my neighbors are constantly going to the bathroom or getting up, it will annoy me. That's why I usually choose a window, because I like not to be disturbed. Well, we'll see. Let's hope we get good neighbors. Neighbors in the row and in the aisle. All my snacks and stuff are in this bag. As you can see, Scoot doesn't have any TV screens, so I pre- loaded a bunch of Netflix shows onto my phone, and honestly, that's what will keep me entertained. If I were smarter, I would have more ways to entertain myself, maybe a Sudoku book or a puzzle book. That would be nice. But I travel very bare-bones, so yeah, we just rely on Netflix on my phone. It will be okay. Oh, I also
want to show you that there should be a menu here somewhere. Here it is. So, here is the Scoot menu. As I said, food is not included in the price, but you can buy it if you want. You can order it in advance or simply order it during the flight. Prices are in Singapore dollars. Most items cost less than 10. This is 12 dollars. The Singapore dollar is somewhat similar to the Australian dollar. So, let's say around £6 or £7 for a hot main course. Same for light snacks. They have croissants, tortillas, sandwiches. There are also drinks. You can get instant noodles, and there are also snacks. And there are also cold drinks here.
How much does coffee cost? Something like tea or coffee is $5, which is not bad at all. And of course, they also have alcoholic beverages. That's $18 for two wines or $10 each. It's not that terrible, considering we're in flight. Another thing worth pointing out is that you can connect to their ScootHub. But as far as I know, it's not actually Wi-Fi that you can connect to. If I remember correctly, you have to pay if you want to plug your devices into an outlet. Is there anything we have here? It was a socket. I'm pretty sure you have to Goodbye. So, 12 hours later, and we arrived in Singapore. This transfer only lasts an hour, which isn't long. However, the flight arrived quite on time. So I hope I can get at least 5-10 minutes in the lounge next
door, it will be worth it. Just so I can have a little snack, because I'm a little hungry. I ate all my sandwiches. Not sure that was enough. So, yeah, we'll see what's closest. Last time I was in Singapore, it was the Marhaba lounge. This was the closest, so I'll try to find it if I can. Oh, yes. D48. Hell, there was a sign that the landing on D48 had already begun. She told me to go there immediately. This is exactly what these people are asking about. Oh, I was hoping to get into the lounge. Do we have time? Have they really started landing already? This is disappointing. I have no more food. I have one banana. There are drinking water fountains here. But in Singapore, there is security at every boarding gate, which means that if you
fill up a bottle, it will be confiscated at the gate. So I won't be filling bottles right now, but I hope there will be a fountain behind the gate, in the waiting room. Wow, look at this. What a luxury, boarding gate. It all happened so fast. I was able to fill up with water after security, I'm very happy about that. And I have an aisle seat again. I still don't really like bananas. I had a great time in Sydney. Let me tell you, two long-haul flights in a row with less than an hour of downtime-it's not for the faint of heart, that's for sure. I tried to sleep most of the second flight, and to be honest I usually sleep well on planes. But this time it was difficult to sleep. I was constantly tossing and turning, couldn't sit comfortably,
my back hurt a little, but I managed. I'm very glad I managed. I'm very lucky that I now live in Australia and the guy picks me up from the airport. Oh, how sweet. It feels like I'm coming home, you know? And today is such a wonderful sunny day. I was nervous coming back to Sydney from the European summer, but the weather looks absolutely gorgeous. We discussed where the best place was for him to pick me up at Sydney Airport. There is a public landing area there. I mean, there's 15 minutes of free parking there, but I think I'll be there before him, so that'll be the best spot. Greetings. Mom. Greetings.
