Extreme airport hacks

From the absurd to the even more absurd, here are our top eight extreme airport hacks to add a bit of spice to the start of your trip (with some advice on how badly it'll mess up your trip if you actually try them, as well as some hassle-free alternatives).

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1. Drink your shampoo

You know you can't take normal bottles of liquids onto the plane right? You have to take little bottles of toiletries in a see-through bag, which is a faff and a waste and costs more than the normal ones.

Skip all that. Get a big, empty shampoo bottle from home. Clean it very thoroughly, then before you set off to the airport fill it with yoghurt and stick it in your hand luggage. If security are doing their job, they'll spot your oversized bottle and tell you to throw it away. Don't throw it away. Drink it in front of them. Even people with machine-guns don't bother you much once they've watched you down a bottle of shampoo with a smile.

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2. Wear your luggage

Luggage rules, especially on the budget airlines, are pretty much deliberately restrictive and confusing so they can charge you extra for bringing anything on holiday with you. Fair play, some might say, they're businesses trying to make money. Unless you're willing spend a week in Spain with just a face cloth and one pair of speedos, that super-cheap plane ticket is going to clock up extras when you check in.

Enter the big coat with lots of big pockets. There are limits on how big your bags can be, and how many of them you can take. There's nothing stopping you wearing a floor-length trenchcoat onto the plane and stuffing the pockets with a bag's worth of clothes, putting all your gadgets and heavy items inside, or boarding your plane wearing most of your wardrobe for the trip in layers.

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3. Bring a hammock

The chairs in Departures are famously uncomfortable, and if your flight is delayed you could find yourself sitting there for a good old while.

This summer, one traveller passing through Seattle-Tacoma airport solved this by pitching his hammock in departures, attaching the ropes to two of the airport's supporting pillars. You'd think the TSA, infamous sticklers for the letter of US airport rules, would put a quick stop to it – but for once they took a relaxed view, saying it was up to airports whether passengers could pitch hammocks in the terminal.

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4. Use Duty Free bags as extra luggage allowance

You're normally allowed one carry-on bag for the plane, but you can also carry your shopping through. So buy something tiny from Duty Free, ask for a bag, then stuff all the remaining space with your spare t-shirts and shoes so you can get it on the plane for free.

(How did you get all those t-shirts through security and as far as the Duty Free shop? They were in your big coat. Keep up.)

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5. Print your face on your suitcase

Photo credit: Firebox

Tired of searching through hundreds of identical black suitcases as they go round and round the conveyor? Worried you might not be able to ID your bags if they go missing? It's surprisingly cheap to get a huge photo of your face printed on your luggage instead.

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6. Pack a pillow

OK, final luggage hack. And we mean pack a pillow, not just carry one. Budget airlines let you bring a pillow on the plane. But what if it was a pillowcase with a zip and all your clothes inside? The airlines don't have any rules against it – airline staff who've commented say no-one's going to stop you – and there are plenty of people on TikTok filming themselves getting away with it.

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7. Zip through departures on a scootcase

If you've ever been jealous of the infants wheeling around departures on their little Trunkis – and who hasn't? – all is not lost. Grown-ups, assuming you're willing to stretch the term a bit, can join in too.

Sure, you can put all your clothes in a wheelie suitcase or a backpack then carry it like a chump. Or you can invest in a scootcase and travel not just with but on your luggage. What's a scootcase? A scooter-plus-suitcase of course, that folds up into a bag or folds down into a (slightly precarious) mode of transport.

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8. Freeze your liquids

The rule for going through security is no liquids (above a certain size per container yadda yadda, see above). Ice isn't a liquid. So freeze all your liquids and take them through solid.

Shampoo freezes. Sunblock freezes (eventually). Water definitely freezes. So freeze your liquids the night before and get them through that way.

It's not without its risks. Security may not like it, and if your frozen liquids have thawed even a bit, technically they can make you throw them away (because of the max 100ml bottle rule). But people have made it through with their liquids frozen before, and if you want to save a few pounds and have a bit of fun in the queue, the worst that'll likely happen is being made to throw them out.