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Airport Zen for the Holiday Traveler

December 09, 2008 1:47 PM

Anyone who travels by air would hardly describe flying as a peaceful venture. Let's face it, it's stressful -- from the moment you take off your shoes to get through security to the moment you get to baggage claim hoping your luggage has arrived with you. But Jason Barger insists it doesn't have to be that way.  True confession: I first read about Barger in a travel column by Joe Sharkey in the New York Times. I was so intrigued I just had to call Barger and talk to him.

Sharkey wrote that Barger believes you can navigate your air travel with a "degree of serenity and grace." I wanted to learn how that might be possible.

Barger, who lives in Columbus, Ohio, told me he's always been fascinated by airports. He has done quite a bit of international traveling himself for a church anti-poverty program. So he decided to take one wild trip in January 2008. As he says on his Web site, he spent "seven straight days flying to seven different cities. He flew 6,548 miles without stepping foot outside of the airports and soaked in roughly 10,000 minutes of observations at all four corners of the United States."

Barger has published a book on the experience called, "Step Back from the Baggage Claim: Change the World, Start at the Airport."

He told me that "people's lives are literally bumping into each other" in airports. There are "so many different people gong so many different places with so many different agendas," he said. "It is a place of frustration where you see the best and worst of humanity."

Barger said getting through the experience with serenity "begins with a mindset, choosing to see things from a different angle." Take the baggage claim. When that buzzer goes off and the conveyer belt starts, passengers rush the carousel like wild animals at feeding time. Barger says passengers form "a human wall of entitlement." Why, he asks, "do we feel the need to crowd a baggage claim?" What if everyone stepped back a step or two and created more space?  He wondered if passengers might stop to think, "There may be people in a bigger hurry than I am."

Likewise on board the plane that has pulled into the gate. Passengers hear the "ding" when the captain turns off the seatbelt sign and they jump out of their seats and frantically start opening the overhead bins. Now granted, some are probably rushing to make a connecting flight. But the others?  All they're really gaining is frustration as they wait to get off, and a sore neck from crouching under the low ceiling. Barger says it would be better if "instead of contributing to the madness," passengers calmly stayed in their seats. That's what he intends to do.

And I remember when my children were very young, I would always wait until everyone got off the plane to gather the car seats, diaper bag and kids. It was always a more pleasant experience to just wait and take our time.

Barger also says passengers can change their mindset about the flight itself. How many of us have groaned when we struggled into that middle seat and dreaded the flight to come? Barger says he sees it as a few hours of relaxation –- as a time when he can't get emails or cell phone calls and can do some of his most creative thinking.

Barger says our airport behavior can be a metaphor for how we live our lives and advises travelers to come into the experience "with more of an appreciative spirit and attitude." Yes, he said, "Airports should be more efficient and airlines could do a better job," but just think how amazing it is that you can fly across country in just a few hours.

He insists that traveling "gracefully changes the mood around you," and can be contagious. 

"What spirit, word, actions, do we choose to throw out at the world?" he says. If we traveled with a "spirit of gratitude and compassion, what would that mean?"

So his advice for the holiday traveler? Find moments to just be still, to take a breath, to relax. And of course, step back from the baggage claim. Happy travels.

-ABC News' Lisa Stark

December 9, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (4)

User Comments

Posted by: pruss | Dec 9, 2008 7:03:45 PM

Posted by: tim | Dec 11, 2008 3:14:44 PM

Posted by: Seven | Dec 11, 2008 4:01:30 PM

Posted by: Jason | Dec 30, 2008 8:39:18 PM

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