Guest Author - Jill Browne

When flying away for a vacation, most of us just want to get there, to the destination, and start the fun.

If you think of the journey itself as a very important part of the whole experience, then new opportunities present themselves.

Granted, no one wants a one-hour stop when the flight could have been direct. And, changing planes in an airport is typically a hassle, especially if you have to cart your luggage around.

But…when stopovers can be the best part of a day, in an interesting place, then they are a golden opportunity to see somewhere new, at a fraction of the cost.

For example, about a year ago I flew with two friends from Calgary, Alberta, Canada to Madrid, Spain. We boarded in Calgary fairly early in the morning and flew on United Airlines to Chicago, arriving around noon. That gave us about eight hours on the ground in Chicago. A free trip to Chicago!

We simply took the train into the city and had a great time at the Art Institute, arriving back at Chicago's O'Hare Airport in lots of time for our night flight to Copenhagen on SAS. A free trip to Copenhagen!

Arriving late in the morning in Denmark, we were tired, but the timing was perfect. Copenhagen has an excellent train service from the airport, and we had booked a hotel near the train station in the city. That gave us a chance to nap, walk around downtown a little bit – and as it was just before Christmas, Copenhagen was beautifully decorated, get a meal, and beginning adjusting to the time change.

The next morning it was back to the airport for a flight to Madrid.

Coming back, we did it all in reverse, with a day in Copenhagen and an overnight in Chicago as well.

By adding three nights of hotels to our agenda, we had three holidays in one!

One of the most creative websites I know of for planning this type of hop-around holiday is Travelcuts. It's mainly known for dealing with students, but anyone can book through them.

Part of the reason our itinerary choices included Denmark was because we were flying on SAS. Had we chosen Lufthansa, I expect our stopover would have been in Germany. On British Airways, perhaps we would have taken a day in London.

Not all flights allow you to break up your journey and stay overnight en route. We were lucky that there were lengthy delays between the available flights. I say lucky, but there was some deliberate planning involved as well. Once I saw the opportunity to stopover in Copenhagen, I knew we had to make it happen. Speaking to the travel agent in person gave us even more choice than what the website could display.