My name is Ryan, and I love airports. There, I said it. This is good, as in my job as a pilot, airports play an unambiguously outsized role in my life. If you are a seasoned traveler, it is possible – okay, probable – that airports have become nothing more than a routine nuisance to pass through on your way to better places.

And for the nascent traveler, the new-to-you airport experience may be so intimidating that using the word love to describe the place or experience is far removed from your mind. You are forgiven. If you have fallen out of love or have yet to love the airport experience, let me share a few reasons why I love airports.

Arrival and departure board

Sure, you have looked at the arrival or departure board for relevant information about your flight, but have you, in a free moment, stopped to gaze at the board in amazement at all the cities – and countries – represented on the board?

And that all those cities and countries send and receive travelers from the very airport you are in – the airport the hub of the wheel with far-flung destinations the spokes. Our connectivity through air travel, with the airport as the launching pad, is truly amazing. The arrival and departure board tells this story in an interesting array of words and numbers.

Photo: J. Lekavicius | Shutterstock

A city within a city

Walking through the typical airport, you will pass several restaurants, coffee shops, stores, maybe an airport police officer or fireman, and others busily at work, keeping the infrastructure humming. In other words, you are walking through a small city within a city.

And those big brother cities that play host to the airport will often tell you the airport is a major engine of economic activity for the region: a large employer, a large purchaser of goods and services. In other words, a good, important, and needed corporate citizen.

Architectural distinction

Yesterday’s airport was a sterile, almost industrial-like environment, offering a modicum of baseline infrastructure. Not today. Many of today’s airports boast awarding-winning architectural designs rivaling that of a given city’s most beautiful and sought-after buildings and attractions. The intrepid traveler is the beneficiary of the eye-pleasing designs, lines, large windows, and often quite inviting atmosphere of today’s architecturally inclined airports.

Photo: Lukas Souza | Simple Flying

Plane watching

The greatest and most obvious reason to love airports is for the concentration of plane watching. A universally loved pastime of children, even the most stressed, hurried adult traveler cannot help but stare in wonder as a wide-body jet taxis to rest at the gate, its journey of thousands of miles 6 miles above the earth, ending in a surprisingly unceremonious fashion.

Or appreciate the great choreography represented in the line of jets waiting for departure, each expertly orchestrated by an unseen air traffic controller, between the landings of the day’s arrivals.

This list is far from exhaustive, and I openly acknowledge that passing through an airport might be routine or stressful at times. But the next time your travels find you in an airport, I encourage you to revel in the experience – the connectivity, the city within a city, the design and beauty, and the epic plane watching – it all awaits you.