Souvenir Sunday

Phoenix Sky Harbor has a holiday gift catalog

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I’m a big fan of doing all my holiday shopping at airports and this year Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport has made it super easy and ultra-enticing to head there to get presents for everyone on my list.

The airport has created its own holiday catalog featuring items available in the shops at Sky Harbor. Flip through the catalog and you’ll see the price, airport shop name and location listed with each gift idea.

Arizona-centric and local gifts are featured and you’ll find items from local retailers such as Bunky Boutique and Roosevelt Row, holiday cookies from Tammie Coe and growlers of local craft beer from O.H.S.O Brewery.

There’s even a page featuring cactus candy and a variety of Arizona-themed chocolate ‘poop’.

It is only Tuesday, but this airport holiday catalog is definitely in the running for Airport Amenity of the Week.

 

Souvenir Sunday at Honolulu’s Daniel Inouye Airport

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It’s Souvenir Sunday – a day to look at some of the inexpensive, locally-themed gifts you can find when you’re stuck at the airport.

Here are just a few Hawaii classics  from Honolulu’s Daniel Inouye International Airport:

 

 

Next time you find a charming or unusual locally-themed item for sale at an airport, snap a photo and send it along. If your item is featured on Stuck at The Airport, you’ll receive a special souvenir.

Snoballs and a 747 at San Francisco Int’l Airport

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By rights, I should save these for Souvenir Sunday, when this blog – StuckatTheAirport – features neat treats you can buy at airports.

But I’m not so sure about where to categorize these

I found them for sale in a shop at San Francisco International Airport on my way to United’s 747 Farewell flight.

The shop I passed lured me in  – and kept me looking – with all manner of true locally-made gourmet treats, including coffee and chocolate.

Then I found these “old fashioned” Hostess Snoballs and Twinkies.

I almost bought them to put on a shelf somewhere and test that “never goes bad” rumour, but passed.

But I didn’t go home souvenir-less.

When I boarded Flight 747 for United Airline’s farewell flight for its final 747 I found this on my seat, filled with some other “old” food (Pop Rocks, for one..) and a few other back-to-the-70s souvenirs.

 

 

Souvenir Sunday: read an illustrated history of travel

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Journey – an Illustrated History of Travel, published by DK in association with the Smithsonian Institution, arrived in the mail a few weeks back and our household has been leafing through it since then.

It’s a big coffee table-style book – 440 pages, in full color and pretty heavy – and is separated into 7 chapters, or “ages,” each tackling advances, experiences and the means by which humans have made their way around the world.

Chapters 1 through 3 tackle the Ancient World (including travel in ancient Egypt and the travels of Odysseus and Alexander the Great), travel that powered trade and conquests, including the travels of Marco Polo, and The Age of Discovery, when explorers set out to find “new” parts of the world.

Chapters 4 through 7 dig deep into the ‘The Age of Empires’, ‘The Age of Steam,’ ‘The Golden Age of Travel,’ and “The Age of Flight,’ with lots more achival images, historic maps, artifact images, bits of journals, and works of art.

I was delighted to find a spread on the Wunderkammern – or curiosity cabinets – that collectors began putting together in the 16th century to show off souvenirs such as shells, preserved animals, scientific and mechanical obects, and other odd tidbits they’d picked up on far off journeys or purchased from others who had gone on adventures.

The three voyages of Captian Cook are detailed, as are the inventions and inventors that brought the world flight.

There are sections on the rise of the manufactured souvenir, World’s Fairs, Grand Hotels, luggage labels, national parks, efforts to create maps that accurately reflect the world and parts of it, camping, Route 66, travel to every corner of the world, the Jet Age, space travel – and much, much more.

Towards the end of this big book there’s a section of biographies stretching from Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen, to Amelia Earhart, Thor Heyerdahl, Ernest Shackleton, and Amerigo Vespucci.

This one is a keeper and a good gift for anyone interested in travel or history.

All images from Journey – an Illustrated History of Travel.

 

Souvenir Sunday at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport

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It’s Souvenir Sunday, a day to take a look at some of the fun, locally-themed and inexpensive items you can buy when you’re stuck at the airport.

This week’s treats come from one of my favorites: Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

 

 

 

If you find a great souvenir at an airport, please snap a photo and send it along. It may be featured on a future edition of Souvenir Sunday here on StuckatTheAirport.com.

Souvenir Sunday at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport

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Etsy at an airport?  We’re used to finding Etsy artists and their wares on line. But there’s an Etsy shop filled with Texas-made treasures inside the new United terminal at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.

And since it is Souvenir Sunday – the day we look some of the fun, inexpensive and locally-themed items you can buy at airports – here are some more snaps of items I spotted at IAH during a recent visit.

 

(Why is this flavor of Skinny Pop not sold in my town??)

And… (bonus!) here’s the Souvenir Sunday pick from IAH from my last time through:

Fiesta Friday: Found at Cancun Int’l Airport

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It’s been a very long time since I’ve traveled through Cancun International Airport and last time I was there the shops and restaurant offerings were sort of pitiful.

But, things have definitely changed.  Not only is there a now-classic, giant Duty Free shop, but a fair number of shops offering Mexican candies and snacks.

 

And, here’s a classic to add to my running list of chocolate ‘poop’ for sale at airports.

 

What do people buy at airports? Pig “poop,” cactus, records & more.

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What can you  buy at airports? Gucci bags, of course, but also plenty of locally-themed items that can be great souvenirs of your trip.

Here’s a slightly different version of a column on airport bestsellers I put together for CNBC.

Bottled water and neck pillows may be the top selling items in many airport newsstands, but around the country passengers are also making room in their carry-ons for containers of mustard, tins of popcorn and a plethora of pink headphones.

As airports around the country sharpen their focus on customer satisfaction and increase their reliance on income from food and beverage, specialty retail and other non-aeronautical revenue, concourses are getting more comfortable and shop offerings are becoming more creative.

At Denver International Airport, almond toffee made in nearby Grand Junction, CO by Enstrom Coffee & Confectionary is a top seller, while at the gourmet 1897 Market operated by HMSHost at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, locally-made Sweet Girl Cookies and Queen Charlotte’s Original Pimento Cheese are customer favorites.

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport does a brisk business in scorpion suckers (hard candy with a scorpion in the center) and racks up a million dollars in sales of cactus plants each year.

“We have a variety of different shapes and sizes packaged so that travelers can take one home with them,” said Heather Lissner, spokeswoman for the Aviation Department of the City of Phoenix, “We also offer a petting cactus, which is easy to touch compared to the other varieties.”

Flying Pig products – pig hats, plush pigs, pig-shaped lip gloss, bags of Pig Poop (chocolate covered peanuts) and other souvenirs depicting winged pigs – are, collectively, the top selling merchandise in the shops at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

Why flying pigs? During the mid-to-late 1800s, Cincinnati was the largest pork processing center in the country, earning the nickname ‘Porkopolis.’ Winged pigs are one way the city embraces its past.

Speaking of pigs, at San Francisco International Airport – which recently added a pig to its team of therapy animals that visit with passengers – locally-made Candied Bacon Caramel Corn from Chunky Pig is reportedly flying off the shelves at the Skyline News Shop in Terminal 3.

At Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Garrett Popcorn – a modern hometown favorite, is a perennial top seller.

Combined, the two Garrett Popcorn Shops at O’Hare sold more than 47,000 one-gallon tins of popcorn (assorted varieties) during 2016, at an average price of $34.50 a tin, said Gregg Cunningham of the Chicago Department of Aviation.

Sweet Beginnings Honey, made by bees at the airport’s apiary also sells well at the O’Hare Farmers’ Market.

During February alone, the shops at Norman Mineta San Jose International sold more than 15,000 bottles of water, more than 200 Belkin phone chargers and an equal number of Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry-branded clothing.

Sports-related merchandise is a big seller at other airports as well – especially when teams and players are winning.

At the AIRMALL at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, sports memorabilia sells well, but so does locally-made ballpark-style mustard; at the rate of 40 cases each month.

Both Stadium and Bertman brand mustards are sold at CLE, with Stadium outselling Bertman by 15 to 20 percent, AIRMALL reports.

Sasquatch and Big Foot-branded items, including t-shirts, stickers, food and books are popular right now at the Made in Oregon stores at Portland International Airport. But store manager Candace Vincent said the airport stores sold more than $1 million of carpet-themed products (neck pillows, socks, shirts, jam, etc.) during 2015 and 2016 when locals mourning the replacement of the airport’s iconic teal flooring turned the rug and its pattern into an on-line sensation.

And at Newark Liberty International Airport, travelers have been snapping up vinyl records from the shop at CBGB L.A.B (lounge and bar) operated by OTG in Terminal C.

“We don’t report volumes, but I can tell you it’s the top seller in that retail concept,” said Eric Brinker, OTG’s Vice President of Experience, “People are buying record players in the shop as well.”

In Houston, where OTG is working with United Airlines to redo the dining and retail offerings in its terminals at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, there’s also a surprising best-seller.

“We sell tons of headphones in Houston,” said Brinker, “And for some reason we sell more pink headphones in Texas than in any other place in the country.”

(All photos courtesy of the respective airports.)