Yes, You Can Eat Well During a Mileage Run

I have three mileage runs scheduled from now until June 6: between them all I'll be stopping in Los Angeles, San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, and Dallas/Fort Worth. Since the airlines no longer serve meals on the flights (unless I want to pay $10 for something worth $4), I try to look elsewhere for food.

On some mileage runs, my only options will be the food served in the terminal. Sometimes, that can be very good! I've had some good meals at the seafood restaurants at Seatac airport in Seattle. A few weeks ago I ate well at the On The Border in the Los Angeles terminal. Other times I have not been as lucky and have ended up getting a frozen ice cream from the McDonalds at O'Hare, or the cookies in the Admirals Club. However, on a trip where I never leave the airport, miles are my main goal, not food.

There are some trips however where I have time to leave the airport and that's when I'll look for a good meal. Since we have some good food here in Central Texas, I'll look for something I can't get at home, such as very fresh seafood, genuine Italian food, etc.

Later this month I have a four-hour layover in Seattle. Too much time to just sit in the terminal, but not enough time to take the bus downtown and eat at one of the many fine restaurants near Pikes Market. So, what do I do?

The answer is simple: Google! I went to GoogleMaps and entered "restaurants near Seatac airport" as my search term. In just a few seconds I had a list of hundreds of restaurants that I could sort by distance, cuisine, or user rating. It can't get any easier than that! I am narrowing down my choices, and it looks like I should have a pretty easy time getting a good meal and still get back to the terminal in time for my return flight.

A few weeks later I have a six hour layover in San Francisco, more than enough time to get into town. I looked at the website for BART, the local transit system. It is very user friendly, letting me plan my itinerary by departure and arrival time. I chose the Embarcadero station, and used "restaurants near Embarcadero BART station San Francisco" as my GoogleMaps search term. Since this is Google, I got back a ridiculous 143,000 results, but the first 30 or 40 will give me a multitude of choices. On the first page alone I found restaurants serving Italian, Chinese, Korean, Mexican, Thai, French, and American cuisine. (I also found McDonald's! haha) Now I just have to narrow down my choices.

So, if you are taking a mileage run and have enough time to leave the terminal but don't know where to go for food, remember to use GoogleMaps and search for restaurants near the airport. You'll be amazed at the choices you get.

Bon Appetit!