Original photo by Anna Shvets/ Pexels
The quintet of nations lacking their own airports — Vatican City, San Marino, Monaco, Liechtenstein, and Andorra — all reside within Europe. Perhaps unsurprisingly, all of these nations are pretty tiny. Vatican City and Monaco are in fact the two smallest countries in the world, covering just 109 and 494 acres, respectively. Vatican City, famously the home of the pope, is located inside Rome, and many travelers use one of Rome’s two airports to reach it. San Marino (23.5 square miles in area) is also located inside Italy; by car, it’s approximately 9 miles from Federico Fellini International Airport, near Rimini.
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It's a fibLightning strikes planes about annually, or once every 1,000 hours of flight. Yet crew members and passengers rarely notice. Each aircraft’s wings and tail hold static wicks that divert electricity away from navigation and communication radios and back into the atmosphere.
The diminutive Monaco, meanwhile, is the globe’s most densely populated sovereign state, with a citizenry of slightly less than 40,000 in less than 1 square mile. Since three sides of Monaco border France, it’s unsurprising that a French airport — Nice Côte d’Azur — is the nearest spot to arrive by commercial flight. Liechtenstein is bordered by Austria and Switzerland, and many visitors use Switzerland’s St. Gallen–Altenrhein to arrive. Finally, there’s Andorra (about 180 square miles in size), a destination in the Pyrenees mountains that borders France and Spain. Andorra’s capital, Andorra la Vella, lies within 89 miles of five airports — even if they’re all in other countries.
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You can buy the contents of unclaimed airport luggage.
Airlines around the world misplace about 25 million bags each year. Whenever a mysterious suitcase turns up, the airlines begin a 90-day tracing period to try to reunite the bag with its owner. If the tracing period is unsuccessful, all major U.S. airlines sell the luggage to the Scottsboro, Alabama-based company Unclaimed Baggage. Founded by Doyle Owens in 1970, the company cherrypicks a fraction of items for resale while tossing or donating the rest. For its first several decades, Unclaimed Baggage operated solely as a 50,000-square-foot store stocked with everything from apparel and accessories to musical instruments and sports equipment. (A lucky buyer once took home a loose 41-carat emerald for $17,000, less than half of its appraisal value.) In honor of its 50th anniversary, in 2020 Unclaimed Baggage launched a curated website so bargain hunters can now shop the contents of former checked trunks and carry-ons without making the trip to Alabama.
Jenna is a writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, and New York Magazine.
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