I've become an expert at killing time at airports - here are my top tips

The book keeps me distracted for a while. Going off to find a coffee kills a bit more time. I go for a walk, look out a window, then check to see if the news has changed since I started my window gazing.

I look at my watch. 90 minutes down. About five hours to go. Gosh, airport layovers can be boring!

Living in Australia, most of us have become accustomed to doing transits on long-haul trips. The airports in places like Doha and Singapore can even start to feel familiar - you know a shortcut, or a favourite cafe, or a quiet place to nap. It can be somewhat satisfying to pass through a terminal you know well and feel like you can make the most of your time.

Unless that time starts to feel interminable.

A six-hour layover in Dubai a couple of weeks ago was enough to push me past my boredom threshold, especially in a daze of fatigue after a 14-hour overnight flight. But as I walked through the airport's long halls, it gave me time to think about the airlines' long hauls, and how best to deal with a transit like this.

For many people, the best way to spend a layover is to spend some money and get access to an airport lounge. Travellers at the front of the plane or with a high frequent flyer status will usually have free access included, but many airports have lounges you can pay to enter. Along with comfortable seating and fast wifi, there will usually be unlimited food and drink (although the standard ranges from champagne and sushi to Yellowtail and sandwiches). And - often most importantly for long flights - there will be showers, with toiletries and towels provided.

Many paid lounges have a time limit, often as short as two hours. But depending on the cost, this can often still be cheaper than buying the equivalent amount of food and drink from overpriced airport restaurants. Even at Istanbul Airport, notoriously one of the world's most expensive, the six hours in a lounge for $150 starts to look like a good deal when you realise a small cappuccino and cheese sandwich will cost you about $30 otherwise.

Often I've spent long layovers without lounge access (gasp!) and in these situations, a great way to pass the time is by passing out... if you can. Airport terminals often try to make it difficult to sleep. I don't know why - I guess they think it looks unsightly, or charitably, maybe they're worried we'll miss our flights.

Either way, many will put uncomfortable armrests between individual seats and I've even been shooed away by security guards when I've tried to lie down.

But thankfully it is becoming more common for some airports to create sleeping zones with comfortable furniture like reclining chairs or lounges. I managed to catch a few hours of sleep in one of these at Doha airport recently. As well as setting several alarms, I made sure they would vibrate on my watch, just in case I couldn't hear my phone.

Many of the big airports now also have airside hotels, where you can book a room for a fixed amount of time without having to go through immigration (or worry about how long it will take to get back through security). For those long transits where you desperately need some sleep, these are fantastic. As an example, the hotel within Dubai Airport costs about $190 for three hours or $380 for twelve hours.

For really long layovers, you may be able to save some money by passing through immigration and getting a more traditional airport hotel. The ones at the terminal are often expensive, but you can get cheaper options by booking something nearby that offers free airport transfers. One of my favourite airport hotels - the one at Bangkok Airport with a large pool in the middle - is often under $200 a night, which I think is good value for a long layover.

But if your stopover is during the day, why not explore the city, particularly if it's somewhere you haven't been before. Some of the best airports with quick and easy access into town are Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, and Tokyo's Haneda (plus, of course, Sydney). But here's something a lot of people don't know - some airports actually offer free city tours for transiting passengers!

At Singapore airport, if your transit time is between 5.5 and 24 hours, there are four different free tours to choose from, covering the main sights, heritage areas, Sentosa Island, or Marina Bay Sands. In South Korea, Incheon Airport has 12 different free tours of Seoul and the surrounding region, including one to the DMZ on the border with North Korea. There are also tours from Istanbul in Turkey, Narita Airport in Japan (but of Narita, not Tokyo), and Taipei in Taiwan. And Doha Airport also offers transit tours but they're not free and start from about $40 per person.

In the end, on my last stopover, I don't pay for a lounge or for a hotel room within the terminal. I don't go out for a city tour. In fact, I don't really know where those six hours went. It was boring but forgettable. And perhaps ultimately that's the thing with these long layovers. At the time, you can't wait for them to be over, but by the time you're home, you're already over them.