Layover

Layover hands you a start airport, a destination airport, a budget, and a time cap, then asks you to build a real itinerary between them. Every flight you can pick comes from actual airline schedule data with real published fares, so the puzzle plays more like planning a trip than guessing a hidden word. The core tension is the site's own warning: cheap flights are often slow, and fast flights are often expensive.

What is Layover?

Layover is a route building puzzle. You start at a given airport and need to reach a given destination, and each flight you add has to depart from where the previous one landed, so you are chaining together real airline routes leg by leg until you land at the destination. The game shows you duration and price for each flight option as you build, and the whole itinerary has to stay under the day's budget and time cap. There is no fixed number of guesses to track, since the puzzle is about assembling a workable itinerary rather than submitting attempts at a hidden answer.

What separates Layover from most geography -dles is that it is not a guess-the-place format at all. Instead of narrowing down a hidden country or airport through feedback on each guess, you are doing something closer to logistics planning: picking real flights, watching the cost and time add up, and deciding whether a connection through a cheaper airport is worth the extra hours. Each day also brings three optional challenges, each with its own star difficulty rating. Recent examples include flying eastbound on every leg, including a flag carrier flight, and averaging more than 4,000 miles per leg. They are bonus objectives, and clearing all three is what puts you on the leaderboard rather than being required to finish the day's puzzle.

Layover is one of the FlightQ family of daily aviation, travel, and geography games, a lineup of more than a dozen titles that includes SkyQ, AirportQ, AirlineQ, CityQ, PlaneQ, HigherQ, RailQ, Borderline, Customs, and Geo Blackjack. The site's about page says the project started as a single puzzle and grew into this full family of games, though it does not name a specific creator or company beyond the FlightQ name itself, and no launch date for Layover is given on the site.

You can play Layover for free without creating an account. A free account is only needed if you want to submit your results to the leaderboard. The site links a Discord server and an X account in its footer for community discussion and feedback. FlightQ does run an archive of past puzzles for several of its games, but Layover is not currently one of them.

How to play Layover

1. Open Layover at flightq.app/layover.
2. Check the day's starting airport, destination airport, budget, and time cap.
3. Pick a flight leaving from your current airport, using the shown price and duration to plan ahead.
4. Keep adding flights, each one starting where the last one landed, until you reach the destination.
5. Watch your running cost and total travel time so you stay under both caps.
6. Try the three optional daily challenges for leaderboard credit, then create a free account if you want your run to count on the leaderboard.

Tips and strategy

• Look at the destination first and work backward mentally, since some airports only connect well through a small number of hubs.
• Compare a couple of possible first legs before committing, since an early cheap flight can lock you into an expensive or slow final leg.
• Keep an eye on both the budget and the time cap at once, since a route that is cheap can still blow the time cap and vice versa.
• Read all three daily challenges before your first pick. A requirement like flying eastbound on every leg or including a flag carrier can rule out otherwise good routes.
• Cheap flights are often slow and fast flights are often expensive, so decide early which cap looks tighter for the day's route and plan around that one.
• Remember flights come from real airline schedule data, so if a direct connection seems obvious but is not offered, it likely does not exist in real airline schedules.

Good to know

Category

Geography / travel puzzle

Cost

Free to play, account only needed for the leaderboard

Guesses

No fixed count, build a multi-leg itinerary under a budget and time cap

Resets

Daily puzzle

Modes

Daily puzzle plus three optional star-rated challenges

Feedback

Leaderboard for completed daily challenges (free account)

Platform

Browser (flightq.app)

Part of

FlightQ family of games

Layover FAQ

Is Layover free to play?

Yes. You can play the daily puzzle without an account. A free account is only needed to submit your results to the leaderboard.

How do you play Layover?

You are given a start airport and a destination, plus a budget and a time cap. You pick real flights one leg at a time, with each flight departing from where the previous one landed, until you reach the destination without going over budget or the time cap.

Is there an archive of past Layover puzzles?

No. FlightQ has an archive section covering several of its games, such as SkyQ, AirportQ, and RailQ, but Layover is not currently included in it.

Is Layover like Wordle?

Not really. Wordle style games have you submit guesses toward a hidden answer with feedback each try. Layover is a route construction puzzle where you actively build a connecting flight itinerary using real airline schedule data.

Who made Layover?

The game is published under the FlightQ name, and the site's copyright reads FlightQ. Its pages do not name an individual creator or company beyond that.