Nobody learns transit visa rules from a PDF. You learn them at 2 AM in a foreign airport, which is the expensive way. Layover Gauntlet is our free game that teaches the same rules the cheap way: pick a journey, survive its layover stops, and protect one Trip Health bar from your own decisions.

Each stop is a real kind of layover problem: an overnight connection, a tempting landside hotel, a checked bag on separate tickets. You get three choices. One is safe, one costs you 15 health, and one ends the trip on the spot. First stop of the easy journey, for example: a 6 hour 20 minute daytime layover, and the exit signs are right there. Follow them to a landside hotel without the right visa and the trip is over before it starts. That instinct, stay airside unless you are sure, is the single rule behind most transit disasters, and it is the spine of our guide to transit visa rules that ruin layovers.

How a run works

Layover Gauntlet start screen: pick one of three journeys, The Smooth Run, The Tight Connection or The Gauntlet
Screenshot of the Layover Gauntlet start screen: three journeys, one Trip Health bar, real rules in invented places.
  • Pick a journey: The Smooth Run (4 stops), The Tight Connection (5 stops), or The Gauntlet (5 stops).
  • At each stop, read the situation and pick one of three choices. Safe, risky, or fatal; the game tells you which it was and why.
  • Watch your Trip Health. Risky choices cost 15 points each.
  • Finish to get your grade, from "Held together by luck" up to "Seasoned traveler", plus a per-stop recap and a checklist of the real rules the run mentioned.

Honesty box: the countries, airports, and airlines in the game are invented, and the game says so on its start and end screens. The principles are real, paraphrased from this site's own transit and layover articles. Playing is free and unlimited; only the end card is limited, 2 free a day, with an email unlock if you want to save or print it.

Play a run before your next connection: start Layover Gauntlet. Then check your actual trip: do I need a visa gives the straight answer per passport and destination, and the companion post, rules you learn faster by losing, shows who gets the most from playing. For the documents side, the Honorary or Real? checker at VisaDocumentHelp tells you whether an office can even do the job you need. Airlines check real requirements in Timatic, the database behind the IATA Travel Centre; so should you, after the game.