Morocco to Spain and Portugal Day 15: Lisbon to LAX

We arrived at the Lisbon airport at 6:50 a.m., only to be told we couldn’t check our bags until 7:15—exactly three hours before departure. After that, we headed straight to security, which had fairly typical lines, but then encountered yet another checkpoint: passport control.

There, only two windows were open to process hundreds of travelers, and the wait stretched to more than two hours. Tensions ran high as people worried about missing their flights. Some began pushing their way to the front, and the situation grew chaotic, with much shouting.

We went straight from that line to a plane that was already halfway boarded. Thankfully, they held it for Jim and a few others, but the whole experience was incredibly stressful.

The most discouraging part? The passport officer told me this is an everyday occurrence—the airport infrastructure simply hasn’t kept pace with Portugal’s tourism boom. Pro tip: look for the secret American passports line instead of the “all other passports line.”

At U.S. airports, Transportation Security Administration agents aren’t being paid due to a partial government shutdown, and I was worried about potential chaos at Newark Liberty International Airport after reports of unusually long security lines. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are now “helping” at some airports as well. Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any problems.