My 11:30 pm connecting flight out of Los Angeles International Airport was delayed by 24 hours, forcing me to rest in the airport. All my bags were checked, so I had no luggage or spare clothes available. Here's where I tried sleeping and how it went.

All of these places are in Terminal B, the Tom Bradley International Terminal. I did pass the time by walking to every other terminal, but Terminal B seemed to have the most hopeful spots. The other terminals are just same-y big rooms.

Highest floor hallway that passes the lounges

Quiet area, completely deserted of other passengers. It's a dead end, and the last lounge (Emirates) is only open mid-afternoon, so there's no reason to go this far unless you're also looking for the quietest spot in the airport. Occasionally someone will sit next to a pillar for half an hour to charge their phone and share in the quiet.

The left edge is in a steep shadow, so it's easy to turn your head to the side without getting any bright lights on your eyelids - no eye mask required.

Seemingly the whole terminal is hooked up to the same PA system, which during business hours has staff announcing departure info and calling passengers, but at night you just get the same prerecorded message every few minutes: Attention all travellers. This is an important announcement. We are a safety and security conscious airport. Please do not leave your bags unattended, as they will be treated as a security risk and may be taken. In most parts of the terminal, this is loud and frequent enough to drive even the most patient man insane. In this corridor, it's slightly quieter. The speakers are at the other end of the hallway, but the sound travels easily through it.

Unfortunately there are no benches or soft surfaces here, unless you go into the lounge I suppose, but I didn't feel like being noticed by security. The only place to be is on those polished speckled beige tiles, which actually weren't as painfully hard as I had expected. The main issue was the only padding for my head was my hands, and there was no padding for my hands, because I didn't have any extra clothes. If you have any spare garments with you to place your head or hands on, like a sweater or a puffer jacket, that would greatly improve this location. The rest of my body felt fine on the hard floor. Wearing only a t-shirt and trousers, without a jacket to stay warm, I was a bit colder than I would have liked.

The worst part of this place is that it's actually not a dead end. There's a staff elevator at the very end of the hallway, and it's frequently used in the dead of night. About every 10 minutes, pairs of staff passed through to push a cart to the lift. So I heard the cart wheels rumbling, maybe they're talking, the elevator sounds. Pretty annoying, and it kept happening. Shame, because otherwise this spot would be brilliant.

Just like in the hit game Five Nights at Freddy's, staff seem to be more active at night, so maybe you could get a good rest here if it was during the day. Or maybe not, since the adjacent room would probably be brighter.

Overall review

Wasn't as terrible as I expected, but I moved on from this spot because I felt that I could do better. Blanket or spare item of clothing between you and the floor highly recommended.

LAX's Secret Hardware Store

At night, this enormous empty room had no flights from any gate, and it's a long and misdirected distance from the main area of Terminal B, so it's a dead end completely deserted of passengers. You can quite easily get here by following the signs to Gate 142, but you'd be unlikely to stumble upon this if you were any ordinary visitor.

I forgot to take a picture here, and it's such a hidden gem that I wasn't able to find photos online, so the only evidence I can provide is from a YouTube video by AS Aviation (skip to 13:20), who like me had a night to explore the airport, and affectionately said it "smells and looks like a hardware store."

The entire time I was here, several workers were in this room sitting on benches far apart from each other and looking at their phones not doing anything. Not really sure what was up with that.

This area has a separate PA system from the rest of the terminal, which has fewer announcements at night (guess I'm allowed to leave my bags unattended now), and the floor is carpeted rather than hard. On paper, this sounds like it should be brilliant, because it would solve three big annoyances of the previous location. However, I actually found it unviable and I wasn't able to sleep at all.

It's very loud, not from people but from the interminable drone of some kind of engine or air blowing through vents. I don't know how they managed to make it that loud, but at least the constant white noise was easy to suppress with my shooting-range-grade ear muffs. The place was very brightly lit (you can see the insane number of hanging lights in the video) and I couldn't find anywhere to put my head without light shining through my eyelids. The best I could do was lie half-under a row of seats by a wall, but it wasn't great.

The carpet that I'd placed my hopes in turned out to be horribly scratchy, far worse than the hard floor I'd previously slept on. It scratched my bare arms horribly and I could even feel it through the clothing on my legs. And I couldn't avoid the carpet by lying on top of the row of seats, because I didn't fit under the armrests that span their length. I've seen my fair share of hostile benches in this trip to the US, but I wouldn't've guessed the worst case of anti-homeless architecture would be on the other side of TSA.

Overall review

I thought it was going to be love at first sight, but I can't think of anything I could do to make this viable for sleeping, even if I came prepared. Clothes weren't enough to soothe the carpet.

Long seats in main hallway

Ugh, I still get the shivers thinking about that carpet against my body... I need something really comfortable now, to cleanse my palate.

These blue squishy cushioned seats in the middle of the hallway look pretty nice, right? And there's no armrests, and they're wide enough for me to lie on them... well okay, maybe just on my side.

At night the workers came out and were doing all sorts of loud work on various parts of the room, especially gate area construction and escalator maintenance, and bringing their transportation carts that make a BEEP BEEP sound when they move. It's also the main throughway for passengers, whether they're going to a destination or just exploring their area. Expect loud noises and disturbances of all kinds.

Overall review

The seats certainly are comfortable to lie on, but unfortunately the environment is inhospitable to all but the heaviest sleepers.

Gate 150, benches against the wall

The armrests strike again.

Part of bench sleepability is down to the material of the cushion and the nature of the metal parts between them, and this does matter for comfort, but the most important aspect is, as you know, the armrests, because they'll block you from laying down at all. But you can sleep on these ones if you know the trick.

Look at the furthest bench section in the photo. This design of bench is made of individual sections pushed (not bolted) together. Some of the sections are as short as 3 seats, and they don't have armrests on the outer sides of each section. If you're strong enough to push or drag these sections around (or if you ask another person for help), you can put two short ones in a line next to each other. That means in the middle you'll get two seats in a row with no armrest. This was enough space to fit my upper body from my head to my butt lying face up. Then I raised my knees over the next armrest and put my feet on the next seat along.

This was a surprisingly comfortable sleeping position for me, and it was a relief to let my body sink into the cushioned seats under me. If you assemble the bench formation near that back corner, it's surprisingly dark from its secluded location and lack of overhead lights, so I was able to sleep like this without anything covering my eyes. This location was convenient in other ways too. There wasn't any ongoing construction nearby, I could put my belongings directly under the benches I was sleeping on, there's not much foot traffic (even though it's in the main hallway, the only thing past gate 150 is gates 151-159, and there's a large separation to anything else in the other direction). At the same time, it's decently close to toilets, water refill, the food court, and the salad vending machine, the only food from this airport that I will voluntarily eat.

Overall review

This was the best place I could find. I slept in little segments of 30-60 minutes before walking, but I was able to get back to sleep each time I woke, at least until the cold, hunger, and anxiety took over me.

What to eat in LAX

This is the third time in a month I was substantially delayed in an airport with no hope but to wait, and no choice but to wait.

Each time, I gradually began to reach a point where I felt like I was on the brink of going completely insane. It's really tough not having a safe and secure place to eat healthy familiar food, rest, or properly relax, even though I know I have a confirmed way to safety by simply waiting for the rescheduled flight.

Each time, I've felt sick to my stomach from the smell of fried food around me, hardly able to even want to eat, yet feeling faint from hunger at the same time.

Each time, the only thing that has saved me has been a bowl of vegetables. I'd like to give a shoutout to the following vegetable vendors:

• Lemonade (Terminal 5): After a last meal of eggs on the plane, I waited in that airport for 12 hours, along with 200,000 other passengers, for a flight that never would exist. Lemonade's $5 cup of vegetables literally saved me. No exaggeration. Not sure if they actually sell lemonade.
• Farmer's Fridge (Terminal B, Gate 130): Some kind of salad vending machine. I don't understand how this exists, but I'm glad it does, because I could get a salad any time of the night. This is what I ate after my bad night in the airport. I picked a pesto-flavoured one. The machine had run out of bowls, so I asked Panda Express for a bowl when they opened the next day, and almost cried saying thank you. My body was making it very difficult to eat due to physical condition and stress, and the thorough pesto taste was difficult in this situation. It tasted like pesto instead of like rejuvenating salad. I could hardly get it down. It took me a few hours to eat the whole thing, bite by bite, by which point it had gone warm. But without this, I probably would have gone hungry.

Mental status

I sure do, man. I sure do. This is literally me right now. I'm a poor little flower. I want to rejoin my beautiful flower friends sooooooooo badly. Won't you let me? They're just like me! They're just like me for reeaal!!

Cleaning up

After I was done trying to sleep, I messaged a friend of a friend who I've never met but who I've heard lives in LA. They were kind enough to show me around to their house, where I took the greatest shower of my entire life, erasing 36 hours of airport grime from my body. It was heavenly. There will never ever be a shower this good again in history.

Compensation

My ticket wasn't entitled to compensation, but I spoke with somebody else who was due to travel on that same plane. They booked with American Airlines. Their total compensation for the 24 hour delay was a $12 meal voucher.

New flight, new seat

While waiting to leave the airport, I struck up a conversation with the nearby pair of Jehovah's Witnesses. They were very compassionate hearing about the unfortunate situation I was in, and said a prayer for me for the rest of my travel to continue smoothly. 24 hours later, when it was finally time to board that plane, I received a free first class upgrade, so I guess their prayer hella worked. Maybe they're on to something after all...

The first class seats completely recline into a flat bed. Pillows, blankets, and even pyjamas are provided.

Overall review

I took the pyjamas home with me.

Cadence