Airports are among the few places in modern society where being treated like a suspected terrorist, paying $19 for a sandwich and having your personal space violated by strangers are considered perfectly normal parts of the customer experience. I’m flying to a sales conference in the Midwest, of course you can do an x-ray of my naked body to ensure I’m not here to reenact 9/11.
And nowhere is this more apparent than at San Francisco International Airport.
SFO is a sprawling monument to the indignities of modern air travel. Between the TSA lines, crowded terminals and photos of Daniel Lurie everywhere, it’s not my vibe.
But about 50 miles south, tucked away in the suburban purgatory known as Silicon Valley, there's an airport that offers something increasingly rare in American life: peace and fucking quiet.
I'm talking about San Jose Mineta International Airport.
And it's awesome.
Not because of its architecture, restaurants or amenities. It's awesome because, compared to its larger neighbor to the north, there's often nobody fucking there.
Okay, obviously there are people there. It's an international airport, not an abandoned shopping mall. But compared to the human cattle drives that characterize larger airports, San Jose can feel like you've wandered into a private terminal.
The TSA experience alone is enough to make you reconsider everything you thought you knew about commercial aviation.
At major airports, getting through security can feel like waiting in line to visit a relative in prison. You remove your shoes, empty your pockets, surrender your dignity and hope the person ahead of you doesn't have a complicated relationship with the concept of liquids.
At San Jose, depending on when you're flying, you can sometimes breeze through security in minutes.
My TSA line had 6 people in it. SIX.
It's almost unsettling.
You arrive two hours early because decades of airline propaganda have conditioned you to do so, only to find yourself sitting at your gate with enough spare time to contemplate every mistake you've made since high school.
The lack of crowds is equally refreshing.
You can actually walk at a normal pace.
You can find somewhere to sit.
You can hear yourself think.
These shouldn't qualify as luxuries, but we've collectively accepted such miserable standards of air travel that basic human comfort now feels like an exclusive benefit reserved for people with American Express Platinum cards. San Jose’s airport feels like an alternate universe where the enshitification of everything hasn’t yet arrived.
The airport is also relatively compact. You don't have to spend 25 minutes navigating an architectural labyrinth designed by someone who believes passengers should complete a half marathon before boarding.
Of course, San Jose isn't perfect. SFO offers more international destinations and nonstop flights, and San Jose's security lines aren't always short.
But for ordinary domestic travel, especially if you live in the South Bay, it's difficult to beat.
There's a broader lesson here.
Americans have developed a strange habit of equating bigger with better. Bigger airports, bigger highways, bigger shopping centers, bigger everything.
Then we spend half our lives standing in lines created by the very scale we supposedly admire.
San Jose Airport reminds us that sometimes the best infrastructure isn't the most impressive. It's the infrastructure that allows you to accomplish what you came to do without turning the experience into an unnecessary ordeal.
You arrive. You get through security. You board your airplane.
That's it.
Sometimes the greatest luxury in the world is being left the fuck alone.
Oakland’s airport is also cool. Fuck SFO.
