A Travel Writer’s Guide to Doing Duty-Free Right

I find airports comforting; they feel like a loading screen for a new journey, giving time to catch up on reading, do some last-minute research on a destination, and take comfort in the fact that there’s nowhere else to be until arrival time.

The retail therapy doesn’t hurt either. As someone who’s travelled a lot for work and weddings, I’ve come to realise that duty-free, done right, offers opportunities I won’t get outside of the airport. As such, I’ve set myself a few rules to help maximise my airport time, especially at the Duty Free.

Leave the clothes on the rack

I become open-hearted and excitable on holidays, traits that make a good tourist but a bad shopper. I like this person, but I don’t trust his fashion decisions. Suddenly I think I’m someone who wears linen shirts and big hats – right up until I get home and never put them on again. More often than not I’m left wondering, “What was I thinking?” But I have two exceptions to this rule: sunglasses and fragrances. Both have a way of defining a trip when you look back on it and can activate that shift in perspective we often seek from travel.

Find your trip scent

Smell is the sense most tied to memory, and a new fragrance bought before a trip becomes the scent of that trip. A couple of years down the line, one spritz can conjure a holiday more vividly than a camera roll. Lotte Duty Free has all the headline labels – Prada, Tom Ford, Carolina Herrera, Maison Margiela and many more – in travel-friendly sizes. It also stocks travel exclusive scents and products that are available here before anywhere else. Give yourself enough time at the airport to properly investigate the range; just don’t spray too many samples before you board or you’ll be another passenger’s bad in-flight memory.

Sort the gifts while you’re at it

Being a FIFO uncle has taught me to stay perpetually ready with gifts, and duty-free is a genuine lifesaver when your other option is panic-buying a servo present. Whether it’s a Lego set for a five-year-old nephew, a L’Occitane Shea hand cream for someone hosting you on your travels, or a beauty essentials travel set for the frequent-flyers in your life, you can get ahead of the year’s gift giving before you’ve even boarded. Fragrance travels well as a gift too and, if you’re shopping for someone serious, watches can offer amazing value compared to domestic retail. Duty-free discounts on timepieces can be significant enough to make the purchase feel almost responsible.

The case for the one-litre

I know it looks a little comedic, but hear me out: welcome the one-litre bottle of liquor into your life. One standard bottle of vodka can barely scrape a second round of Martinis and always leaves leftover vermouth. The one-litre solves that problem – and few people realise that most liquor bottles sold duty-free come in at one litre. It’s 25 per cent more than your standard bottle, which matters when one is never quite enough. And at 30 to 40 per cent off domestic retail prices, the case makes itself.

It’s also ideal for the celebrations that inevitably pop up, and busting out the big-boy bottle is a great way to get the room buzzing. If you’re not ready to carry it overseas – or if you’re transiting through a location where liquids aren’t allowed through security – Lotte’s “shop on departure, collect on your return” option lets you lock in the duty-free price now and pick it up on the way home (as long as you’re returning to the same airport). Your bar cart gets stocked, your luggage stays light.

Travelling through Brisbane this year? Make Duty Free part of the journey, before or after your trip.

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Lotte Duty Free. Duty-free allowances are subject to the regulations of your final destination when departing Australia, and to Australian Customs limits when entering Australia. Drink responsibly.