Arriving by plane
If you have to come from far, you'll probably want to fly to Belgium in order not to lose a few days just for travelling. The main airport in Belgium is Brussels Airport. From the airport it is quite easy to get to the hostel, check out this video that explains your journey to Ghent in detail, and how to reach tramstop 'Korenmarkt', where Hostel Uppelink is located.
But there are ofcourse more airports nearby! We've made a map which will inform you about your options. Try to discover your personal options and also use https://www.skyscanner.net/, https://www.goeuro.co.uk/ and other tools as a guide.
- The easiest and best Belgian airports are the green ones: Brussels Airport Zaventem is the main airport of Belgium with the best transport connections to other Belgian cities, while Brussels South Charleroi Airport is the main low-cost airport of Belgium, hosting most Ryanair and WizzAir-flights. Try to search flights to these two airports first, as they're by far the easiest and cheapest.
- The yellow airports are small Belgian airports, serving very few flights mainly for touristic (seasonal) or business reasons. However, if you come from a touristic Mediterranean destination, you might find a cheaper flight here. The best example is Maribor: Maribor Airport serves only one flight per day, but it goes to Antwerp Airport (because of business reasons, I guess). It's a really tiny plane and it stops in Munich (you don't even have to leave the plane though), but €59 can be the cheapest option you'll get from Maribor, while it includes checked-in luggage, drinks and a snack.
- Then there are the blue airports. They're not even in Belgium and therefore it can be a hassle to reach Ghent. We've just included them in case the flights to Belgium get extremely expensive for some kind of reason, or if you don't have the possibility to fly to Belgium from anywhere close to where you live (which would surprise us, Brussels is the capital of Europe after all). Sometimes it's cheaper and easier though. When we went to the Summer Seminar 2017 in Helsinki, for example, we bought KLM Train+Flight tickets from Brussels-Midi Train Station to Helsinki Airport. It's a special formula they have, which includes not only the flights from Schiphol Airport but also the high-speed train tickets..
Green: biggest international airports in Belgium
BRU - Brussels Airport Zaventem
CRL - Brussels South Charleroi Airport
Yellow: smaller airports in Belgium
ANR - Antwerp Airport
OST - Ostend-Bruges Airport
LGG - Liège Airport
Blue: some big international airports just outside Belgium, some of them with relatively easy connections to Ghent
AMS - Amsterdam Schiphol Airport
EIN - Eindhoven Airport
RTM - Rotterdam The Hague Airport
LUX - Luxembourg Airport
LIL - Lille Airport
CDG - Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport
DUS - Dusseldorf Airport
CGN - Cologne-Bonn Airport
FRA - Frankfurt Airport
Click on the icons on the map to get detailed information about airlines, destinations and transport options to Ghent.
BRU - Brussels Airport Zaventem
CRL - Brussels South Charleroi Airport
Yellow: smaller airports in Belgium
ANR - Antwerp Airport
OST - Ostend-Bruges Airport
LGG - Liège Airport
Blue: some big international airports just outside Belgium, some of them with relatively easy connections to Ghent
AMS - Amsterdam Schiphol Airport
EIN - Eindhoven Airport
RTM - Rotterdam The Hague Airport
LUX - Luxembourg Airport
LIL - Lille Airport
CDG - Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport
DUS - Dusseldorf Airport
CGN - Cologne-Bonn Airport
FRA - Frankfurt Airport
Click on the icons on the map to get detailed information about airlines, destinations and transport options to Ghent.