Boots at Stansted: travel essentials, the meal deal, and the liquids route

Boots at Stansted is airside, in the departure lounge, on the same concourse as the other shops once you are through security. The airport also lists a Boots point in the arrivals hall, but the main store, the one with the full range and the meal deal, is the departures one. Either way it is past the security search, so you reach it after check-in, not while you are waiting landside.

That location matters for planning: if you realise at the kerb that you forgot your toothpaste or your travel-sickness tablets, you cannot grab them landside, because there is no Boots before security (landside is essentially a WHSmith and coffee, covered on the shops page). Get through security first, then Boots is right there.

Boots earns its place as the holiday-essentials shop. The things people actually buy here are the ones that are a nuisance to pack or easy to forget: sun cream and after-sun, insect repellent, travel-size toiletries, make-up, and over-the-counter medication. Everything on the shelves in the toiletries aisle is travel-size, under 100ml, so it clears security in your hand luggage, which is the whole point of buying it airside rather than at home.

It is also a sensible stop for the small stuff a trip needs and a supermarket run misses: plasters, painkillers, contact-lens solution in travel sizes, phone-charging bits and the like. Prices are airport prices, a little above the high street, so it is a convenience buy rather than a bargain, but for a forgotten essential at 05:00 it is the obvious answer.

Boots is pharmacy-led, so beyond the toiletries it stocks over-the-counter medicines and travel-health products: painkillers, travel-sickness tablets, rehydration sachets, antihistamines and basic first aid. For most travellers that covers the gap, and buying medication airside means it is already past security, so there is no 100ml question on a liquid medicine bought here.

What the airport store is not is a substitute for your own pharmacy. If you need a specific prescription, sort it before you travel rather than relying on the airport, because the store sits airside and you can only reach it once you are through security and short of time. If you are carrying prescription medication over 100ml from home, that is allowed through security with supporting documentation; the detail is on the liquids page.

This is the genuinely useful trick. The travel-size limit on the shelves is the 100ml security rule at work, but Boots runs Airport Click & Collect, which sidesteps it. You order online on the Boots website at least three days before you travel, choose Stansted as the collection airport, and pick the order up in store after security. Because you collect it on the airside side of the search, a full-size bottle of sun cream, a 200ml moisturiser or any other large liquid goes straight into your hand luggage without breaking the 100ml rule.

It is the legitimate way to take full-size liquids in the cabin: the security limit applies to what you carry through the search, not to what you buy beyond it. For a family heading somewhere hot who would otherwise pay for sun cream at resort prices, ordering it for collection at the airport can be a real saving as well as a packing fix. Order early, because the three-day lead time is firm.

The Boots meal deal, a main, a snack and a drink for a set price, is one of the cheaper ways to eat airside at Stansted. Set against a sit-down meal or a cafe sandwich on the concourse, it is usually the value option, and it travels well to the gate if your flight is boarding or your gate is the long walk to Satellite 3.

It is the same meal deal you would find on the high street, at airport prices, so do not expect it to be cheaper than your local Boots, but inside the terminal it competes well. For a sit-down alternative, the cheapest is the Wetherspoons breakfast or lunch; the wider food line-up is on the restaurants page.