Gate-area Relay shops save you when you forget stuff
Relay at BWI sits post-security in the main Terminal concourses, acting as the grab-it-now stop for things you meant to pack. You get magazines, paperbacks, snacks, drinks, chargers, and basic travel toiletries in one small footprint, priced at typical airport markup territory rather than true gouge. It runs daily with early-morning to late-evening hours that track the first and last bank of departures on the boards.
Figure you’ll pay a couple dollars more than downtown Baltimore for drinks and packaged snacks, with single-serve chips and candy running in the $3–$7 range and bottled drinks around $4–$6. The tradeoff is speed and proximity to gates across the Terminal, so you can snag a phone cable or battery pack and still make a boarding group that’s already lining up at the podium.
Relay carries national newspapers plus the usual bestseller rack, which helps on those 2–3 hour Southwest or American hops when in-flight entertainment is flaky. You’ll also find neck pillows, eye masks, and basic USB-C and Lightning cables, which can salvage a six-hour connection or a late-night arrival when other shops near your gate have already closed.
One practical move: buy water and any last-minute snacks here in the Terminal before you walk down to a quiet end gate, since options thin out the farther you get from the central cluster of Relay and similar newsstands.