By Susan McKee

Long distance travel requires steel wings and an engine; throw in a few boats and you’ve pretty much exhausted the transportation options. For trips involving distance, taking to the air is a necessity.

One advantage to travel writing is obvious –traveling. Of course, that’s one of the disadvantages as well. When
you’re traveling, you’re not where you’re going, and you’ve left where you’ve been. Transit time is a state of suspended animation.

Take getting to Malaysia; it’s on
the other side of the earth from where I live. East or west it’s still 23 hours
in the air. I flew from Newark to Kuala Lumpur, so the plane stopped in “Dubai to
refuel.

An hour or so in that international airport terminal is just enough time to ogle the jewelry and designer shops and send a postcard. Then it’s back on board to endure the tedium – dropping off to sleep, waking and reading for a bit, then dozing off again.

There’s not much to do other than watch videos when you’re stuck in steerage. Most overseas flights these days have individual television screens, even in coach. But, the choices are often inane, and how many times can you watch the same episodes of popular television sitcoms? I find myself tuning into the map charting the plane’s progress.

Sometimes that’s a mistake.

A recent flight home from Paris to Chicago required a
stopover in Cincinnati. I watched the plane make a 180° turn as it traversed Ohio. We’d been sent away from the airport and were in a holding pattern because earlier airplanes were stacked ahead trying to land in rainy weather (FYI: that’s really bad news when you’re already behind schedule).

Suddenly, there was a sharp, swift sound between a pop and a bang. It was accompanied by a blinding white light. We’d been hit by lightening! The pilot came on the public announcement system to explain, “everything was OK.” I watched the map as we did another about face. Finally we were in the front of the line to land. (Oh, and by the way, I still missed my connecting flight.)

Giant airplanes with hundreds of passengers aren’t the only method of getting around in the air. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, I took a pontoon plane to get from St. Thomas to St. Croix. In Britain, I boarded a 25-seater Sikorski helicopter to get from Penzance to the Isles of Scilly. Outside Melbourne, Australia, I went up in a hot air balloon.

Pontoon planes are hybrids; they land and take off from water. Usually the cockpit is tiny – four cramped seats, and when the engine’s going, it’s very noisy. Both passengers and pilot wear headsets to communicate aloft.

Sightseeing is especially good from pontoon planes, though, because they fly so slowly at such low altitudes. I had a glimpse of the disappearing wetlands along the Gulf Shore of Louisiana. I net a bird’s eye view of the brilliant fall foliage around Maine’s Moosehead Lake in a similar aircraft.

Helicopters come in all sorts and sizes. The Sikorski in England was huge, built originally for military use and reconditioned to fly regularly scheduled service to the islands off Land’s End. The sightseeing helicopter I boarded in Daytona Beach, Fla., seated
just four; but the views of the Atlantic coast and the Daytona Motor Speedway
were terrific.

Hot air balloons are another kind of flight altogether. It’s hard to imagine how they were ever considered as an efficient means of transportation, but they’re great for a morning or evening excursion. Up in the heavens it’s very quiet – except for the occasional roar of the flames let loose to heat the air to keep everything aloft. Of course,
direction is somewhat dependent on the wind, but with a good chase crew on the
ground, all turns out well.

Over the years, I have learned some coping strategies for long airplane flights. I never carry on board more than a backpack that stuffs under the seat in front of me (I don’t want to wrestle with stowing a heavy wheeled case in an overhead bin).

In that backpack, I carry my essentials – the things I positively cannot do without when I land, including an extra pair of contact lenses, my laptop, a paperback book and my notebook, my itinerary, medicine, camera and batteries.

Because I try to sleep as much as I can on the plane, I don’t need many toys in my bag. A bottle of water is essential even though I now have to buy it past security (unless the kindly TSAagent lets me take an empty bottle through security. Snacks are essential and trail mix works best for me. And I don’t forget to walk around occasionally and do
leg exercises to minimize the chances of circulation problems while aloft.

Fortunately, I forget the agonies of travel once I get off the plane. No matter how tedious the flight, how annoying my seatmates, how unappetizing (or expensive) the food or how dehydrating the cabin, I still look forward to my next trip.

After all, it’s only been a century since humans took wing.

Susan McKee can be reached at: Susan@globalfoodie.com