ONE MILLION MILES
Monday, March 21, 2011
Dawn in the air |
Today, I reached the milestone of one million miles in the air (1.6 million kilometres). My life does not completely rsemble Clooney's movie character, however. I actually love being home and I like people but I do like my elite statuses:
- United Airlines Gold
- Virgin Blue Gold
- Qantas Platinum
I measure my air life at a great flight tracking tool called FlightMemory. My friend Tony, who passed away two years ago entered almost 500 flights into the Flight Memory system for me as a Birthday present. RIP Tony, I miss you. So here is the summary:
You will note, that one million miles represents 40 times around the earth. It is the same distance to the moon and back - twice.
On Board Singapore Airlines A380- my first ever A380 |
Some of the airlines I have flown are now:
- now broke and gone eg Ansett, Independence
- morphed eg BOAC into British Airways
- taken over eg Northwest, Impulse
- much better eg Virgin Blue
- much worse eg United
I took this while on a 3 mile run from my LAX airport hotel |
- Most northern airport: GRY, Grimsey, Iceland
- Most southern airport: IVC, Invercargill, New Zealand
- Most eastern airport: NAN, Nadi, Fiji
- Most western airport: APW, Apia, Samoa
- Most visited airport: MEL, Melbourne, Australia
- Favourite airport: SIN, Singapore, Singapore
- Most despised airport: LAX, Los Angeles, USA
All the boeings: 707, 717, 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, 777
Airbus: 300, 310, 319, 320, 330, 340, 380
DC 8, 9, 10
Canadairs, Embraers, Fokkers, Saabs. I even been on a Zepplin.
NB Two of those planes, the 737 and 767 represent almost half of all the planes I have flown on!
The only planes not flown are Russian planes eg Tupolovs etc
I love the 777 and A380. I have loved my flights with six exceptions eg having flown through a thunderstorm in a Beechcraft- never again.
I am so fortunate to have seen the sights that I have seen:
Europe : Bruges, Mont St Michel, Taize, Venice, Tour Eiffel, Paris, WW1 Belgian war-fields, Krakow Market Square, Koln Dom, Bilbao, Reykjavik, Auschwitz
USA: Mt Rushmore, Devil's Tower, Cape Canaveral, climbing statue of Liberty, Grand Canyon,Yosemite, New York, Chicago, Boston, Portland ME, Portland, OR
Middle East: Bethlehem, Nazereth and Jerusalem,
Australia: Great Barrier Reef, Ningaloo, Uluru, kangaroo Island, Coober Pedy, Brokjen Hill, Lake Pedder, The Pinnacles, Uluru, kakadu, Wave Rock,
Canada: CN Tower, Toronto Islands,
New Zealand: Milford Track, Queen Charlotte Sound
Tropical Islands: , Fiji, Hawaii, New Caledonia and Samoa.
Waterfalls: Niagara Falls, Victoria Falls, Russell Falls, Gullfoss
Musuems; Anne Frank House, British Museum, Frick Collection, Guggenheim, Holocaust Museum DC, In Flanders Fields Museum, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musee d Orsay, NGA Canberra, Powerhouse Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, SFMOMA, Smithsonian, Vatican, Yad Vashem
The best part of the travel. Making and staying friends with people who live from the USA to Argentina, from New Zealand to New York, to South Africa Thanks for sharing the journey with me!
Finally, for the last ten years, I have been offsetting my travel buying trees to absorb carbon pollution. Not the best solution but a start. I now offset 110% of my carbon output.
So whats my goal? Another million miles? Not sure yet!
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