Sometimes I think there is a very fine line between a bucket list item and a completely crazy idea. Which side of that line something falls on is largely the determination of the beholder. What are bucket list items to me may seem like crazy ideas to someone else. With that in mind, here are a couple of my bucket list items.
Many people are familiar with the Jules Verne novel, "Around the World in Eighty Days." There was even a (lengthy) movie made of the book several years back. In case you are not familiar, the title of the book fairly concisely summarizes the plot. The main character, Phineas Fogg, believes that one can travel all the way around the world in eighty days or less. He proposes this belief to his peers at a wealthy men's social club in London, and most of the members consider such an undertaking to be ridiculous. Eventually a wager is placed, and to claim the prize, Phineas Fogg must travel around the world and return to that club within eighty days.
When Jules Verne wrote "Around the World in Eighty Days," in the 19th century, such a journey was not impossible, but was certainly a major undertaking. Today, with jet transportation, such a journey could easily be accomplished in far less than eighty days. But the question is, just how much less? I think, with a lot of advance planning and a bit of luck, one could travel around the world on commercial flights in just eighty hours. Now, to make it just a bit more challenging, such a trip should stop in the same major cities as Phineas Fogg did on his journey. His trip started in London, stopped in Cairo, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, San Francisco, and New York, before ending back in London. Coordinating the flight schedules to make that possible in eighty hours or less would be the challenge, and then it would take a bit of luck not to miss any connections along the way.
Now, I do not live anywhere near London, and Alaska is nowhere on that route, so it is not the greatest starting point. But getting from Anchorage to San Francisco is relatively easy, and the circumnavigation could begin and end there. From San Francisco, there are numerous direct flights to New York everyday. There are numerous flights from New York to London everyday as well, and there are several per day from London to Cairo. So far so good. But getting from Cairo to Mumbai is a bit trickier. There is only one direct flight each day. From there to Hong Kong is not great either, but there are a few more options. Hong Kong is pretty well connected with Tokyo, and Tokyo with San Francisco. Despite having several daily options on each leg, they are not really designed to connect with each other in the way that would be needed for a quick trip around the world! There are direct flights available for every leg of the trip, but the trick would be to find the overall fastest, even if it meant a stop instead of direct flights. Individual legs might be slower to allow for a faster trip time, and that is where planning all this gets really complex in a hurry!
Because of the complexity of planning all of this, I think the best way to do it would be as a promotional trip for a major airline. Airlines have buildings full of people who specialize in scheduling, and to have the ability to use their expertise would make the planning process an order of magnitude easier! That said, with or without the assistance of an airline, I would like to take a shot at such a trip! Sure, it is not the best way to really see the world, but that is not the point of such a trip either.
On a related note, I would like to take a more leisurely trip around the world, but in a small airplane. And that trip could start and end in Alaska more easily. The Federation Aeronautique Internationale has specific guidelines for what constitutes a circumnavigation of the world. For an eastbound trip, requirements include crossing all meridians, a course distance of 27,000km or more, and the trip must be completed within one year. Many people have crossed oceans in small planes, but not many have flown all the way around the world. I intend to do so.
Of course, in a small plane one does not simply set out across the ocean the same way the airlines do. Most small planes will either require modification to extend their range significantly beyond their normal maximum, and even with that, most small planes will require fuel at least a couple of times while crossing the ocean. That is where things get tricky. Crossing the Pacific is easier than the Atlantic, even though it is bigger, because there are islands scattered all over the Pacific. In the Norther Hemisphere, the Aleutian Islands make crossing the Pacific relatively simple. The islands have airports all over them, most dating from World War II. The Atlantic is a different story however. There is not a long chain of islands stretching most of the way across the ocean. The most practical place to cross is from Canada to Scotland, with stops in Greenland and Iceland. Even on that route, there are long legs with nothing but ocean for hours. Because of the lengthy water crossings, there are more logistics that go into planning and preparing for a trip like that. More survival gear is required, and it has to be rated for some cold temperatures no matter what time of year the trip happens. Of course, all that gear adds weight to the plane, weight which cuts into the useful load of the plane. That useful load is a limited amount of weight the plane can carry, which includes people, gear, and fuel. It is important to plan so that people, gear, and fuel can be balanced in such a way as to make the trip possible! Crossing an ocean requires a lot of fuel, which also weighs a lot!
Those are my two bucket list items, which to most seem crazy. I have told a few people about them, and usually get similar responses from everyone. To the idea of flying around the world in eighty hours, most people lament the fact that it is not enough time to see the world. Most people do not understand that the point is not to see the world, but rather circumnavigate it. To the idea of flying a small plane around the world, most people have almost nothing to say! The usual response is usually something like, "oh, that's cool." I can always tell that people just have no idea how to respond to something like that, because it is so unattainable to most people that it has never even crossed their mind as something that is within the realm of possibility. I might as well be telling people I want to walk on the moon!
