I’ve joined elite company by circumnavigating the globe on a single trip. Of course, Magellan was the first to do so, but not really. He attacked the natives on the shores of Lapu-Lapu on Cebu in the Philippines, now named after the chief Magellan wanted to convert to Christianity, losing his life for his efforts. Although, he gets credit for the circumnavigation, Juan Sebastián Elcano is the man that actually completed the job. Elcano abandoned one of the boats because so many of his crew died, he didn’t have enough people to sail all three boats. Fortunately, on my journey we kept casualties to an absolute minimum.

Yuri Gagarin is the first man to circumnavigate the globe in a space ship. His capsule had about the same amount of elbow room as any one of my flights. We both circumnavigated the globe in a tight fitting cushioned chair. I think his inflight movie might have been a little better than mine and he only had to endure his discomfort for 108 minutes rather than 40 hours spread out over two weeks but at least I didn’t have to eject from the plane after an 8g reentry to secure a safe landing.

Amelia Earhart attempted one of the most famous circumnavigations of the globe traveling east. She fell short crashing somewhere in the South Pacific. I suspect flying a small plane with limited nav and comm equipment is far more of an adventure than basically moving your compressed living room around in the sky, akin to driving a scooter in Dehli traffic rather than riding in an air-conditioned tour bus. When the person in front of me reclined their seat, I was so close to the flatscreen that my glasses needed glasses to see it.

I took the westward route. Our jet skipped over the night losing a day forward traveling from Los Angeles to Guangzhou in fourteen hours. The flight landed behind schedule so my lasting memory of China is rushing to catch a connecting flight in the dashed lighting and reflections of the hallway leading from one terminal to another. On the five hour flight from Guangzhou to New Delhi, I can’t see India, it is covered in a skin of haze and ozone as far as the eye can see, except for the Himalayas, which have the good sense to rise above to get a breath of fresh air. Even from hundred miles away, the snow covered mountains tower over the horizon.

The route retrograded to Katmandu for an up close and personal experience with the Himalayas before making forward progress again to Mumbai bidding the mountains a final farewell.  On the return day of the voyage, I have a glass of wine in Mumbai at 2am, a glass of wine dumped in my lap inflight, a cup of coffee in London at 9am, aerial pictures of Greenland, and a safe arrival in San Diego at 5pm traveling over twelve time zones in twenty seven hours. How many people can say they’ve had a day like that? How many can say they’ve circumnavigated the globe in two weeks time?

• LAX => CAN 11638 km
• CAN => DEL 3656 km
• DEL => KTM 817 km
• KTM => BOM 1592 km
• BOM => LHR 7221 km
• LHR => SAN 8827 km
  Total:33750 km (20971 mi)