Five years without flying
Today it’s five years since I last went on a plane. My thoughts on this haven’t changed since a year ago when I wrote about this lifestyle change. (Read that post before this one.) I continue to have no plans to fly anywhere, while still enjoying slower travel on the ground.
A year packed with travel
My travels in 2024 were fulfilling. As usual, I took my electric car for two months in the Austrian Alps in the winter. However the more interesting journeys were my three train trips in Europe, which each lasted roughly three weeks:
- In the spring, I took the wonderful leisurely route from London to Athens (2400 km) by train and ferry, meeting lots of friends for a fabulous wedding. I previously shared some photos and notes.
- Then during the summer, I went on a somewhat last-minute train from London to Scotland (570 km) for a three-day wedding, immediately followed by London to Berlin (930 km) for a few weeks of cat sitting and (guess what?) another wedding.
- Finally, in the autumn, I traveled from London to Prague (1000 km) for the Nutrient retreat, via the Alps where I joined a friend for a day of extremely early season snowboarding.
Upcoming plans
I don’t think I’ll need to travel for any weddings in 2025. In fact, I don’t have any firm plans after I’ll return to England from the Austrian Alps, where I am now and will stay until end of March.
A couple of upcoming situations are inviting me to fly, but I’m not having difficulty finding appealing alternatives.
Winter sun
Some wakeboarding friends are going to Hip-Notics cable wake park in Turkey for a week in February. This sounds like a really fun time. It‘s not that much further than Greece, so probably not unreasonable to travel there overland. However I can go skiing and snowboarding where I am, so I don’t feel it’s too much of a disappointment to miss Turkey. 🙂
California calling
WWDC 2024 was the first time I felt some regret at not being in California in June since the event went online-first in 2020. It sounded like there were loads of people out there and plenty of events happening.
It would be a pretty cool adventure to travel from London to Cupertino (8700 km) and back without flying. In Kim Stanley Robinson’s near-future novel The Ministry for the Future the protagonist Mary Murphy goes on business trip from Zurich to San Fransisco by sea and train, and she finds the time both relaxing and productive, which I can believe.
All that said, I also think WWDC should be a worldwide event. We should be able to have a fantastic WWDC in London. (Get in touch if you’re interested in working with us NSLondon organisers to put on events during WWDC week like community talks and sessions to learn together.)
If you didn’t already, read my post from last year about my journey from flying around the world as a digital nomad to not flying at all.