--- title: "Travel writing — routes, distance and the flying part · Orbit" description: "Long-form writing for people who like the flying part: the world's longest routes, why great circles curve north, how to reconstruct a flight history, and what counts as a country." url: https://orbitflights.app/blog --- Reading # For people who like the flying part. Routes, distance, geography and the small mechanics of keeping a logbook. No listicles about packing cubes. [Latest 25 August 2026 · 4 minHow many miles do you have to fly around the world?The equator is 24,901 miles, but a real round-the-world itinerary can be far shorter — as little as 19,700\. Why circumnavigation distance depends entirely on latitude.Read it →](https://orbitflights.app/blog/how-many-miles-to-fly-around-the-world) [24 August 2026 · 4 minWhat is on the exact opposite side of the world?Dig straight down and you almost certainly hit ocean. The antipode of your city, why most of them are water, and the handful of airports that are near-perfect opposites.geography distance](https://orbitflights.app/blog/opposite-side-of-the-world) [17 August 2026 · 3 minHow to find every flight you've taken in your GmailThe search operators that pull a decade of boarding passes out of an inbox in about twenty minutes — including the ones that are archived, in Promotions, or from an airline that no longer exists.reconstruction logbook](https://orbitflights.app/blog/find-old-flights-in-gmail) [16 August 2026 · 3 minYour I-94 travel history: every US arrival and departure, freeIf you have entered the United States on a foreign passport, the US government has been keeping a dated list of your arrivals and departures. It takes about a minute to look up, and it is the most reliable source there is for rebuilding a flight history.reconstruction logbook](https://orbitflights.app/blog/us-i94-travel-history) [15 August 2026 · 4 minAsk an airline for your entire flight history — with a template you can sendIf you have flown a European airline, you have a legal right to a copy of everything it holds about you, including every flight. It costs nothing, they have a month to answer, and most of the work is one email.reconstruction logbook](https://orbitflights.app/blog/gdpr-request-flight-history-airline) [14 August 2026 · 3 minGoogle used to know everywhere you'd been. Here's what's left.Location History moved onto your phone, the web version is gone, and the default now deletes itself every three months. What that means if you were counting on Google Timeline to rebuild your travel history — and what still works.reconstruction logbook](https://orbitflights.app/blog/google-timeline-flight-history) [13 August 2026 · 3 minYour frequent-flyer statement is a flight log you already ownLoyalty programmes keep a dated, itemised record of every flight they credited you for — often across a dozen airlines at once. Here is how far back each one lets you look, and how to get more when the website runs out.reconstruction logbook](https://orbitflights.app/blog/frequent-flyer-statement-flight-history) [12 August 2026 · 3 minHow to get your flights out of myFlightradar24, FlightMemory and TripItEvery flight-logging service holds a copy of your history, and every one of them lets you take it — some gracefully, some not. How to export from each, and why you should do it today rather than when you need it.reconstruction logbook](https://orbitflights.app/blog/export-your-flights-from-anywhere) [5 August 2026 · 5 minWhat's actually worth counting in a flight logFlights, miles, hours, countries, continents, airports, routes. Seven ways to total up a life of flying, each rewarding something different — and most of them quietly misleading on their own.logbook milestones](https://orbitflights.app/blog/what-is-worth-counting-in-a-flight-log) [4 August 2026 · 4 minInterrail or fly? What crossing Europe actually costs you in timeThe comparison everyone makes is price. The one that actually decides it is door-to-door time, and once you count that properly the crossover point is further out than most people assume.distance travel-culture](https://orbitflights.app/blog/interrail-or-fly) [3 August 2026 · 5 minLayovers worth leaving the airport forA long connection is either six wasted hours or a free half-day in a city you weren't going to visit. Which one it is comes down to four things you can check before you book.routes travel-culture](https://orbitflights.app/blog/layovers-worth-leaving-the-airport) [1 August 2026 · 5 minThirty-four countries are within three hours of LondonReykjavík is closer than Athens. Tunis is closer than Istanbul. Africa starts at two and a half hours. The actual great circle distances from Heathrow, and what they say about how much map is within reach of a long weekend.countries distance](https://orbitflights.app/blog/countries-within-three-hours-of-london) [31 July 2026 · 5 minWhat your flight map says about youPut every flight you have ever taken on a globe and it will not look like a random spray of lines. It will fall into one of about six shapes, and the shape is more revealing than the total.logbook travel-culture](https://orbitflights.app/blog/what-your-flight-map-says-about-you) [28 July 2026 · 5 minThe airport codes that make no senseWhy Chicago is ORD, Orlando is MCO, and every airport in Canada starts with Y. A short tour of the three-letter codes that stopped matching their airports decades ago, and the rules that made them that way.aviation travel-culture](https://orbitflights.app/blog/airport-codes-that-make-no-sense) [24 July 2026 · 5 minHow flight radar actually works, and why your trail vanishes when you landThe live map of the world's air traffic is not radar, is not run by governments, and is largely assembled by volunteers with £20 aerials. A short explanation of ADS-B — and of why none of it remembers that you were on board.aviation geography](https://orbitflights.app/blog/how-flight-radar-works) [21 July 2026 · 4 minFlight tracker or flight log — which one do you actually want?Search for a flight tracker and you get two completely different kinds of app, solving two completely different problems. One tells you where an aircraft is now. The other tells you where you have been. Here is how to tell which one you were looking for.logbook aviation](https://orbitflights.app/blog/flight-tracker-or-flight-log) [14 July 2026 · 3 minThe world's longest flights, and what 18 hours in the air actually feels likeSingapore to New York is nearly 15,350 km without landing. Here's the current ranking of the longest non-stop routes, why they exist at all, and what a day and a half in a seat does to you.long-haul routes](https://orbitflights.app/blog/longest-flights-in-the-world) [28 June 2026 · 3 minWhy your flight to Tokyo goes over the ArcticThe map on the seat-back screen looks wrong. It isn't — the map is lying, and the aircraft is telling the truth. A short explanation of great circle routes and why the shortest path is a curve.routes geography](https://orbitflights.app/blog/great-circle-routes-explained) [9 June 2026 · 5 minHow many times around the Earth is a million miles?A million miles is 40.2 laps of the planet. The full conversion table — miles and kilometres to laps of Earth — plus how to work out your own flying total.distance milestones](https://orbitflights.app/blog/how-many-times-around-the-earth) [21 May 2026 · 4 minHow to reconstruct every flight you've ever takenEven the ones from 2009\. A practical method for rebuilding a complete flight history from email, photos, passport stamps and loyalty statements — in about an evening.reconstruction logbook](https://orbitflights.app/blog/reconstruct-your-flight-history) [30 April 2026 · 3 minCounting countries: what actually countsDoes a layover count? A cruise stop? Vatican City? Travellers have argued about this for decades. Here are the established rule sets, and a suggestion for which one to use.countries milestones](https://orbitflights.app/blog/counting-countries) [2 April 2026 · 3 minThe best window seats in the world, by routeWhich side of the aircraft to book for Greenland's ice sheet, the Alps, Manhattan on approach, and the Himalaya. A practical guide to sitting on the correct side.routes how-to](https://orbitflights.app/blog/best-window-seats-by-route) [Download now](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.qwertybit.orbit) --- Markdown copy of https://orbitflights.app/blog for language models and agents. Site index: https://orbitflights.app/llms.txt