Why I Don’t Travel By Jet

North Atlantic — At Sea Autumn, 2022

Why I Don’t Travel by Jet

I don’t avoid jets out of nostalgia or contrarianism. I avoid them because they erase story.

A jet collapses geography. It deletes consequence. You leave one place and arrive somewhere else without transition, without friction, without a story.

Ships don’t do that. Nor do trains or cars or camels, mules or your own shoe leather.

At sea, you feel distance. You sense weather building before you see it. When slow traveling you mark days by light and routine, not by time zones. By heat, wind, smells, sound and color, not because they aren’t always there, but because you have the time to notice. You arrive altered—not rushed, just… different, smarter yet humbled. And you are ready for more to come.

Most of what I write—fiction or nonfiction—depends on transitions that emerge from curiosity. Borders. Liminal spaces. The unique places that create unusual thoughts. The moments between certainty and arrival.

Jets mostly skip those moments. But skipping jets creates and preserves them.

And great stories live in between. That’s the fun part. And it’s the place where I get to wonder how we became the strange and remarkable creatures we are.