The Longest Journey of My Life
For most of my life, Australia and New Zealand felt almost theoretical — names at the bottom of the map, separated from my daily reality by oceans and time zones. I had traveled far before, but never that far. The idea of seventeen hours in the air — followed by another eighteen on the return — felt less like travel and more like a test of endurance.
Distance has a psychological weight. It suggests effort. Risk. Fatigue.
And yet, this year, I decided to go.
I flew from San Francisco to Singapore — roughly seventeen hours suspended above the Pacific. I spent a couple of days exploring Singapore, then continued on to Melbourne for the Australian Open. From there I traveled through Australia and New Zealand, moving across landscapes that seemed improbably wide, watching light linger late into the evening as if the day itself resisted ending.
On the way home, I flew from Auckland to Singapore, paused briefly at Changi Airport, and then boarded Singapore Airlines Flight 24 to JFK — more than eighteen hours nonstop, one of the longest commercial flights in the world.
By the time I landed in New York, I had crossed half the planet.
Something in me had shifted.
The world no longer felt impossibly large. It felt connected. Reachable.
More surprising still: I realized I was comfortable with ultra-long haul travel. What once seemed daunting had become manageable — even calm.
