Story from Zana711

The 18,000-Mile "Short Stopover" 15 April 2010: The plan was simple. Fly home to London from Sydney, where I’ve just spent two weeks with family, with a breezy two-hour leg-stretch in Singapore. Before departure, I’d seen the news about some unpronounceable volcano in Iceland—Eyjafjallajökull—coughing up a bit of ash. Plot twist! This was definitely not on the itinerary.

As we touched down in Singapore, the captain’s voice didn’t deliver the usual "local time" update. Instead, he essentially delivered a eulogy for European aviation. All airspace was closed. The "Kangaroo Route" had run out of hop. Then came the two most expensive words in the English language: Force Majeure. Because the eruption was an “Act of God”, I was essentially on my own. No hotel. No vouchers. No help from my travel insurer. I was stranded in the humid Singapore heat, essentially told to wait for the sky to stop falling.

I spent three days in Singapore fuelled by equal parts desperation, spicy Chilli Crab, and chicken satays, staring at a world map, waiting for airspace to open to no avail. So instead of hunkering down for a possibly weeks-long wait, I decided that if I couldn’t fly West, I could fly east until I hit London from the other side. The "Scenic" Route home looked like this: - Singapore to Tokyo (Narita): Flying via ANA into the Rising Sun - Tokyo to San Francisco: Chasing the clock across the Pacific - San Francisco to New York (JFK): A transcontinental dash via American Airlines - New York to Dublin: the closest I could get to the UK without hitting the "No-Fly Zone" - The Final Stretch: A bus to Dublin port, a very bouncy ferry across the Irish Sea to Holyhead and a final train into London Euston.

By the time I finally collapsed onto my sofa in London, I hadn't just flown home; I had accidentally completed an accidental circumnavigation of the globe. I traveled roughly 18,200 miles—nearly 8,000 miles further than my original ticket intended. I learned two things on that trip: - Never underestimate a traveler who just wants to sleep in her own bed. - If I ever hear a newsreader struggling to pronounce a volcano’s name, I'm staying in Sydney.