Foreign Travel?

[Suburban Plowboy]

I think we had a flight over 16 hours about 10 years ago. The longest flight according to Google is over 18 hours.

The world's longest commercial flight is Singapore Airlines flight SQ23 from New York (JFK) to Singapore (SIN). This flight covers a distance of 9,534 miles (15,344 kilometers) and has a scheduled flight time of approximately 18 hours and 40 minutes, according to Flightradar24. It is operated by an Airbus A350-900ULR, designed for ultra-long-range travel.

The flight from JFK to Hong Kong became the longest because the Ukraine war rerouted it to avoid Russian air space. I believe Flightradar is wrong.

New York-Hong Kong flight accidentally becomes world’s longest

Rerouted service will fly 16,618km to avoid Russian airspace

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

Regarding credit cards, I got a good tip from serious travelers. The Schwab debit card doesn't charge special fees abroad. I keep a special Schwab account for travel. It's also nice because I can limit the money in the account, so if something fishy happens, nobody can get access to bigger accounts.

 

[MossRoad]

Done the NY to Singapore a number of times, makes the trip to California or England seem short.
Singapore air is a great airline.

The trip to South Africa is long too, on the way back you stop for fuel so it's 16 hours.

We were in Switzerland a few years back and I remember even in the 80's it was not cheap.
Going off the beaten path to local restaurants and groceries you save a lot of money. We usually avoid tourist food places if we can, sometimes it's just not possible.

We stay in business rental flats or business hotels as they are cheaper that the big hotels. Usually clean nice and professional staff. Great concierges too. Just not a lot of amenities.

Nothing like sitting in the bar on the roof of a business hotel and looking over the city enters.

One of our kids just returned from 3 weeks in South Africa. 8 hour flight Chicago to Frankfurt. 12 hour layover. 10 hour flight Frankfurt to Johannesburg. 2 hour flight to middle of nowhere.

 

[MossRoad]

Regarding credit cards, I got a good tip from serious travelers. The Schwab debit card doesn't charge special fees abroad. I keep a special Schwab account for travel. It's also nice because I can limit the money in the account, so if something fishy happens, nobody can get access to bigger accounts.

My son-in law got that for my daughter when she went to SA for that reason.

 

[EscapedSuburbia]

When traveling between the US and South Africa I always got a two or three day layover in Europe to break it up. The flight the entire length of Africa from Europe is still brutal but it's better than direct from the US.

 

[MossRoad]

When traveling between the US and South Africa I always got a two or three day layover in Europe to break it up. The flight the entire length of Africa from Europe is still brutal but it's better than direct from the US.

That flight from Frankfurt to Johannesburg is still shorter than driving from South Bend, IN to Stillwater, OK. Did that multiple times a year for 4 years. Glad the kids are back in Indiana now.

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

Africa is really big. By air, it's over 4,000 miles from Capetown to Cairo.

 

[MossRoad]

Yeah, we put Apple Air Tags in the kid's bags to keep track of them. About 8500 miles away. Kinda funny that there's internet out there.

 

[gsganzer]

When traveling between the US and South Africa I always got a two or three day layover in Europe to break it up. The flight the entire length of Africa from Europe is still brutal but it's better than direct from the US.

It gets complicated doing that, if you're bringing a firearm to Africa for safari. My last couple of hunting trips, I used a travel agent that specializes in traveling with firearms and knows how to work out the details.