The 30-day flight
dustincurtis.com
dustincurtis.com
But I am looking forward to the incredible web page which I am sure Dustin will create based on the miserable experience.
I mean: it's an adventure. There may be some miserable bits, but if you're spending $600 and traveling around the US and not having some kinds of fun, not learning something new, then you're probably going out of your way to fail.
Even if the whole experience IS miserable, you're going to learn a lot about your ability to persevere.
I'm a HUGE fan of travel and getting out an experiencing the world. But this isn't that.
The only loss is the bragging rights to having visited every Jet Blue city in a month. His choice.
It may well be a miserable way to spend a month, but I think it's cool that someone is trying. Let me put it this way: I'd rather be the one traveling the planet than the internet cynic talking about how miserable he will be.
It was one of the worst books I've ever read because most of their experiences revolved around airport hopping from country to country.
Give me a month in any given country and I'll be satisfied. It takes that long just to settle in and learn enough culture not to look ignorant.
I will say that 30 days on a plane does increase your chances of joining the mile high club though...(I digress)
Top travel choices for next destination - Argentina, Thailand, Bolivia.
On the downside you'd also spend a bunch more money, and you wouldn't get the warm fuzzy feeling that only comes from taking maximum advantage of a cheap offer.
And just because something can be done doesn't mean it should and sure as hell doesn't mean that it's not a waste of time.
Next up: random internet guy tries to spend ten years visiting every trash dump in the world and spending a night on a pile of garbage. How exciting!
But what he's doing here is just going from airport to airport, with pretty much no time to do anything except worry about catching the next flight. He's not going to get a chance to even leave the airport, save maybe once or twice. It's going to be horrible, and anyone who thinks otherwise needs a serious reality check.
Pick anybody else taking those same 30 days off work, and chances are they're going to be enjoying themselves more than these kids.
As it happens, I'll probably overlap with them for the 30 days they're in the air. During which time I'll hike the Inca Trail, take a banana boat down the Amazon, and otherwise hitchike, surf and dirtbag my way from Peru northwards toward Columbia.
All for about the same amount of money.
So yeah, if you have a month to blow and a grand to do it with, you could certainly have a lot better time than these guys. That said, I wish them luck.
On the bright side, maybe that much flying will give them some sort of insight into a travel-related startup...
When you're at the computer, you can step outside for some fresh air and to stretch your legs.
There's a long list of startup-compatible lifestyle choices that become much more difficult when doing a stunt like this.
I think it's painfully obvious that you aren't challenging the hackish nature of the project, but the actual project itself. So, people who don't seem to get that aren't getting the "joke".
In the same sense that the presumably unintentional misunderstanding of irony in the song Ironic can be spun to actually be a (supposed) clever joke about irony.
I'm not talking about the "experiment", I'm talking about the guy who got all uppity about you not being able to enjoy life. I was saying he should be taking your comment (somewhat) in jest.
Agreed though that it's rated pretty high, but at the same time that is most people's first reaction, including mine.
I get that it's not as cheap as jetblue's promotion, but seriously, if you really want to spend 30 days in airports, you may as well get your passport stamped!
http://staralliance.innosked.com/ for example.
If you wanna see all the places I went to you can view them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/65204739@N00/sets/
EDIT: Now that I'm poking around a little, I don't see any reference to a startup on any of your sites or anything, but I thought you had one (perhaps Frogmetrics?). Was I mistaken?
Don't listen to the haters - this could be a great experience.
http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_New-record-for-th...
But I guess that would ruin the fun.
Sounds like a great experiment. I'm especially interested to see if these bizarre flights trigger any inquiry by authorities.
83 segments in 30 days just to see how many you can do? Sounds foolish and selfish (How many others with $599 passes won't be able to get the seats they need because of you?)
Imagine how much fun you could have if you did this sensibly.
Sure, you can go to an all-you-can-eat buffet and eat until you vomit, but why would you?
Furthermore, you could apply this to virtually anything. Ever been to an all-you-can-eat buffet? Every shrimp you eat is a shrimp that some poor retiree won't get to eat.
You monster.
Doesn't matter. The seat was still taken by someone who really didn't need it.
Every shrimp you eat is a shrimp that some poor retiree won't get to eat
Illogical analogy. The number of seats is limited. The number of shrimp (for all intents and purposes) is unlimited. Also, the shrimp are not distinctive; that is, any one shrimp is pretty much as the same as any other. The seats are distinctive per flight (a seat on Flight 123 is not the same thing as a seat on Flight 567).
Lots of people made good faith purchases of these $599 passes for legitimate travel, and some of them will be disappointed because others want to game the system simply to see how far they could go with it. Not cool.
You monster.
I hope that's a joke (even though I don't get it).
Actually, the opposite is more precisely true. The marginal cost putting one more person on a plane is minimal, compared to the fixed cost of the flight. The marginal cost of one more shrimp correlates more closely with the total cost of shrimp.
Of course not. Let me ask a different question.
At what point do you decouple the human element from the business element?
Obviously, there is no right answer. It's everyone's judgement call. I would imagine someone who started a business (tipjoy) based upon the goodwill of others wouldn't do much decoupling at all.
OP is clearly (and admittedly) abusing the system for the sake of abusing it with no regard to how his actions affect others. This isn't clever hacking, it's just gauche.
I'd feel differently if he used his pass to have a great month and share his experience with others who don't have that opportunity. His current plan doesn't do any of that. It's a blown opportunity just to maximize something that doesn't matter. What a pity.
Not because of the economy, but because September is notoriously slow. This was a great idea to fill those seats and will probably fill them all.
Little solace to the poor schmuck who bought a pass to make a few flights this month but couldn't find seats because of others flying 3 times a day just for the heck of it.
You have absolutely no information to base this statement upon.
There are plenty of seats on all the flights we have looked at. September is just an empty month for airlines. We are not utilizing some scarce important resource, which is what you are incorrectly suggesting.
> "Half of the work done by a plane goes into staying up; the other half goes into keeping going."
therefore:
> "The plane was going anyway, so my flying was energy-neutral."
> This is false for two reasons. First, your extra weight on the plane requires extra energy to be consumed in keeping you up. Second, airlines respond to demand by flying more planes.
Quotes taken from "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air." by David McKay - University of Cambridge. The book is available free here: http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html the chapter about plane physics is here: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/cC/page_269...
How much is a different question altogether.
That Southwest airlines jet where half the people weren't onboard? That just got converted into (200 seats * 200lbs lardass Americans) = 40,000 lbs. of roses, prawns and couriered legal documents.
The fact that you're not farting into a foam cushion doesn't matter to the operator or the environment. It just means less cattle are in the boxcar.
Here's how the problem is presented: more people want to fly, but they like fresh flowers, fresh food and, more than this, fast package delivery. Your girlfriend who swears she's helping the environment by insisting on organically-farmed New Zealand lamb? Your dad who overnights parts for his biodiesel conversion? Your mom who wants domestic roses fertilized with only the freshest of cow shit? Yeah, they're dumping hydrocarbons into the atmosphere with every dollar spent.
Fuel on a 747-200 burns at ~23,700 lbs./hr. during cruise flight, more during taxi operations.
Pounds. Flight. More during taxi. You know what taxi operations are, right? Where you're waiting on the tarmac? Happens a lot, doesn't it?
Cargo gets consolidated per air carrier for environmental and operational cost purposes. It just does.
The reason why more empty seats equate to less environmental damage (at least in my mind) is that you're staying at home instead of using the extra energy to get to the airport. Those planes will keep doing what they're doing, no matter what, unless you refine your behavior.
Worried about carbon? Worried about environmental impact? Buy local only. Cut down on time in cars/taxis. Ride a motorcycle. Eat less. Drink tap water instead of anything else. Grow your own food.
Otherwise, do what I do, stick your fingers in your ears, say "lalalalala" and enjoy living in the first world.
You may only book one flight per city per day; if a violation of this policy is found, JetBlue will honor only the last booking made and cancel the customer's other bookings from that city on that day.
Means you can't fly out of a city, fly back, then fly out again. Also, you can't double book yourself out of a given city and then choose which flight you want to take.
I think he's going to get stung on the $100 cancellation/no-show fee:
> Changes or cancellations of flight bookings made after 11:59 p.m. MDT three days prior to the flight's scheduled departure will incur a $100 change/cancel fee. "No shows" for flights will incur a $100 fee, with Pass suspension until fee is paid.
Miss one connecting flight (e.g., due to an overnight delay) and they could be looking at $300 in cancellation fees.