Travelling, 21st Century Style

I am sure we are all in some way disappointed by the 21st century: I fully expected that by the time I was 40 we would all be wearing one piece tinfoil suits, travelling by jetpack and holidaying on the moon.

There is one aspect of life that has changed amazingly, and that is the amount of information you get when you travel. Gone are the days of phoning an airline to confirm your seats and then just arriving at the airport some time before the flight left - now we check in online, and check the internet on the day we travel to make sure our airline is still solvent and leaving on time. On my first trip overseas (1977) I spent 3 months in Europe totally insulated and isolated from anything that was going on in Australia because British newspapers just didn't mention the place - now we can check the news anywhere and at any time. I went to post offices and booked really expensive phone calls to my parents - now we have mobile phones, email and text.

But those of us left at home needn't feel left out of the travel excitement.

Susan left for Australia on Tuesday, flying to Sydney with Asiana Airlines via Incheon airport near Seoul. As her flight left Heathrow I was able to follow its path using Flightstats.com. This gave me all the info that the display inside the plane shows. Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking quick enough to get a shot of that, including the flight map when it was happening. This is a shot of the information for the second leg of her trip.

What the tracker looks like - this is of a flight to Moscow
that was following a similar track to Susan's flight

Going to the Incheon Airport web site I was able to check the arrivals board to see when her plane actually arrived (it was 12 minutes early) , and to check the departures board to see when her next flight departed.

Once the plane had left Incheon, I was able to check Flight Aware to see how the flight was doing.

Yesterday evening I went to the Sydney Airport arrivals board to see when the flight arrived, and then about an hour after the plane arrived in Sydney I was able to see it on a recording of the Sydney radar system. For real, recorded life thrills, you can go to this link*, uncheck the "show current flights" box, set the time for 07.27 am on 19/03/2009 and the speed at 10x to follow her flight in. Hover your pointer over the planes to find Susan.

OK. I will admit I am jealous. I like Korea and if I had gone with Susan we would have spent a week there on a layover. I spent a month teaching English at summer school in Seoul in 2005 and had a whale of a time. One day I may even post some photos in here. That will confuse anyone looking for pikkies of chateaux!

Simon

*the link takes a while to load, but it's worth it