Air time is the one number on this site that a traveller almost never controls and almost always underestimates. It is the count of hours between wheels-up and wheels-down, added across every leg. It does not include the ninety minutes at the curb, the fifty-five minute connection you sprint, the four hour layover you sit through, or the drive home from the airport at eleven at night. Some of the trips below carry two hours of air time and eat a whole day anyway.
From Lincoln the arithmetic starts one leg behind. There is no long-haul departure from Nebraska, so nearly everything on this list begins with a short hop east or west to a larger airport, and that hop is counted here. A trip described elsewhere as an eight hour flight is a ten hour trip in this ordering, because the first hour and a half is real time in a real airplane. We would rather the number be honest and unflattering than clean.
The other thing people misjudge is the back end. Two hours in the air costs nothing beyond the day. Nine hours across five or six time zones costs the day of arrival, most of the following morning, and a stretch of days where you are awake at four in the morning and useless at four in the afternoon. Eighteen hours costs a working week on either side if you are honest about it. Ordering by this measure is really ordering by how many days of your trip you are willing to hand over to getting there and getting back.
Eight nights in four beds: three in a ranch guest house near Cassoday, two above a main street storefront in Cottonwood Falls, two in a converted stone schoolhouse west of Council Grove, one final night in Manhattan; one rented car throughout, luggage stays in the trunk between moves.
Nine nights in six village inns and one mountain lodge, two of them for three nights at a time, moved between by rental car you drive yourself, with luggage staying in the trunk and carried in by hand each evening.
Nine nights in three beds across four stays: three nights at a working cattle ranch north of Mullen, two at a guest ranch on the Niobrara, two in a small hotel in Valentine, two back at the first ranch; you drive your own rental between them and your bags stay in the car.
Nine nights: two in Skidegate, three in Port Clements or Tlell, two on Moresby near Sandspit, two back at the north end, moved by rental vehicle and one inter island ferry, with your bags going wherever you go because nothing is portered.
Nine nights in three village bases of three nights each, all rooms with private bathrooms in family run places, moved between by a small rental car you drive yourselves, with luggage staying in the car and never transferred by anyone else.
Eight nights in four family-run village hotels, two nights in each, walking between three of them on marked paths and moving by road once; a van shifts the main bags between hotels on walking days, so you carry a daypack.
Nine nights split between two family-run guesthouses, five in a Glenariff village and four near Cushendall, with a local driver moving suitcases between them on the changeover morning and returning walkers from the far end of each day's route.
Eleven nights in six places: four small rural hotels, one converted granite farmhouse and one night in a guesthouse inside a walled town, with a driver moving the party and the bags by road while you walk or ride between them.
Eight nights in four harbor guesthouses, two nights in each, private rooms with shared or private bath depending on the house; the party moves between islands on scheduled passenger ferries and walks the last stretch, carrying its own bags every time.
Eight nights: four in a small hotel at Aberlour, two in a guesthouse at Grantown on Spey, two in an inn at Kingussie, with a driver moving the party and the bags between the three by road while you walk the section in between.
Nine nights in four places: three in a Vimperk guesthouse, two in a converted forestry lodge at Modrava, two above Cerne Lake, two in Ceske Budejovice; a driver moves the bags between the four, and you walk or take the summer forest bus.
Nine nights in five places: three farm guesthouses, one small hotel above a bakery in Ludza, and one room in a potter's household near Preili, moved between by a hired car you drive yourself, with luggage staying in the trunk between towns.
Nine nights in four places: three in a family guesthouse in the Biebrza villages, two in a wooden house near Kruszyniany, three by the forest at Bialowieza, one last night in Bialystok, with a driver moving the party and the luggage between them by road.
Eight nights, seven in one timber guesthouse near the Riisa side of the park and one in Parnu before the flight home, with a driver moving the party and all luggage in a single van transfer at each end and nothing carried between beds.
Nine nights: two in Shkoder in a small hotel, three in a guesthouse in Theth, one in a hut nearer the pass, two in a Valbona guesthouse and one back in Shkoder, moving by van, boat and on foot, with luggage carried ahead by road and packhorse while you walk with a daypack.
Eight nights, all of them in the same family run guesthouse in Zabljak with private bathrooms and no elevator; a car and driver moves the party to each trailhead in the morning and collects it in the afternoon, so luggage is unpacked once and stays there.
Nine nights: two in a small hotel in Targu Jiu, four in family guesthouses in the Jiu and Olt valley villages, two in a stone refuge below the ridge, one back in town; a driver moves the party and the bags, and you walk carrying a day pack.
Nine nights: four in a stone village house inland, two in a small family guesthouse near Malko Tarnovo, three in simple rooms above a beach at Sinemorets or Varvara, moved by hired car with a driver, with luggage carried in that car and never on your back.
Nine nights in four places: three in Castro, two in Cucao near the national park, two on Isla Mechuque reached by launch, and two in Ancud, moving by private vehicle and public ferry, with luggage carried in the vehicle except on the Mechuque leg, where you take an overnight bag.
Nine nights: seven in family run guesthouses of four to nine rooms along the coastal route, two in a small hotel near the island's main town, moved by a booked driver and one local bus, with a bag transfer van carrying everything but a daypack between each night.
Nine nights: three in a colonial house in Salta city, two in a small hotel in Cafayate, two in a plain adobe inn in Cachi, two back in Salta, with a driver and a vehicle moving the party and the bags between them on gravel and paved road.
Nine nights: seven in family-run inns with shared bathing, one in a temple guest hall with a shared sleeping room, one near the airport at the end. You walk between them every day carrying a daypack, and your main bag is forwarded ahead by the domestic parcel service.
Nine nights in three places: four in a small inn at Miyanoura on the north coast, three in a family guesthouse at Anbo, two at Onoaida in the south, moved by rented car, with the two large bags staying in the car and a daypack carried on the trails.
Nine nights: four in a small hotel in Xincheng near the gorge mouth, two in a homestay in the rift valley near Yuli, three in a guesthouse on the coast south of Hualien city, moved between by hired car with a driver, and luggage travels in the car rather than on your back.
Ordered by hours in the air. This is an ordering by one measurable fact and not a ranking by quality: no trip here is better than another and this office will not say that one is.
What each stretch of hours takes out of the calendar
The bands below are the ones that matter operationally, not the ones an airline route map would draw. What separates them is the number of departures per day, how many connection points exist, and what happens to the traveller on the far side. A trip in the two to four hour band can be rebooked the same afternoon if something breaks. A trip in the fifteen hour and up band usually cannot be rebooked at all until tomorrow, because the flight in question leaves once a day.
Recovery is the part nobody prices. We ask, when we take a request, how many days you have on the ground and how many time zones you are crossing, because a six night trip with nine hours of air time each way is really four usable nights, and some people would rather know that before the reservation goes in than after.
- zero hours, driven
- Six to fourteen hours behind the wheel from Lincoln, no airport at all. You leave when you want and you carry whatever fits in the car. Fuel and one night in a roadside room, roughly $180 to $260 each way, and it is the only band where a delay costs nobody anything
- two to four hours
- One connection, sometimes none in summer. Departs before dawn and you are somewhere else for lunch. Costs one travel day out of your total, not two, and a missed leg is usually fixed by evening
- five to eight hours
- One connection, always. Coast to coast, or deep into Mexico and the Caribbean. You lose the arrival day to the airport and the drive, and the return lands late enough that the next morning is a write-off
- nine to twelve hours
- Two legs, five to seven time zones. Landing at seven in the morning local time after no real sleep is standard, and the first day on the ground is a walking day at best. Budget the first afternoon for a nap you will take anyway
- thirteen to sixteen hours
- Two or three legs and one of them is over an ocean. Fewer than a dozen sensible routings exist from this part of the country and they fill months ahead. A short trip in this band is not worth the days it takes
- seventeen hours and up
- Three legs, often a night in transit, and a date line to cross in one direction. Under twelve nights on the ground the arithmetic stops working: you spend a quarter of your holiday moving
Where the hour count is true and tells you nothing
Here is the case where this measure lies outright. Two trips on the list sit within twenty minutes of each other in total air time. One is a single nonstop plus a short feeder, both on the same carrier, with four later departures that day if the first one fails. The other is three legs on three separate reservations with a fifty minute change in the middle and one departure a day on the third leg. The number says they are the same trip. They are not remotely the same trip, and if the middle leg goes wrong the second one costs you a hotel night, a rebooking fee and a day of your holiday.
The number also flattens direction. Westbound and eastbound air time can differ by ninety minutes on the same route, and the eastbound return is the one that lands you at six in the morning having slept in a chair. And it says nothing about aircraft or seat: nine hours in a wide-body with a flat bed and nine hours in a narrow-body with a middle seat are the same nine hours to this ordering and are not the same nine hours to a body. When we price a request we say which of these applies. The list cannot.
Four other questions you could be asking instead
This is one of five orderings of the same twenty-four trips. The others sort by beds slept in, by miles walked on an average day, by how much of the trip is settled before you arrive, and by the starting figure per person. Every trip appears in all five. Nothing moves up or down because we like it better, because there is no better here, only different facts held up to the light.
Which ordering you open is the argument you are making about your own year. Someone with eleven days and a tolerance for airports will read this page and stop. Someone with a bad back will go straight to the walking order and never look at hours in the air at all. Someone whose real constraint is the number on the invoice will start at the cost ordering and work outward. This office will not tell you which of the five matters. We do not grade these trips, we publish no opinion about them, and we would be making it up if we ranked them, because the ranking depends entirely on facts about you that we do not have until you write to us.