The journey of a 1,000 miles begins with a single step...

...but the journey of 9,041 miles won't take many steps, just a WHOLE lot of sitting and waiting! :-)

Red: total miles; Fuchsia: flight time; Blue: layover time

A nice short flight to JFK, where we will then park ourselves for just over 9 (!) hours. Next is the transatlantic flight to Dubai, which lasts 12 hours 45 minutes. We'll be there for a little over 6 hours, so maybe it would be possible to leave the airport and do some sightseeing? I hear they'll give you a short visa to do just that. Finally, we leave Dubai and arrive in Kolkata, India 4 hours 45 minutes later. Quite the trip! Definitely my longest. I think when Dad and I went to Korea a number of years back it was 21 hours or so, including a 3 hour layover in L.A. If this one didn't have such insane layovers, the flight time wouldn't be as long as that, but these layovers come close to doubling the time.

How do people keep from losing their minds on these kinds of trips? I plan on bringing lots of interesting books, my travel journal, maybe some knitting or crochet, sleeping mask and earplugs, neck pillow.... what else? Any good travel games or anything that two people can easily carry and play together? We leave in 3 weeks, so I'd better figure it out!