Far From Home

Being on the road has been life for over thirty years. I’ve flown over 3 million miles on United alone, so answering the question of the farthest I have ever traveled from home didn’t have an obvious answer. I’ve worked in Korea, Germany, and Australia. I’ve also visited Thailand, Peru, and Botswana. They all seem to be pretty far from home. 

At first, I thought it was probably South Africa. Once upon a time, the longest commercial flight in the world was from Atlanta to Johannesburg. I checked, and it is 9,171 miles from Austin to Jo-berg. That’s a long way, but not the farthest I have traveled from home.

After further research, I determined that Perth, Australia, is the farthest I have ever been from home. It is 10,447 miles from Austin. Technically, Rottnest Island is the farthest, approximately twenty miles west of Perth. I took a ferry there to see the quokkas.

This trip was in August of 2022. The COVID pandemic had begun to wane. The last significant spike was in the first quarter of that year. I went as a member of the board of directors of a travel business that had acquired a sizeable Australian hospitality company the previous year. In nine days, we saw the entire country, from Sydney to Cairns, out to the Great Barrier Reef, to the Outback at Coober Pedy and Alice Springs, and then to Adelaide, Melbourne, and Perth, as well as the Horizontal Falls near Broome and Darwin on the northern coast. It was quite a trip that included an Australian Rules Football game, mining for opals, dinner under the stars, a camel ride, SCUBA diving, a speedboat ride, and lots of time in the air. I will never forget it.

Saint Augustine said, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” The benefits of experiencing other cultures are enormous. Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” We can all benefit from the perspective-expanding experience of travel. Pack a bag with just the essentials and hit the road.