Airplanes
Clear Air Turbulenceby Carole Greenfield
There is so much about flying that she loves. When the turbulence dissolves and the plane is flying smoothly again. She's never taken drugs but te...
Featured story
by Catherine. Dube
The Red KiteMilo found a red kite tangled in the old mango tree behind his house. Its tail was torn, and one wooden stick had snapped. He almost threw it away, but something about its bright color made him carry it insid...
Read story
Points of departure
47 stories match your filters.
Airplanes
Clear Air Turbulenceby Carole Greenfield
There is so much about flying that she loves. When the turbulence dissolves and the plane is flying smoothly again. She's never taken drugs but te...
Airplanes
We Live in Turbulence Timesby Scott Saalman
Leveling at 30,000 feet after departing LaGuardia Airport, our jet was jostled. We represented nothing but a tubular chew toy in the jaws of a mastica...
Airports
My Gypsy Soulby Gail Brady
For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated with travel, perhaps a manifestation of my Celtic-Gypsy soul. Even in utero I was transported acr...
Airports
Pre-Flight Frightby Jade Arvizu
It’s going to be different this time. You’ll be ok. Breath. Don’t be afraid! Don’t cry! This is my travel mantra. Internally o...
Airplanes
Playlist in the Event of a Water Landingby Stewart Sinclair
Whenever I sit down on a plane, I resign myself to death. It’s the only way I can reconcile my fear of flying with the fact that I have had to d...
Trips
Island to Islandby Julian Hanna
It's a warm January morning and I'm heading to the airport in an old yellow diesel Mercedes taxi driven by one of my students. I spent the pre...
Death
Rekindledby Avery Keatley
I had made a rather serious mistake. A few weeks before my family’s first-ever overseas vacation, when I would be strapped into a Dreamliner for...
Airplanes
The Day I Dieby Georgia Knapp
The locals were wrapped in parkas, hats, and gloves. Anna and I wore t-shirts, jeans, and cardigans slung across our arms. It was early afternoon. The...
Airplanes
Diaries Of A (Slightly) Deranged Travelerby Benjamin Rietema
As I writing these words, I’m sitting in a small aluminum tube about 38,000 feet above the frigid waters of the Pacific—where I’m su...
Airports
O'Horror at O'Hareby Scott Saalman
So, everyone has boarded our transoceanic aircraft at O’Hare. The flight safety message has started. It’s the kind you watch on TV monitor...
Airports
Unaccompaniedby Lisa Kay Adam
As our flight lifted over the city, he thought he could pick out which house was his friend's, the one with the swimming pool—among house af...
Airplanes
Planes, Chutes, and Mortar Shellsby Greta Foltos
Not many people are willing to jump out of a plane with nothing but some cloth and string strapped to their backs. Of those who are willing, almost al...
Airplanes
One-Half To One Tablet By Mouth As Needed For Anxietyby Kassia Halcli
I’ve been the girl vomiting uncontrollably in the aisle seat beside you. I’ve been the girl with a stack of barf bags handed up to her by...
Airplanes
Fear, In a Manner of Speakingby José Duarte
I am neither an adventurer nor a traveler. I like things that are secure, that you can take for granted. But that is not life, which is why we need to...
Airplanes
My Mother’s Presence in the Universeby Lucy Corin
Some bored friend of mine had driven me to the airport and we talked about boredom. We felt it but remained skeptical about it defining our generation...
Airplanes
Permission to Flyby Kurt Mullen
One thing nice about space is it keeps going. &n...
Airplanes
The Nameless and Handsy Italian Manby Hannah Griggs
Let me start out by expressing how much I hate flying. Three years ago I had a bad experience falling from a cliff while on vacation, leaving me with...
Airplanes
Runby Mar Scheerer
Use your breath as a guiding force for movement and transformation. Breath. Movement. Transformation. I closed my eyes. I was on the plane, unsure if...
Airports
Panic On Boardby Bárbara Sorger
My mother used to work in a publishing house that had three magazines related to Africa and Brazil. Once a year there used to be a party in one of the...
Airplanes
NAS to BWIby Monica Aust
I’ve been flying all my life; in fact, I even flew in utero, when my mother was pregnant with me, when all I’d ever known at that point wa...
Airplanes
Everything Will Be Fineby Jordan Tyler
We are making a trip from Dallas to Palm Springs for a national powerlifting meet. In the Phoenix airport, our layover stop, we are about to board. I...
Airplanes
Bird’s Eye Viewby Kelly Ross
Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to...
Airports
Before Tray Tables Need to be in Their Upright and Locked Positionsby May Todd
Since I was a child, my parents have told me that I bloom where I am planted. This first referred to my habits as I learned to walk, but the phrase st...
Airplanes
The Airplane God Doesn’t Mind Meby Jourdyn McClain
Orville and Wilbur Wright had their first successful experiment with the airplane on December 17, 1903. Today the airplane is not perfect or anywhere...
Airplanes
Fears and Affectionsby Susan Vander Kooi
The turbulence started suddenly and I gripped the armrests and closed my eyes against my jarring reality. I was coming back home from a ten-week study...
Airplanes
If I Lived In A Disney Movie, We Would Have Ended Up Marriedby Krystal Valle
Alaska Airlines claims the flight from Yakima, Washington, to Seattle is only about 43 minutes. This is a lie. The actual flight takes 17 minutes, but...
Airplanes
In-Flight Connectionby Jane Blakeley
On a connecting flight from Tallahassee home to Kansas City, I fell in love. Or, rather, I was coming from one love and rebounding into the thin, synt...
Airplanes
Up, Up, and Awayby Sharon Kurtzman
For the last 16 years, my husband has spent about a third of each year traveling for business. The kids and I miss him when he’s gone and t...
Airplanes
Holding Hands with Strangersby Suzy Eynon
I treat the date of travel printed on my flight itinerary as an expiration date. I always manage to board the plane, but the fear stews, seeping out i...
Airplanes
Flush Away the Fear of Flyingby Scott Saalman
My great-great uncle, Joe Reed, was a wing walker in the 1920s. He also did loop-the-loops, barrel rolls and hung from planes' axles. Uncle Joe wa...
Airports
Airplane Drinkingby Sara Elle
My name is Sara and I’m an alcoholic; I did some of my best drinking on airplanes. By the time I was eighteen, I had a fake ID, a rich boy...
Airplanes
It Happened One Bastard Winter...by Pearu Unga
I hate flying. My two-hour and ten-minute flight to Prague seemed to last for at least half a day. But then I had been awake all night and your brain...
Airplanes
Ukrainian Airlinesby Bobby Fox
When I arrived at the gate for connecting flight from Germany to Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, it was clear I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. The crowded w...
Airports
You Are Now Free to Go Fuck Yourselfby Jonathan Small
*DING* “Uh, well folks, looks like our trusty little, uh, navigator here, well, she seems to be pointing us in, uh, the wrong way here, so, we&r...
Airports
Returning to the Waterby Marisa Mangani
It’s August and I’ll be fifty in nine days. We’re at the Tampa Airport, checked in and sitting at the bar for a breakfast rum drink...
Airplanes
This Is Your Captain Speaking, Mild Turbulence Aheadby Stacy Thowe
The day had finally come. It was my dream trip. After scraping by, cutting back, and eating at home, I still didn’t have enough money for the tr...
Airplanes
Extreme Turbulenceby Bryan Batt
Over the past several years, I have become quite the frequent flyer, more so than I ever would have thought given the history of my fear of flying. La...
Airplanes
There's Always Hopeby Wayne Scheer
Alex found flying boring, but when he squeezed past the attractive woman in the aisle seat to get to his, he thought this flight might not be so bad a...
Airplanes
Mother Tongueby Alex Pruteanu
"I'm not religious," she says. "You know me...live and let live...whatever you believe is okay with me." Her favourite c...
Airplanes
Taking Offby Taylor Phelps
As a fifth grade boy only months away from the start of middle school, I did my best to mask fear from others hoping to appear as the man I so despera...
Airplanes
First Flightby Jacob Rodell
We have our special first times which might include our first day of school, first kiss, first time driving, and the infamous first haircut. One of th...
Airplanes
Conquering My Fearby Payton Moreland
Years ago, when I was an eighth grade student in middle school, I was given the opportunity to be a part of a trip that would go to Spain. After raisi...
Airlines
O’ What a Lovely Flightby Mike Duggan
Ryanair: Oh where to do I begin, Mr. O'Leary? Your airline appears to be a joke at every passenger’s expense. You're not kidding anyone....
Airplanes
Ritualsby Anastasia Nicole Simon
I was raised Catholic so I carry several coin sized medals in my wallet depicting saints, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ, more like a superstitious...
Airports
Going Home to Strangersby Ramona Scarborough
I almost missed my connecting flight to Omaha due to a delay at the Portland airport. Quickly seating myself, I noticed a large, swarthy turbaned man...
Airports
Separation Anxietyby Allyson Goldin Loomis
Before I get on an airplane, I prepare to die. My terror cannot be assuaged by anyone’s quoting safety statistics, the laws of physics, or the t...
Airports
Have a Safe Flightby Michael Howarth
It’s only during the past ten years that I’ve developed an intense fear of flying. I do realize that my chances of dying in a plane crash...
Have a story to tell? Share your story.