Hawaiian’s long-haul 787, forecasting turbulence, Miles4Migrants closes down, the Inca Trail, and sandwiches of old  (Saturday Selection)

In today’s random assortment of reads, we’ll look at Hawaiian switching to a 787 for its second longest flight, Turbli forecasting turbulence, Miles4Migrants closing down, an Inca Trail trip report, and sandwiches of old. Buckle up for some random reads.

Hawaiian Airlines Boeing 787 Will Fly To New York (JFK)

Hawaiian Airlines is replacing its A330 with a 787 on its Honolulu to JFK route, its second longest route. Why is this noteworthy you might ask? Because the difference in comfort from the one plane’s product to the other is apparently quite significant, according to Ben of One Mile at a Time – especially in premium seats of course. The business class seats for example will go from the 2-2-2 configuration to a 1-2-1 configuration with suites that have doors. On the other hand…Hawaiian Airlines’ introduction of Starlink Wifi is so far only available on A330’s. So for at least awhile, this could mean no Starlink wifi on this new flight. Fly in comfort, but do it bored.

The 10 Most Turbulent Airline Routes in the U.S.

If you hate turbulence, you’re in luck. Someone created a website (Turbli) that basically forecasts how much turbulence you’ll have on a given flight. They also have an interactive map where you can see a sort of heat map of where turbulence will be worst. Using this information, the folks at YMMV have put together a list of the 10 most turbulent flights in the US and in the world. Surprisingly (to me anyway) the most turbulent route in the US is Albuquerque (ABQ) – Denver (DEN). (I would have guessed something along the coast for some reason.) The good news is that flight is less turbulent than all 10 of the world’s most turbulent flights. US routes don’t even remotely make that list. The most turbulent route in the world is Mendoza (MDZ) – Santiago (SCL), and in fact, Santiago and Mendoza both show up multiple times on that list, as does Lhasa. There are only 2 routes on the top 10 list that don’t include one of those three destinations. Such an interesting read.

A MESSAGE FROM Miles4Migrants

Sadly, Miles4Migrants is closing down operations at the end of the month. For those who are unfamiliar, Miles4Migrants is/was a nonprofit resource that sought to use donated frequent flyer miles, points, etc to help with travel costs for refugees and asylum seekers. While the message is a sad one, it is incredible to read about all this nonprofit accomplished, flying ~44,000 individuals to safer environments or reunions with their families. (Thanks to everyone who donated their miles and points to impact those 44,000 lives!) The decision to shut down operations is due to the rising cost of taxes and fees. Miles4Migrants is working to turn off all recurring donations, but anyone who had set up recurring donations should contact wecare@miles4migrants.org if they see those donations continue beyond this month.

How to Hike the Inca Trail

If you love hiking and you love travel, the Inca Trail is probably on your radar. (It used to be on mine, though I got to Machu Picchu a different way when I visited years ago.) In this guest post, Gillian breaks down the 4-day itinerary of trek-ing the Inca Trail as well as tips for how to make this journey a good one. She also offers a tip about the Salkantay trek (which I’d never heard of), saying that this route sees about 1/3 of the foot-traffic, costs significantly less, but supposedly offers the same amazing views. This alternative is typically done in 5 days (instead of the Inca Trail’s typical 4). One thing I really appreciate about Gillian’s article is how she addresses the use of porters. Like many treks around the world, you are responsible for your own belongings…but the porters take care of the entire campsite. Gillian advises you to select your tour group carefully, with the treatment and pay of porters in mind. She also suggests bringing enough money to make sure you have a generous tip for the unbelievably hard work these porters do. I think it can be easy to imagine growing up in a harsh, mountainous terrain provides a kind of conditioning that makes hard work a little less hard, and maybe there’s a tiny grain of truth in that, but it’s no magic potion – the work is brutal. A friend of mine worked as a porter when he was young and his stories are, as you can imagine, wild and hellish. He describes the work as transcendentally difficult.

Meet the Man Reviewing Historical Sandwiches on TikTok

This is an old post that I only just now discovered. There’s a TikTok-er who researches sandwiches throughout history and remakes them (then reviewing them of course). For example he found a sandwich book from 1909 which describes an oyster sandwich made with raw, chopped oysters in Worcestershire sauce which he says was awful. I love thinking about how food trends travel geographically, and also how they change throughout time, so this is just a fun scroll.

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