A global tour, low and slow

We live in an age of instant e-mail, of CNN around the clock and around the world, of globalization in commerce and culture that promises (threatens?) to chisel off our differences. We travel hermetically sealed in silver tubes up near the stratosphere at high speed. Unable to see what's below, we watch TV and eat bland fare, disembarking in airports barely distinguishable from New York to Berlin to Tokyo.

It's predictable and efficient. But is it enlightening or challenging? How would it be to travel halfway around the world at low altitude and slow speed, noting - savoring - the differences and similarities in landscapes and peoples, traveling with a lot of control and responsibility but also with a high probability of unanticipated experiences?

Arthur Hussey and I are about to find out.

We're taking off from Southern Africa in a small aircraft that barely has room for the two of us and our gear, headed north to Europe and then west to Fairbanks, Alaska. We will cross deserts and mountains, oceans and vast areas of wilderness, ancient rural cultures and modern urban civilizations. Three continents, 15 countries, 12,000 miles, nine time zones. The latest Boeing 777 could make the Windhoek-Fairbanks run nonstop in about 18 hours. It'll take us more than a month with at least 22 stops.

"The airplane has unveiled for us the true face of the earth," Antoine de Saint-Exupry wrote in his 1939 classic, "Wind, Sand, and Stars." We'll cover much of the territory Saint-Exupry did as one of the first pilots to carry the mail between Europe and Northern Africa. We'll also parallel some of Charles Lindbergh's history-making solo route from New York to Paris in 1927.

Arthur's reason for the trip is routine: a move with his family (they'll take an airliner to the United States) to a new home and a new job. An American, he's been working for development agencies and environmental-research organizations in South Asia and Africa for most of his adult life. He'll take up a new post as director of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center in Fairbanks, while developing a new career as a commercial pilot with a lot of flying experience in the African bush. His wife, Janet Daley, a Canadian and fellow pilot, is leaving her post with an international educational organization. With them is their five-year-old adopted daughter, Juliana, who is Namibian.

Why Alaska? They wanted to move to the United States (the easiest place to settle for a family representing three nationalities), but found the lower 48 states "way too crowded," says Arthur.

"Alaska is a super place if you can accept it on its terms and not yours," he says. "With e-mail and fax, it seems that where you live has become less important than how you massage your connections, so you'd better live where you want to." Arthur and Janet have been planning the move for years. They've already bought a house there.

Introduced to me via e-mail by a mutual friend, Arthur said he was looking for a flying companion. Such a journey, he messaged, would be "a long time to spend alone in a plane that should have a triangular, red-and-orange 'Slow Moving Vehicle' sign attached to it.

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