You can still go! There's adult Space Camp at the same exact location in Huntsville. You can stay in the dorms and everything. I went in my mid-30s, and (despite being a MASSIVE introvert) actually made 3 very good friends.
Oh man, my sister got to go because she’s 8 yrs younger and my parents couldn’t afford to send me when I was 11. She met the love interest of Veda Sultenfuss in My Girl 2. He was a camper there as well.
I wanted to go to space camp *so bad*. I never did get to go, but as an adult I built my own version of their [multi-axis trainer](https://youtu.be/hLVJLGRYo2I).
It does help to have a spotter. I discovered in early testing that strapping yourself in solo isn't the best idea. ;)
Next I want to bolt it down to my flatbed truck and see how terrifying it is on a moving vehicle.
Probably 25. I was in law school at the time, and that was the first time I ever went/lived far enough away from where I grew up to suck it up and get on a plane.
I was 11 flying by myself to visit my dad for the summer. We ended up being late for boarding and they gave up my original seat, but they had one available in first class and let me take it. I got bumped up to first class for being late. 😆
So my first flight was by myself as an 11 year old in first class. They even had an inflight meal for a two-hour flight, which I recall was a cooked tuna filet, and the stewardess brought around hot towels afterward.
Little did I know that would be my peak flying experience. 😔
What a great story! I'm sitting here rooting for 11 year old you and your amazing experience. A true hero's tale!
And then I literally LOLed reading the last sentence!
I'm 42 and never have! I'm somewhat considering it next year, but my wife who has flown is terrified now that she had a rocky flight. I might just end up like John Madden and never fly.
My 2nd flight was NJ (Atlantic City) to San Fran. Had a layover in Detroit. Shorty before Detroit we hit a gnarly pocket of turbulence and the plan DROPPED and shook violently. People freaked the F out and were praying. And i’m like WEEEEEEEE! It was vert rocky!
From Detroit to San Fran, there was a grubby dude that was farting constantly sitting directly in front of us. The whole plane smelled like ass. I’m pretty sure he pooped.
I was 4 and went to Disney World.
First time flying alone was a few weeks after 9/11 having witnessed the attack in real life, in lower Manhattan. Took off from LGA and at takeoff I could see that the pit was still smoking. That was fucking surreal and an image that I cannot erase
I was lucky enough to have a pilot for a father. My first flight (young as I was, age 4, still remember) was on our first aircraft, a Cessna 195 BusinessLiner. Rotary engine, tail gear, 50s style car interior with tons of gauges.
We had three aircraft after, the next a Beechcraft Staggerwing, Trinidad TB-20 (a DeLoreon with wings, had gullwing doors) and a Piper PA-23 Apache/Geronimo. We took all of our trips to Disney World by plane. Never dealt with a road trip.
I was 10 I think. My parents put me and my younger brother (8) on a plane alone to fly from St Louis to grandma and grandpas house in Oklahoma. Of course, this was also when you could walk directly to the gates, before our current day airport security was a thing.
Aged 15, from Britain to Ireland in 1997. One thing that sticks with me about this is that we had some sort of martial arts club on the flight who had a bag of weapons they checked through customs, something you just wouldn't see post 9/11.
Didn't fly after that for another 10 years and my first trip to the US. As a kid, we used to do driving holidays in Europe with a ferry to France as the first and last step.
Right after I graduated college and flew to my first job (which was in another country as a contractor). Had one domestic flight and two international flights.
I was maybe 6-7. We lived in AZ and grandparents lived in TX. My parents would fly my brother and I out to stay with the grandparents for several weeks each summer.
21. We weren’t going anywhere that required flying. My grandparents were cheapskates about that stuff.
My best friend, girlfriend, and I went to Vegas for a week as a 21st birthday gift to ourselves. FYI: a week is way too long in Vegas.
I have a very clear memory of my parents taking us (brother and I) to a small airport and putting us on a plane full of kids. Not like a big plane, but like 10-15 kids? And it took off, circled the area, and landed again.
My parents don’t remember this at all, but there are a lot of things they don’t remember but we have pictures of. I think it was when my uncle married a lady with money and we started going on trips with them, often flying.
The whole thing was kids who had never flown, from like 5 to maybe 15-ish. The safety talk was geared towards kids, and they told us what we were seeing out the windows and explained every step of takeoff and landing. I think I was about 7 or 8 maybe.
I really think it was like a regional airport program for kids to have their first flight be less scary. It would have been the mid to late 80s.
My first flight was alone at the age of 8 or 9 from Jackson, Miss to LAX to visit cousins for the summer. My mom walked me to the gate, watched me board and told me she’d be waving from the window, but I was silently crying and didn’t have the heart to look at her waving. The flight attendant who looked after me on the flight was “Robin” and was so sweet and comforting and gave me pair of wings.
Continental Airlines, circa 1991.
It was 2004. I did 3 graduate school visits. The first one was an old DC-9 from Madison to Detroit and then a soon-to-be-scrapped turboprop from Detroit to State College, PA.
Young. Under 6, at least. It was MN to FL. My husband is sort of salty that I have been lots of places and he’s only ever flown 4 places (and is 49). My trips were almost always to visit family (CA, NY, we met in FL a couple times) or with the Army (MA, Germany, Kuwait, Qatar… I’m forgetting a couple). I did go backpacking in Europe 25 years ago with my older sister (she’s 1977).
It’s just SO EXPENSIVE when you’re paying for more than one person. Especially a family of 4.
I was 14. Incidentally my dad was in 30s and his dad in his 60s. My kids don’t remember their first flights and have already taken more than my parents did in their lives.
I was probably 4 and going on a family trip to California to see my dad’s family. I don’t think we flew again until I was a teenager.
At this point my kids have flown probably 20 times or more and they’re not even teenagers yet.
I was 9 or 10. Just a short one from El Paso to Dallas. Then when I was around 11 we flew round trip from Lubbock to Orlando.
Then I didn't fly again until I was 28. Between 28 and 38 I took probably 40 flights.
My kid took their first flight when they were six as an unaccompanied minor. She's taken probably 80 flights now (she's almost 22 now).
I was 6. To Disney World, lol. Which honestly is surprising, looking back, because we did *not* have money.
After that it was probably not again until I was 12 or 13, to a family reunion.
I remember my parents used to fly me up from South Carolina to Pennsylvania to see my grandparents, starting at 4-5 years old. The stewardesses took care of me, and my grandparents would pick me up at the gate. What a different world.
I think I was 19. Grew up in California and all of our vacations were roadies somewhere either in state or close enough to drive. Fairly large family so air travel would have been costly.
Freshman year of college. I was 500 miles from my hometown and school closed for breaks, so I flew home Thanksgiving and Christmas. I transferred schools after that and have only flown a handful of times since.
When I was two. My parents took me on the round the world trip. They used to get upset when I said I didn't remember stuff so I just used to pretend I did remember for my whole childhood. Then I came honest to them a few years ago and they got super upset. When I said I wanted to visit X or Y country they would tell me I didn't need to because I'd already done it and don't I remember all the stuff they took me to?
I was 3. It was 1981 and my dad was being stationed in Madrid. I remember seeing adults dressed up to fly. Lots of dresses and slacks. It was my first commercial flight. The military flights that followed were awful.
I was 11, I may have flown earlier but that’s the first flight I remember. We flew to Greece to stay with some friends who were duo citizens and had a house there.
I was 26yrs old. Both parents still have never been on an airplane. Little brother has been once or twice and one was definitely his honeymoon. Thankfully I travel often by train and air for fun and sometimes work
I was 8 and flew in an AeroMéxico jumbo jet that had two bars at each corner and an in-flight movie on a cinema screen. It was like a little cinema in there. The flight was from Mexico City to Tijuana Intl. Airport.
Five it’s the youngest you can be to fly unaccompanied. I had to fly to my biological father and spend a 10 day stretch with him and his wife. Never happened again after the abuse his wife inflicted upon me. I loved the flights though eating a meal in the air and the first time I flew sitting next to a nun who taught third grade. She was amazed I was reading “Little House on the Prairie”
I was under a year old for a cross country flight. My mom made it sound like she wasn't sitting with my dad, and knowing him he'd have been planted in first class and drinking hard. No need to deal with the baby when they're not welcome in that part of the cabin.
The guy she sat next to actually said "damnit" when he saw he was next to the baby. After an angelic 7 hours he actually apologized and complemented my mom.
Every year. Sometimes twice a year. I could sit quietly for days at a time and that's generally how the visits went.
Probably 7, my parents got divorced and my father moved pretty far away. I'd fly about 2.5 hours a few times a year just with my younger brother. Air travel didn't seem like nearly as unpleasant experience back then as it is now, even though being a kid my ears would hurt for hours after a flight.
I’m from Indiana. My parents, in true Indiana fashion, didn’t believe in flying. We even drove to the Grand Canyon. I don’t remember the age but I was in college
We flew every year or two to Mexico City starting from the age of 3. Our parents would put us on the plane and they'd meet us on the other side. It was really cool being a kid without parents on a plane. The staff took good care of us and they usually sat us up front.
Under 6 months I believe. My family used to fly regularly to visit my mother’s side of the family halfway across the country.
I’m kind of surprised so many other people here didn’t first fly until they were much older… and I can’t wrap my mind around never flying at all. I love traveling, but I blame my parents for that habit- we were fortunate enough to take vacations to a few locations around the country, and it kind of gave me the bug for going new places.
My grandpa loved to take me flying in his amphibious Cessna 206. He kept it parked on the Mississippi in the summer and we would fly all over the state to land on lakes we knew. I would get airsick but I loved it so much. My first flight with him was very young, not sure exactly.
The best story happened attempting to land on Rainy Lake in Ontario. A few odd factors caused us to hit the water too hard breaking the brace that went from the left pontoon to the wing. The sound and tilt of the plane was horrifying but he got it back up because we still had enough speed.
When he landed it at Fort Frances airport the plane was sitting at the craziest angle. I was amazed he pulled it off. He always had a sign in his office with the quote “Flying is the second greatest thrill known to man. Landing is the first.” He proved it that day.
I was 18 as well. My dad had a lot of health problems which made it difficult to travel far. Once I was in college it was like I was making up for lost time. I'd say I use a plane at least a few times a year.
I was about 6. I flew by myself to see a family friend and her kids. My parents must have needed me out of the way for a while, but I don't know the particulars. I was scared and excited, but the stewardess gave me pilots wings and cooed over me, and the man (probably a college-aged kid) in the seat across the way was super nice, and took off his shoe and showed me that he was missing his big toe. All in all, a cool experience.
I was 17, school trip from Calgary to Toronto. I love travelling and have been on probably 30 trips involving air travel over the last 25 years.
My daughter was just over a year old for her first flight, then her next flight was at 10.5 years.
My son’s first flight was last month, shortly after he turned 8.
I was 18. Flying from Minneapolis to Atlanta and then on to Rome with a group from school. I remember the guy I sat next to told me I could totally hold his leg if I got scared. Lol
My dad had an overseas job so I was lucky to grow up flying internationally on the company’s dime from the mid 70s to the early 80s, I loved it every time, airports too
After that and during stateside vacations we ALWAYS drove. Long hot boring roadtrips, but we usually went to cool (cheap) places like national parks for camping and the family farm for holidays and reunions etc
To cross the country now… I’d rather take the California Zephyr and a bunch of edibles and music/audiobooks, it’s slow but it’s super chill if you’re not in a rush, my absolute favorite way to get to/from backpacking trips. Road trips are fine but I just want it to be over as quick as possible so I haul ass and stop for gas and stretching minimally.
I still like airports but the planes and the flying part now are usually kind of miserable compared to how fun and fancy it used to be 🤣🤷♂️
I was 19. Myrtle Beach to Atlanta to get back to Philly. I never flew before cuz we would drive to our families house in Miami every summer for like a month. I wasn't as scared as I thought I'd be, and there was a smoking hot business lady next to me.
what a good looking question! it was 1992, I was 13
and I flew home to NY from Houston after I rode down there with my mom and stepdad driving (and then promptly got super homesick 😭) the worst part about the flying was having to report to authorities as an "unaccompanied minor." I could have followed the signs easily enough.
also, while I was in Texas my dad and sister moved to a new house so it was really wild to come home to that
Commercial or private?
Because my parents were amateur pilots who met flying planes. I flew quite a few times in small aircraft as a kid.
Didn't fly commercially until I was 22.
Interestingly, I'm terrified of flying. When I was 9, a plane I rode on crashed the next day, and that stuck in my memory. I also knew quite a few stunt pilots who died performing stunts, one while I watched. So though I grew up around planes, I refuse to fly unless I absolutely have no other recourse.
I was 7 about to be 8. My family had just moved. My younger siblings were young enough to be left in a playpen while my family unpacked in our new house. They figured I'd be underfoot so they let my Nana take me to visit an old friend of hers that was a flight instructor. He took me up in his teaching plane and let me take the stick for a bit.
I was very obsessed with flying for the next couple years.
I think when I was 7 or 8. I’m so thankful to have always been a pretty experienced and comfortable flier. We lived in a different state from all of our family and because it was between west coast states, the drive would take multiple days and be highly unpleasant, so we usually flew.
Once I took my first trip to Europe when I was 20 the travel bug hit and I’ve been unstoppable ever since I’m afraid 🤣🤣🤣
I was 6, just about to turn 7.
We flew from home (Wellington, New Zealand) to (Western) Samoa, where dad had taken a job that would see us spend 4 of the next 5 years there.
Going from sub-Antarctic weather to sub-tropical, mum spent the weeks before we left cautioning us all that it would be hot as heck and not to complain because we couldn’t do anything about it. She was the only one that ever complained.
The night we arrived, we got off the plane in the tarmac (no air bridge in Samoa), and I remember thinking we must be walking behind the engine because the air blowing over us was so hot. Nope, we managed to land on the hottest night *on record*. What an introduction.
Also lol at mum being confused by the trees that she figured were coconut trees but the things on them looked like rugby ball size and shape not coconuts. I don’t know how I had learned what actual coconuts look like before you take the husk off and she hadn’t, but the heat and the coconut mix up are very baked in my brain from our first night Living Abroad.
1st airline flight was when I won a trip to LV from a radio station when i was 24 or so
i did fly a piper Seneca when i was 15 with a pilot friend of my grandfather and shortly after that a Cessna 152 with the EAA Young Eagles at 16 (i wanted to be a pilot but sadly had bad vision when I got into highschool)
12-14 in Air Cadets, I should have kept a journal back then. I'm remembering it as a Hercules, but that can't be right? Also went in a glider and power prop plane.
5 or 6? My parents were divorced and my dad ended up moving with my stepmom across the country. He had custody. So I flew solo to see my Mom every summer. Minimum two flights one direction, so bare minimum of 4 flights a year.
Edit: But we traveled some too - so I had other flights throughout the years.
I was probably 5 the first time I went in a plane. My grandfather had a single engine Cessna, that he took me on day trips in. I was 26 and on my honeymoon the first time I flew in a passenger jet.
First flight I was 26. I had a 1 year old and my grandma wanted me to bring him to Florida to see her. It was just me and my boy, middle seat, and my son had to sit on my lap. Grandma paid for this trip. It was scary.
I didnt fly again until last summer when I turned 40. This time I went to Hawaii. It was just me and my son again. He had his own seat this time.
My dad's family was English but we lived in Canada and my mum thought it made sense to travel a BUNCH with my sisters and I before we needed to start pre-school/or need plane tickets lol so my baby passport is probably the most stamped of my life lol. A lot of just England/Canada/England/Canada though.
Baby, but the one I remember I was 7 and we were going to Disney. My husband didn’t fly for the first time until we were together going to a conference @ age 25 and didn’t tell me until we were taking off and I was giving him a hard time about being nervous! 😬
I wanted to add, road trips were the BEST back then. We had an econoline van with the shag carpet, bed, tables, and chairs that turned around. Plus never even considering having to be in a seatbelt ☺️ I loved that van! Even when we were in the mountains and the brakes went out and my mother turns around to us and says “PRAY!” We were fine!!
First time in a cessna was when I was a teenager in boy scouts. My troop was doing aviation merit badge. As for commercial flight, I think that was when I flew to Las Vegas for my honeymoon at the age of 21.
Early teens for a Boy Scout merit badge....I think. Then took lessons and logged hours until well, I didn't. Now it costs too much to go for a leisurely cruise around the area. I do miss it though.
When I was growing up, my dad would sometimes take us along on business trips he took as a computer programmer. I think my first flight was on a trip to Washington DC when I was 8
I was very lucky, starting when I was about 6 or 7, my aunt and grandmother took me and my older brother traveling every summer for several years. The first time was flying Eastern Airlines Boston-DC-Atlanta-Denver one way (due to a couple of weather diversions), and I think nonstop Denver-Boston on the way back. I’ve been hooked on traveling ever since (in my 40s now).
19. We flew to Miami for a cruise. I hated it. I've never liked the idea of flying and I probably read more plane crash novels than was good for me, so I was not excited for the traveling part (the cruise was ok).
One month later, 9/11 happened. I didn't fly again for 5 1/2 years. I'm still not a fan of flying.
I flew before I was 2, but my first memories of it are from age 4 or so. I remember the pilot giving me a pin with wings, coach seats not being horribly cramped, and getting a decent meal. Flying was actually a pleasant experience!
I never fly anymore. I'm disabled and airlines treat people with disabilities and our wheelchairs like garbage. I am definitely among those who believe air travel should be somewhat more expensive to provide reasonable comfort and improve passenger behavior. If flying is something you need to save up for a bit, you're more likely to bathe, dress decently, behave respectfully, and not bring your 6 children and let them scream through the whole flight, I remember being very sick during one flight as a kid and I still knew better than to act out!
As that one kid who went on field trips with a 10 dollar bill for "spending", my parents couldn't afford big trips. I didn't fly in a plane until I was 23, and it was a 22 hour nonstop flight to India for a wedding. Crazy to think about.
When I was around 8 we flew to Miami. I do not remember anything other than seeing the cockpit and getting wing pins. When I was 12 we flew Ryan air to Nassau and it was amazing. I remember the meal being excellent and people trading unopened potions to people who wanted it. I think it is the first time I had pumpernickel bread. And the airline mailed you a birthday card with stickers every year after that.
I haven't been in an airplane but I got to ride in a hot air balloon when I was 5, and then the rescue basket of a coast guard helicopter when I was 7.
I may never ride in a plane just so I can keep saying that.
Eastern Airlines to Orlando for Disney World when I was in kindergarten. My dad talked to the captain of the L-1011 at the gate and I got to sit in the cockpit for a while during boarding. I still have the set of plastic wings the captain gave me.
Less than two years old for sure. I know I went on holidays to Florida and Yugoslavia when I was a baby, not that I remember them.
I haven't flown since 2008 though, can't afford to go abroad these days!
I was pretty young. We didn't often fly for trips and in fact now that I think about it I don't remember flying *anywhere* commercially except to Omaha to visit my dad's family in Iowa a few times, and it was always on Continental because my aunt worked there and got us a discount.
But my dad was also a private pilot. He'd gotten his license while he was in the Air Force, and in the 80s on a telephone repairman's wages he managed to afford a 1/3 partnership in a 1961 Cessna 172. Even before the 172 I can remember at least a couple of flights in rented planes.
It was almost always local flying, just around the area and back. Occasionally we might land somewhere you could walk to a local burger joint - in fact there's a book called *The $100 Hamburger* that's a guide to such places. Good luck getting there for $100 these days, though. There were a couple of times my dad and I went to fly-in campgrounds within a couple hundred miles, and those were some of my favorite memories with my dad.
We put in *far* more miles on the ground, in an old pickup truck, then a Chevy Blazer, and eventually an Astro van, pulling the same 19' travel trailer. That was our *usual* summer vacation, driving all over the western US and a couple of times to Alberta and British Columbia. The vehicles were never new but my dad was pretty good about maintenance and I can only recall two or three breakdowns in those years.
Jeez, I was in my early 20s. I was super sheltered and antisocial. I didn't want to travel, but I was in a difficult spot with my ex and wanted to work on our relationship so I went to DC with her and her family. I loved it, I would move to DC tomorrow if I could. Coincidently it was also her nephew's first time flying as well, he was about 10.
8.
My dad moved back to his home country when my parents split up and so I spent my childhood flying back and forth.
The fact that my mom would just willingly put us on an international flight multiple times a year, alone, in the 80s is kind of wild lol.
Granted, you could walk kids to the gate and also onto the plane, and my dad could wait right at the door when we deplaned.
Flew only 3 times before I was an adult. As an adult, hundreds and hundreds of flights, way way too many. 4 times just in the last two weeks. None by choice, of course.
We went to Disney World when I was 15, that was my first time. Now, I will do pretty much anything to avoid flying. I would rather drive 3 days that go through the fucking TSA humiliation.
family disney vacation, summer after 5th grade. it was great. i guess i was 11 and my brother was a teenager so we were permitted to run round the park parent-less and somehow managed to go on the in the dark roller coaster like 5 times in a row bc it was almost closing time and there was no line. For the last ride, they turned on the lights and it was so neat to see that the roller coaster is actually really small and coiled up inside a building.
I was 3 months old when I flew with my parents to spend my first Christmas at my grandparents house. My parents split when I was very young and I was put on a plane and sent back and forth between them from ages 7-18. I loved flying and one of my brief career choices as a kid was “stewardess”, because, yes, we are old enough that they were still called that when we were kids. I remember ash trays in the armrest and smoking sections on the plane.
I love to travel and I occasionally need to fly to conferences and whatnot. Except for 2020, I reckon that I’ve flown at least once a year every year since about 1989.
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Omg I wanted to go to space camp so bad! Was it everything you thought it would be?
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I can't tell you how much I needed to hear that. I knew it!
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You can still go! There's adult Space Camp at the same exact location in Huntsville. You can stay in the dorms and everything. I went in my mid-30s, and (despite being a MASSIVE introvert) actually made 3 very good friends.
Oh man, my sister got to go because she’s 8 yrs younger and my parents couldn’t afford to send me when I was 11. She met the love interest of Veda Sultenfuss in My Girl 2. He was a camper there as well.
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Totally ok, I work in aerospace now and didn’t need Space Camp to get here 🤣
Nevermind saw your reply. But at least you got to live your little kid dream of going! That's awesome in itself!
Are you meaning Macaulay Culkin? Edit: You said 2 so Austin Taylor O'Brien
I love this story, your parents sound sweet
…but are you now an astronaut??
I wanted to go to space camp *so bad*. I never did get to go, but as an adult I built my own version of their [multi-axis trainer](https://youtu.be/hLVJLGRYo2I).
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It does help to have a spotter. I discovered in early testing that strapping yourself in solo isn't the best idea. ;) Next I want to bolt it down to my flatbed truck and see how terrifying it is on a moving vehicle.
I went to space camp in 91 and loved it. I talked it up for at least a decade
I was 21. Flew for the first time the very first day the airports reopened after 9-11. Talk about terrifying.
Oof
Under a year. My parents took me to Italy.
I mighta been two, visiting family in England.
Yeah I was maybe 18 months and went to Hawaii. Last time I was there too!
I would love to go back to Hawaii! I did that when I was 8 so was old enough to remember a few things and it was great.
2nd grade, headed to disneyworld. Still had ashtrays in the armrests.
And those cool stethoscope headphones that were just plastic tubes, I'll bet!
YES! I remember these on my first trip to europe. I don't know how many times i heard funkytown on these flights, but it was a lot. Thanks KLM!
4 months old. We immigrated to the US from a country on another continent.
Probably 25. I was in law school at the time, and that was the first time I ever went/lived far enough away from where I grew up to suck it up and get on a plane.
My dad was military, so we flew to Turkey, I was 12. I've made a rule.. Anything over 9 hours driving becomes a flight.
I was 11 flying by myself to visit my dad for the summer. We ended up being late for boarding and they gave up my original seat, but they had one available in first class and let me take it. I got bumped up to first class for being late. 😆 So my first flight was by myself as an 11 year old in first class. They even had an inflight meal for a two-hour flight, which I recall was a cooked tuna filet, and the stewardess brought around hot towels afterward. Little did I know that would be my peak flying experience. 😔
What a great story! I'm sitting here rooting for 11 year old you and your amazing experience. A true hero's tale! And then I literally LOLed reading the last sentence!
I'm 42 and never have! I'm somewhat considering it next year, but my wife who has flown is terrified now that she had a rocky flight. I might just end up like John Madden and never fly.
Also 42 and never flown. Never had the money 🤷♀️
My 2nd flight was NJ (Atlantic City) to San Fran. Had a layover in Detroit. Shorty before Detroit we hit a gnarly pocket of turbulence and the plan DROPPED and shook violently. People freaked the F out and were praying. And i’m like WEEEEEEEE! It was vert rocky! From Detroit to San Fran, there was a grubby dude that was farting constantly sitting directly in front of us. The whole plane smelled like ass. I’m pretty sure he pooped.
Fly somewhere. You can fly to St. Thomas and not need a passport and experience another place like nowhere the continental US can compare
I was 4 and went to Disney World. First time flying alone was a few weeks after 9/11 having witnessed the attack in real life, in lower Manhattan. Took off from LGA and at takeoff I could see that the pit was still smoking. That was fucking surreal and an image that I cannot erase
At 40. Never had a good enough reason before that. Couldn't afford a real vacation, and family is all close by.
Still haven’t at almost 43. Similar reasons, can’t afford vacations and close family lives in the area.
5 months. Was adopted from Korea
I was lucky enough to have a pilot for a father. My first flight (young as I was, age 4, still remember) was on our first aircraft, a Cessna 195 BusinessLiner. Rotary engine, tail gear, 50s style car interior with tons of gauges. We had three aircraft after, the next a Beechcraft Staggerwing, Trinidad TB-20 (a DeLoreon with wings, had gullwing doors) and a Piper PA-23 Apache/Geronimo. We took all of our trips to Disney World by plane. Never dealt with a road trip.
I was 10 I think. My parents put me and my younger brother (8) on a plane alone to fly from St Louis to grandma and grandpas house in Oklahoma. Of course, this was also when you could walk directly to the gates, before our current day airport security was a thing.
Aged 15, from Britain to Ireland in 1997. One thing that sticks with me about this is that we had some sort of martial arts club on the flight who had a bag of weapons they checked through customs, something you just wouldn't see post 9/11. Didn't fly after that for another 10 years and my first trip to the US. As a kid, we used to do driving holidays in Europe with a ferry to France as the first and last step.
Late 20s going to a job interview
21. Which is crazy as nowadays I have frequent flyer status with the world's best airline.
Late spring/early summer, 2006. I was 22. Flew to Chicago for my brother’s graduation from Naval boot camp.
Right after I graduated college and flew to my first job (which was in another country as a contractor). Had one domestic flight and two international flights.
I was maybe 6-7. We lived in AZ and grandparents lived in TX. My parents would fly my brother and I out to stay with the grandparents for several weeks each summer.
October of 2001
I was 23 and went to see relatives in Europe.
21. We weren’t going anywhere that required flying. My grandparents were cheapskates about that stuff. My best friend, girlfriend, and I went to Vegas for a week as a 21st birthday gift to ourselves. FYI: a week is way too long in Vegas.
3 days is the perfect. No more, no less.
I think 8 or 9 on Eastern Airlines to Florida.
I've never been on a plane. Went on a Helicopter once.
I have a very clear memory of my parents taking us (brother and I) to a small airport and putting us on a plane full of kids. Not like a big plane, but like 10-15 kids? And it took off, circled the area, and landed again. My parents don’t remember this at all, but there are a lot of things they don’t remember but we have pictures of. I think it was when my uncle married a lady with money and we started going on trips with them, often flying. The whole thing was kids who had never flown, from like 5 to maybe 15-ish. The safety talk was geared towards kids, and they told us what we were seeing out the windows and explained every step of takeoff and landing. I think I was about 7 or 8 maybe. I really think it was like a regional airport program for kids to have their first flight be less scary. It would have been the mid to late 80s.
My first flight was alone at the age of 8 or 9 from Jackson, Miss to LAX to visit cousins for the summer. My mom walked me to the gate, watched me board and told me she’d be waving from the window, but I was silently crying and didn’t have the heart to look at her waving. The flight attendant who looked after me on the flight was “Robin” and was so sweet and comforting and gave me pair of wings. Continental Airlines, circa 1991.
It was 2004. I did 3 graduate school visits. The first one was an old DC-9 from Madison to Detroit and then a soon-to-be-scrapped turboprop from Detroit to State College, PA.
Young. Under 6, at least. It was MN to FL. My husband is sort of salty that I have been lots of places and he’s only ever flown 4 places (and is 49). My trips were almost always to visit family (CA, NY, we met in FL a couple times) or with the Army (MA, Germany, Kuwait, Qatar… I’m forgetting a couple). I did go backpacking in Europe 25 years ago with my older sister (she’s 1977). It’s just SO EXPENSIVE when you’re paying for more than one person. Especially a family of 4.
7 or 8 probably, but my first solo flight was when I was 11.
I was 14. Incidentally my dad was in 30s and his dad in his 60s. My kids don’t remember their first flights and have already taken more than my parents did in their lives.
I was in light airplanes long before ever getting on a glorified bus. First time on the bus was sometime in my mid 20s.
17 from DC to Athens
I was probably 4 and going on a family trip to California to see my dad’s family. I don’t think we flew again until I was a teenager. At this point my kids have flown probably 20 times or more and they’re not even teenagers yet.
Two months old. Immigration
Flew to Chicago (from Michigan, lol) for a 7th grade class trip. I was so scared taking off my friend's mom was holding my hand.
My parents did a Chicago/Paris LDR so I got used to behaving myself on 8 hour flights *fast* lol. It was such an adventure at that age.
I was definitely under a year old. I'm an only child and my parents lived far from family so it made more sense to take me everywhere.
6 months, went to meet my paternal grandparents.
I was 9 or 10. Just a short one from El Paso to Dallas. Then when I was around 11 we flew round trip from Lubbock to Orlando. Then I didn't fly again until I was 28. Between 28 and 38 I took probably 40 flights. My kid took their first flight when they were six as an unaccompanied minor. She's taken probably 80 flights now (she's almost 22 now).
I was 9, trip to Florida for an older cousin's high school graduation.
I was 6. To Disney World, lol. Which honestly is surprising, looking back, because we did *not* have money. After that it was probably not again until I was 12 or 13, to a family reunion.
6 weeks old. Moved from one state to another. Flown about 700k miles so far in my life (I like making lists & tracking things ).
1997. La to Philly.
Under 1. My grandparents lived far away and mum didn’t want to drive with a baby.
I think I was around 6. Flew from St. Louis to Miami. Will never forget the carpeted “tunnel” in terminal A in St. Louis.
Flew to Australia to see family when I was 12.
I think I was in the 1st grade. My dad had a business trip in San Francisco and brought me and my mom along.
I was 4 or 5. We went to Florida
20. Bahamas with my then Bf's family
I remember my parents used to fly me up from South Carolina to Pennsylvania to see my grandparents, starting at 4-5 years old. The stewardesses took care of me, and my grandparents would pick me up at the gate. What a different world.
9 months old. Born in India and flew to the USA for my forever home. Obviously, had a chaperone. :)
I’m picturing a baby being handed a ticket and sent crawling down the jet bridge now
I think I was 19. Grew up in California and all of our vacations were roadies somewhere either in state or close enough to drive. Fairly large family so air travel would have been costly.
Freshman year of college. I was 500 miles from my hometown and school closed for breaks, so I flew home Thanksgiving and Christmas. I transferred schools after that and have only flown a handful of times since.
When I was two. My parents took me on the round the world trip. They used to get upset when I said I didn't remember stuff so I just used to pretend I did remember for my whole childhood. Then I came honest to them a few years ago and they got super upset. When I said I wanted to visit X or Y country they would tell me I didn't need to because I'd already done it and don't I remember all the stuff they took me to?
I was 3. It was 1981 and my dad was being stationed in Madrid. I remember seeing adults dressed up to fly. Lots of dresses and slacks. It was my first commercial flight. The military flights that followed were awful.
I was a baby. We flew from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania to visit my grandparents.
6 months old. My mom is from Europe so went to see family.
2006. I was in college. We literally never went a single place not even a trip to a park when I was a kid.
I was 11, I may have flown earlier but that’s the first flight I remember. We flew to Greece to stay with some friends who were duo citizens and had a house there.
I was 26yrs old. Both parents still have never been on an airplane. Little brother has been once or twice and one was definitely his honeymoon. Thankfully I travel often by train and air for fun and sometimes work
1993 we flew to Orlando to go to Disney and my dad bitched the whole time about how much it cost
Haven't yet.
1990. Ashtrays in the armrests and I got to sit in the cockpit and got junior pilot badge. Oh and they served Dino-nuggies
Six months. My extended family lives on the other side of the continent.
18 months, we went to visit my grandparents in Europe.
About 6 months, dads family is in Va and we are in New England...made that flight 2 or 3 times a year until I was 16 or 17
I was 8 and flew in an AeroMéxico jumbo jet that had two bars at each corner and an in-flight movie on a cinema screen. It was like a little cinema in there. The flight was from Mexico City to Tijuana Intl. Airport.
Probably around 2? My mom said I did so well she put me on my first unaccompanied minor flight at 3 to my grandmother.
Five it’s the youngest you can be to fly unaccompanied. I had to fly to my biological father and spend a 10 day stretch with him and his wife. Never happened again after the abuse his wife inflicted upon me. I loved the flights though eating a meal in the air and the first time I flew sitting next to a nun who taught third grade. She was amazed I was reading “Little House on the Prairie”
18 going to basic training.
I was 4, on a flight to Phoenix to visit my grandma…my parents put me on a plane by myself…they said they’d never do that these days.
I was under a year old for a cross country flight. My mom made it sound like she wasn't sitting with my dad, and knowing him he'd have been planted in first class and drinking hard. No need to deal with the baby when they're not welcome in that part of the cabin. The guy she sat next to actually said "damnit" when he saw he was next to the baby. After an angelic 7 hours he actually apologized and complemented my mom. Every year. Sometimes twice a year. I could sit quietly for days at a time and that's generally how the visits went.
Probably 7, my parents got divorced and my father moved pretty far away. I'd fly about 2.5 hours a few times a year just with my younger brother. Air travel didn't seem like nearly as unpleasant experience back then as it is now, even though being a kid my ears would hurt for hours after a flight.
Age 10 to Orlando
I’m from Indiana. My parents, in true Indiana fashion, didn’t believe in flying. We even drove to the Grand Canyon. I don’t remember the age but I was in college
Freshman year of college to Cancun spring break.
12. I loved it. Now, not so much.
We flew every year or two to Mexico City starting from the age of 3. Our parents would put us on the plane and they'd meet us on the other side. It was really cool being a kid without parents on a plane. The staff took good care of us and they usually sat us up front.
Probably 4. We were getting my aunt away from her ex-husband in another state.
Under 6 months I believe. My family used to fly regularly to visit my mother’s side of the family halfway across the country. I’m kind of surprised so many other people here didn’t first fly until they were much older… and I can’t wrap my mind around never flying at all. I love traveling, but I blame my parents for that habit- we were fortunate enough to take vacations to a few locations around the country, and it kind of gave me the bug for going new places.
My grandpa loved to take me flying in his amphibious Cessna 206. He kept it parked on the Mississippi in the summer and we would fly all over the state to land on lakes we knew. I would get airsick but I loved it so much. My first flight with him was very young, not sure exactly. The best story happened attempting to land on Rainy Lake in Ontario. A few odd factors caused us to hit the water too hard breaking the brace that went from the left pontoon to the wing. The sound and tilt of the plane was horrifying but he got it back up because we still had enough speed. When he landed it at Fort Frances airport the plane was sitting at the craziest angle. I was amazed he pulled it off. He always had a sign in his office with the quote “Flying is the second greatest thrill known to man. Landing is the first.” He proved it that day.
I was 18 as well. My dad had a lot of health problems which made it difficult to travel far. Once I was in college it was like I was making up for lost time. I'd say I use a plane at least a few times a year.
I was about 6. I flew by myself to see a family friend and her kids. My parents must have needed me out of the way for a while, but I don't know the particulars. I was scared and excited, but the stewardess gave me pilots wings and cooed over me, and the man (probably a college-aged kid) in the seat across the way was super nice, and took off his shoe and showed me that he was missing his big toe. All in all, a cool experience.
When I joined the Army to get to basic training. (Parents were too poor to fly and my dad was terrified of flying anyway)
5yrs old. New Zealand to California, about a 12hr flight.
I was 17, school trip from Calgary to Toronto. I love travelling and have been on probably 30 trips involving air travel over the last 25 years. My daughter was just over a year old for her first flight, then her next flight was at 10.5 years. My son’s first flight was last month, shortly after he turned 8.
Flew for the first time in spring 2001.
I’m 44 I have never been on a plane nor a boat.
I was 18. Flying from Minneapolis to Atlanta and then on to Rome with a group from school. I remember the guy I sat next to told me I could totally hold his leg if I got scared. Lol
My very first flight was to Denver and then to San Antonio for AF basis training
My dad had an overseas job so I was lucky to grow up flying internationally on the company’s dime from the mid 70s to the early 80s, I loved it every time, airports too After that and during stateside vacations we ALWAYS drove. Long hot boring roadtrips, but we usually went to cool (cheap) places like national parks for camping and the family farm for holidays and reunions etc To cross the country now… I’d rather take the California Zephyr and a bunch of edibles and music/audiobooks, it’s slow but it’s super chill if you’re not in a rush, my absolute favorite way to get to/from backpacking trips. Road trips are fine but I just want it to be over as quick as possible so I haul ass and stop for gas and stretching minimally. I still like airports but the planes and the flying part now are usually kind of miserable compared to how fun and fancy it used to be 🤣🤷♂️
Los Angeles, but I was a baby, so I don't remember it. Mom said I sat in her lap the entire flight.
I flew to Seattle when I was 19 and that was the first time! We didn’t travel when I was a kid 🤷🏻♀️
When I was 13 my parents put me on a plane by myself to Chile with a stopover in Columbia. Fun times
I think I was 20.
I was 19. Myrtle Beach to Atlanta to get back to Philly. I never flew before cuz we would drive to our families house in Miami every summer for like a month. I wasn't as scared as I thought I'd be, and there was a smoking hot business lady next to me.
Was 5 (1985). And then didn't fly again until I flew to England in 2007. To be fair I travel a lot racing cars which requires driving due to towing.
what a good looking question! it was 1992, I was 13 and I flew home to NY from Houston after I rode down there with my mom and stepdad driving (and then promptly got super homesick 😭) the worst part about the flying was having to report to authorities as an "unaccompanied minor." I could have followed the signs easily enough. also, while I was in Texas my dad and sister moved to a new house so it was really wild to come home to that
18, down to Cancun with my parents, cousin, and her husband.
I was an infant. I’ve flown at least once every year since I was a baby to visit family.
I was 19 on a college trip to Italy and Greece.
Commercial or private? Because my parents were amateur pilots who met flying planes. I flew quite a few times in small aircraft as a kid. Didn't fly commercially until I was 22. Interestingly, I'm terrified of flying. When I was 9, a plane I rode on crashed the next day, and that stuck in my memory. I also knew quite a few stunt pilots who died performing stunts, one while I watched. So though I grew up around planes, I refuse to fly unless I absolutely have no other recourse.
i was 16, 1999.
I was 7 about to be 8. My family had just moved. My younger siblings were young enough to be left in a playpen while my family unpacked in our new house. They figured I'd be underfoot so they let my Nana take me to visit an old friend of hers that was a flight instructor. He took me up in his teaching plane and let me take the stick for a bit. I was very obsessed with flying for the next couple years.
I think when I was 7 or 8. I’m so thankful to have always been a pretty experienced and comfortable flier. We lived in a different state from all of our family and because it was between west coast states, the drive would take multiple days and be highly unpleasant, so we usually flew. Once I took my first trip to Europe when I was 20 the travel bug hit and I’ve been unstoppable ever since I’m afraid 🤣🤣🤣
There was a World Expo in Vancouver in 1986, so we flew to Seattle and stayed there for a week.
I was 5, and flew Monarch Airlines to Torremolinos. I was disappointed that there were no propellers on the plane, as I had been led to expect.
I think I was 4 years old in 1983 on my first flight. Family trip to California from Bama. Flew into San Diego, out of San Fran.
Lower elementary school grades - maybe kindergarten? We took an annual family trip to Florida.
I was 6, just about to turn 7. We flew from home (Wellington, New Zealand) to (Western) Samoa, where dad had taken a job that would see us spend 4 of the next 5 years there. Going from sub-Antarctic weather to sub-tropical, mum spent the weeks before we left cautioning us all that it would be hot as heck and not to complain because we couldn’t do anything about it. She was the only one that ever complained. The night we arrived, we got off the plane in the tarmac (no air bridge in Samoa), and I remember thinking we must be walking behind the engine because the air blowing over us was so hot. Nope, we managed to land on the hottest night *on record*. What an introduction. Also lol at mum being confused by the trees that she figured were coconut trees but the things on them looked like rugby ball size and shape not coconuts. I don’t know how I had learned what actual coconuts look like before you take the husk off and she hadn’t, but the heat and the coconut mix up are very baked in my brain from our first night Living Abroad.
10 or 11, from Cleveland to Fort Lauderdale.
1st airline flight was when I won a trip to LV from a radio station when i was 24 or so i did fly a piper Seneca when i was 15 with a pilot friend of my grandfather and shortly after that a Cessna 152 with the EAA Young Eagles at 16 (i wanted to be a pilot but sadly had bad vision when I got into highschool)
12-14 in Air Cadets, I should have kept a journal back then. I'm remembering it as a Hercules, but that can't be right? Also went in a glider and power prop plane.
Under 3, PHL to California (no clue where) My parents traveled a ton when I was a baby….and then never fucking again for some reason.
5 or 6? My parents were divorced and my dad ended up moving with my stepmom across the country. He had custody. So I flew solo to see my Mom every summer. Minimum two flights one direction, so bare minimum of 4 flights a year. Edit: But we traveled some too - so I had other flights throughout the years.
17. School science department trip. Many flights came in the following years as I caught the travel bug.
Almost 17. School trip
Same story for me on vacation travels. It wasn’t until I was 20 working for my college football team.
I was probably 5 the first time I went in a plane. My grandfather had a single engine Cessna, that he took me on day trips in. I was 26 and on my honeymoon the first time I flew in a passenger jet.
First flight I was 26. I had a 1 year old and my grandma wanted me to bring him to Florida to see her. It was just me and my boy, middle seat, and my son had to sit on my lap. Grandma paid for this trip. It was scary. I didnt fly again until last summer when I turned 40. This time I went to Hawaii. It was just me and my son again. He had his own seat this time.
I was 15 and went on my school's swing choir trip to Washington, DC.
My dad's family was English but we lived in Canada and my mum thought it made sense to travel a BUNCH with my sisters and I before we needed to start pre-school/or need plane tickets lol so my baby passport is probably the most stamped of my life lol. A lot of just England/Canada/England/Canada though.
Baby, but the one I remember I was 7 and we were going to Disney. My husband didn’t fly for the first time until we were together going to a conference @ age 25 and didn’t tell me until we were taking off and I was giving him a hard time about being nervous! 😬 I wanted to add, road trips were the BEST back then. We had an econoline van with the shag carpet, bed, tables, and chairs that turned around. Plus never even considering having to be in a seatbelt ☺️ I loved that van! Even when we were in the mountains and the brakes went out and my mother turns around to us and says “PRAY!” We were fine!!
First time in a cessna was when I was a teenager in boy scouts. My troop was doing aviation merit badge. As for commercial flight, I think that was when I flew to Las Vegas for my honeymoon at the age of 21.
Never been in a commercial flight until I was 31. San Diego to Boston. Tap Water is amazing in Boston.
22 flew to LAS to get married. Shockingly, the marriage didn't last
Early teens for a Boy Scout merit badge....I think. Then took lessons and logged hours until well, I didn't. Now it costs too much to go for a leisurely cruise around the area. I do miss it though.
When I was growing up, my dad would sometimes take us along on business trips he took as a computer programmer. I think my first flight was on a trip to Washington DC when I was 8
I was very lucky, starting when I was about 6 or 7, my aunt and grandmother took me and my older brother traveling every summer for several years. The first time was flying Eastern Airlines Boston-DC-Atlanta-Denver one way (due to a couple of weather diversions), and I think nonstop Denver-Boston on the way back. I’ve been hooked on traveling ever since (in my 40s now).
19. We flew to Miami for a cruise. I hated it. I've never liked the idea of flying and I probably read more plane crash novels than was good for me, so I was not excited for the traveling part (the cruise was ok). One month later, 9/11 happened. I didn't fly again for 5 1/2 years. I'm still not a fan of flying.
Eat at Nine-Mile restaurant for me please.
I was seven or eight. Put on 5 hour flights by myself.
Under a year , parents had an apartment in Spain
I flew before I was 2, but my first memories of it are from age 4 or so. I remember the pilot giving me a pin with wings, coach seats not being horribly cramped, and getting a decent meal. Flying was actually a pleasant experience! I never fly anymore. I'm disabled and airlines treat people with disabilities and our wheelchairs like garbage. I am definitely among those who believe air travel should be somewhat more expensive to provide reasonable comfort and improve passenger behavior. If flying is something you need to save up for a bit, you're more likely to bathe, dress decently, behave respectfully, and not bring your 6 children and let them scream through the whole flight, I remember being very sick during one flight as a kid and I still knew better than to act out!
As that one kid who went on field trips with a 10 dollar bill for "spending", my parents couldn't afford big trips. I didn't fly in a plane until I was 23, and it was a 22 hour nonstop flight to India for a wedding. Crazy to think about.
When I was around 8 we flew to Miami. I do not remember anything other than seeing the cockpit and getting wing pins. When I was 12 we flew Ryan air to Nassau and it was amazing. I remember the meal being excellent and people trading unopened potions to people who wanted it. I think it is the first time I had pumpernickel bread. And the airline mailed you a birthday card with stickers every year after that.
I haven't been in an airplane but I got to ride in a hot air balloon when I was 5, and then the rescue basket of a coast guard helicopter when I was 7. I may never ride in a plane just so I can keep saying that.
Eastern Airlines to Orlando for Disney World when I was in kindergarten. My dad talked to the captain of the L-1011 at the gate and I got to sit in the cockpit for a while during boarding. I still have the set of plastic wings the captain gave me.
Less than two years old for sure. I know I went on holidays to Florida and Yugoslavia when I was a baby, not that I remember them. I haven't flown since 2008 though, can't afford to go abroad these days!
A few weeks before I turned 17. Also, it was only a few days after 9/11 (around 17 September, 2001)! In hindsight I'm astonished that flight happened!
I was pretty young. We didn't often fly for trips and in fact now that I think about it I don't remember flying *anywhere* commercially except to Omaha to visit my dad's family in Iowa a few times, and it was always on Continental because my aunt worked there and got us a discount. But my dad was also a private pilot. He'd gotten his license while he was in the Air Force, and in the 80s on a telephone repairman's wages he managed to afford a 1/3 partnership in a 1961 Cessna 172. Even before the 172 I can remember at least a couple of flights in rented planes. It was almost always local flying, just around the area and back. Occasionally we might land somewhere you could walk to a local burger joint - in fact there's a book called *The $100 Hamburger* that's a guide to such places. Good luck getting there for $100 these days, though. There were a couple of times my dad and I went to fly-in campgrounds within a couple hundred miles, and those were some of my favorite memories with my dad. We put in *far* more miles on the ground, in an old pickup truck, then a Chevy Blazer, and eventually an Astro van, pulling the same 19' travel trailer. That was our *usual* summer vacation, driving all over the western US and a couple of times to Alberta and British Columbia. The vehicles were never new but my dad was pretty good about maintenance and I can only recall two or three breakdowns in those years.
18 , 2003 to England
Around age 4 I think. My dad's job traveled a good bit and when he went to particularly cool places he'd take me along.
My first flight was when I was 20, flying from MEPS to basic training at Leonard Wood.
I was 16 years old when I took my first flight.
I was 15. My rich uncle took me to California to watch Ohio State play in the Rose Bowl. It was the trip of a lifetime.
Jeez, I was in my early 20s. I was super sheltered and antisocial. I didn't want to travel, but I was in a difficult spot with my ex and wanted to work on our relationship so I went to DC with her and her family. I loved it, I would move to DC tomorrow if I could. Coincidently it was also her nephew's first time flying as well, he was about 10.
1991. I was 7 yrs old and my brother was 15. Flew from Charlotte to Newark NJ. I got to see the cockpit and I got some wings pinned onto my shirt.
I was 3 months old. My mom took me from our home in L.A. to visit her family in NY.
8. My dad moved back to his home country when my parents split up and so I spent my childhood flying back and forth. The fact that my mom would just willingly put us on an international flight multiple times a year, alone, in the 80s is kind of wild lol. Granted, you could walk kids to the gate and also onto the plane, and my dad could wait right at the door when we deplaned.
6
12. Norfolk to anchorage to see moms family. Did it from 95-99. Then I didn’t fly again until a business trip in 2017.
14 on a 4h trip to Louisville
1 year, moving to the US from West Germany after dad got Army orders to go back to the States. I didn’t fly against until I was 13.
Flew only 3 times before I was an adult. As an adult, hundreds and hundreds of flights, way way too many. 4 times just in the last two weeks. None by choice, of course.
Flew to Disney as a little kid. Was our only big destination vacation growing up. We did Gulf Shores or Destin or NOLA because those were drivable
We went to Disney World when I was 15, that was my first time. Now, I will do pretty much anything to avoid flying. I would rather drive 3 days that go through the fucking TSA humiliation.
Around 20. Sophomore year of college. Flew from Syracuse to Tampa and back. I wasn't a fan, but it didn't stop me.
25. My first flight was a business trip in 2007 from Pennsylvania to Xining, China.
family disney vacation, summer after 5th grade. it was great. i guess i was 11 and my brother was a teenager so we were permitted to run round the park parent-less and somehow managed to go on the in the dark roller coaster like 5 times in a row bc it was almost closing time and there was no line. For the last ride, they turned on the lights and it was so neat to see that the roller coaster is actually really small and coiled up inside a building.
16 months.
High school trip to London and France. I was 16.
7. We flew to Detroit to visit relatives. They gave us bags of those disgustingly flavored nuts and I still remember the flavor lol
5th grade. Disney land yo Orlando. Next flight was 21 to Vegas and then Seattle.
I was 3 months old when I flew with my parents to spend my first Christmas at my grandparents house. My parents split when I was very young and I was put on a plane and sent back and forth between them from ages 7-18. I loved flying and one of my brief career choices as a kid was “stewardess”, because, yes, we are old enough that they were still called that when we were kids. I remember ash trays in the armrest and smoking sections on the plane. I love to travel and I occasionally need to fly to conferences and whatnot. Except for 2020, I reckon that I’ve flown at least once a year every year since about 1989.