This Is Why I Never Buy Internet on Planes
And I have no regrets
Have you ever traveled on a plane?
Have you ever floated the idea of paying ridiculous fees to use their internet?
I have. But I refuse to pay for internet on planes for a few reasons.
We all know they could just give it out for free.
I’m cheap
This one’s pretty basic.
Why would I pay for something I can get for free when I land?
I get it if you pay for it for your work. Some people pay for it and then earn more than they paid by working online.
That’s all good in my mind. Totally logical.
But paying up to $24.99 doesn’t feel right to me.
And there’s a better reason I don’t pay for the internet.
The real reason
Beyond being cheap, I enjoy the time up in the air.
I’ve found that this is when I do some of my best thinking and writing.
On a flight last week, I probably came up with around 100 ideas for stories in a few hours. Plenty of them are garbage. Many will never get written. But a few might turn out to be diamonds in the rough.
Being up in the air helps my ideas flow. And that’s worth a lot.
I was even able to write one story on my phone while up in the air. I bet I’ll get better at this with time.
Of course, I sometimes get bored. Incredibly bored.
I’ll throw on some garbage Netflix show I downloaded on my phone before taking off. Or I’ll watch one of the terrible movies available on the airline’s streaming platform to waste a few hours and make the flight seem shorter.
That’s how I know they could make the internet free. They let you use the internet to watch whatever they allow you to, but they won’t let you use it to do whatever else you want to do.
Now they’re gonna chase me down with free internet vouchers so that I keep my mouth shut and don’t start an uprising. I don’t even want their stupid internet.
Looking out the window
Get a window seat. Or an aisle.
But don’t be one of those rare few who pays to sit in the middle.
In a window seat, you have the luxury of looking out over the world.
When you’ve traveled a lot, you start to take it for granted.
But it’s pretty remarkable when you think about it.
You’re around 30,000 feet in the air sitting inside a metal bucket.
Looking out at the clouds can leave me feeling awe-inspired. Sure, I know what clouds are at this stage in my life.
But there’s something so clean, fluid, and beautiful about them moving through the sky. They almost look fake at times.
Anyway, the window seats are the best.
When you take off and land, you get to see a place from way overhead. I love this sliver of time.
You get to see things from a birds-eye view.
Thousands of feet up in the air, you realize how little we all are.
Watching cars move through traffic along the highway when they’re about the size of an insect sticks with me.
I try to let this remind me that I need to zoom out sometimes.
Sure, we are all unique individuals with our pasts, problems, frustrations, and fears. But we’re all just a part of a much larger existence.
From up above, it’s hard not to notice that.
There’s a certain rhythm or cycle you can see as you watch these tiny people move around throughout their lives. And then after I land, I become one of these tiny people for the next plane dweller to observe from above.
While looking out the window, I’m able to appreciate the natural beauty of a landscape. Some places are flat and dry. Others are lush and green. Some feel deserted. Others feel like there are people bursting out of every nook and cranny.
They’re all different. And they’re changing over time.
Why this happens
I have one main hunch as to why I’m able to get my best thinking and writing done on planes. It’s pretty simple.
There are no distractions.
Well, there are a few:
- The kid kicking on the back of your chair
- That annoying guy getting territorial about the armrests
- The baby in the back of the plane who refuses to lose the battle with the baby at the front of the plane about who can cry the loudest
- The flight attendant announcing something nobody pays attention to
- The stench of the bathroom a few rows behind you
I’m sure there are more. I could’ve kept going for days.
But these distractions are pretty manageable.
They’re better than the distractions we face in our daily lives. The constant pings, rings, and dings.
Being on a plane insulates you from the outside world. Without internet, you’re unreachable.
And that’s a beautiful thing.
I’ve stopped paying for internet on planes because I love that beautiful sliver of time when I’m unavailable to the rest of the world.
Completely untethered.
It allows me to relax and think creatively.
Over time, flying becomes mundane for some people. But imagine how crazy it must have been the first time you were on a flight. You were probably pretty intrigued by the experience.
Imagine how crazy it’d be for one of our great-grandparents to hop on a plane and cross the world. Their minds would be blown.
There are so many things we can overlook. My flying experience has improved when I become more aware of all the little things I’d typically overlook.
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