Travel pictures start with the journey, including your airplane ride

Sightseeing requires nothing more than a pair of comfortable shoes, and a camera if you’d like to capture pictures. I always add time in any trips for exploring and long walks for this reason. The highest daily step count I’ve had traveling was in New York at about 25k (I got lost). And I have done 27k in my hometown of Chicago. But what if I told you, you can have a great photo session for a couple of hours, stunning views, and different terrains at zero steps? As you can see the picture above, I present you the laziest way to get full sightseeing session — a plane ride.

Perfect way to spend your plane ride

Keep in mind, I said lazy and easy, not comfy. This is a plane ride after all. The only planning you’ll need is to make sure you get the window seat. And no shame in taking pictures, although lots of people like to peek at the clouds. Even from the aisle. So I take pictures from the window seat but give it a rest too to minimize avoiding my neighbors. I’ve often been in the aisle or middle seat and look out the window a bit. I don’t try to invade anyone’s space but if something catches my eye, I take a look. Most people understand since it’s only a few seconds. I make sure to share when I’m in a window seat since everyone wants to spot a shot or two during the ride. go ahead and see what you can get sightseeing on a plane.

Personally, I have no fear riding a plane. Just total faith that it won’t fall. Even with turbulence but I haven’t had aggressive, violent turbulence yet. I’ve mad major drop offs, which just forces me to pay attention. And shaking for a minute here and there on the same flight, but I don’t ever feel in danger or at risk. Which doesn’t make sense since there’s always risk to flying. I know the most dangerous parts are the first and last 15 minutes. As long as we clear that, statistically the odds are miniscule for a crash in the midflight.  

If anything, airports make me nervous. Arriving in a busy area with people all over, going through security, doing everything quickly – lots of nerves there. Then getting to the right airline, then terminal, then gate. Looking for seats. Even if I’m too early and people aren’t there yet, I’m making camp. And people trickling in gets me a little anxious and slowly the gate begins to pile. People lining up or crowding around as the plane is about to board feels a little tense.

But flying with a little drop off or turbulence doesn’t bother me. I have too much faith in planes.

clouds in all stages

But once you’re on the plane, with nothing to do, you got to go for pictures. Now, I’m not an expert on plane photography (I don’t think that’s a term). And scanning the internet certainly doesn’t build up confidence. But yes, I’m seeing people get close on the terrain. I’ll definitely have to work on that for next time. so enjoy sightseeing from the plane.

I’ll divide pictures into three categories: clouds & sky, terrain. With that let’s take a look.

Shadows of clouds over the terrain, fun to see. It’s more obvious with the small clouds but there are shadows below this large cluster.

Peeks seen through the fog of clouds.

These clouds were super dense, this is what I generally expect from clouds during a flight, but I don’t usually see this.

Sometimes there are just blankets of clouds, these look like snow.

Love the contrast of these, the sun was gracing the clouds in these.

Now after our thrill of the clouds, let’s switch over to the terrain. there’s a lot of cities and plains i’m sure but i didn’t go for that. looking back at my pictures, i mostly went for mountains, valleys, and anything that confused me. no, really. anything i couldn’t immediately identify i took a picture of to look into it later.

different terrains from your plane seat

These circles are used for large-scale irrigation on farms. not crop circles. Seems like a strange pattern but circles are the most efficient.

Given these are only domestic flights, I’m not getting any oceans but rivers and lakes.

Here are some valleys.

Got to love mountains.

Sightseeing from a plane is a great way to spend time on a flight. Catch some clouds, look at the different terrains, and see everything America offers. International travelers have mentioned online at how surprising the US is in size and diversity of terrain and environment. One could travel more for the beaches, mountains, forests, deserts, or swamps even (I’m looking at you Florida and South Carolina). And yes, there are a lot of plains. My literal home state of Illinois is the second flattest state in the US. Believe me, I get excited at the different terrains. Also weirded out when seeing pictures of mountain towns and cities. I fight the urge to ask, you walk out the door and that mountain’s there the whole time? It just seems weird to me to see the physical characteristics of the land, front and center. I live in a city and get happy seeing the urban skyline when I’m nowhere near downtown. I’m used to seeing what society has built vs the natural characteristics of the land.

And there you have it, the easiest no-step sightseeing you can do.