You really can't expect non-FF'ers to understand that spending time in a plane isn't really torture.
Personally, I rather enjoyed my TPE run. I got time to read, watched a couple of movies, and was generally happy about being completely cut off from my work for almost 3 days. I felt no urge to try my VPN, and only checked my personal e-mail. It was pretty darn relaxing.
Of course, the mileage calculations also came out distinctly positive in terms of net value.
