FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - ON THE ROAD AGAIN: To Bali and Back via RJ, QR, MH, GA, UL and BA + Some Train Rides

Mar 3, 2025 | 9:28 pm

#45

Seat 2A

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Apr 2001

Location: East Ester, Alaska

Programs: Alaska Million Miler, United Million Miler, Wyndham Rewards Diamond, Choice Hotels Diamond

Posts: 13,635

Quote:

Originally Posted by deovrat

I do not know about the others, but heck no, they aren't enough! I long for more frequent Seat 2A reports whenever I open the Trip Reports section of this community, and this is far too little after such a long hiatus. We need more of the verbose reporting on more airlines! I for one, respect your opinion, whilst openly hoping that the travel and writing bug will prove to be too alluring for you to give up

Quote:

Originally Posted by somebol

Thanks for another great report Seat 2A. I discovered your reports within a week of joining flyertalk, back in 2008, and I've been hooked since. I have spent many hours / days vicariously travelling with you on all your trips. Every time I visit the trip reports section of this forum, I hope to see a new seat 2a report. I am very saddened to read that this might be your last report, but it is your decision to make and I respect it. Thank you so much, for all the beautiful sea of prose you have written over all these years. I am really glad to have read all of your reports. p.s. I do hope that you reconsider and keep writing these wonderful reports.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jorganmeister

Thanks for this extremely interesting trip report, I found it very evocative. If you choose to reconsider your inclination to not continue writing up your adventures, my vicarious travels will be far less interesting.

Thanks so much to each of you and anyone else with similar sentiments for your support of my trip reports over the years. It truly is appreciated! Please allow me shed a bit more light on where I’m at with regard to future reports…

I submitted my first trip report to Flyertalk back in December of 2001. In the twenty-three and a half years since then, I’ve submitted an additional eighty-one trip reports totaling a little over one million six hundred thousand words. That’s an average of 19000+ words per report.

And it’s not just total words. This report you’ve just read – or scrolled over as the case may be – has over 350 photos imbedded amidst its 64000 words. I’ve submitted many others very similar in size and total pictures. To put this in contest, consider This article on how many words are in an average novel.

Any of you who’ve ever put together a document of this size and scope will recognize that the process involves a lot of time and effort. And that’s just one report. Now try writing eighty of them…

My reporting style is driven by a genuine love of travel, especially flying. Additionally, a lifelong insatiable curiosity about pretty much everything leads to the inclusion of much historical rumination based upon personal experience and/or knowledge gleaned over a lifetime of travel. And, for better or worse, I tend to notice the little things – an attention to detail that may be a bit overbearing for some. The result is that given the way I’m wired, I can’t help but submit these reports in the style in which I do.

At the same time, I’m not some genius for whom the prose just naturally flows every day. Some days it’s really hard work. Early on, the prose flowed like a torrent from a fire hose – enabling me to write and have these trip reports written and ready to submit within a week or two of having completed my travels. Over the past few years though, it’s become more difficult to put in the time and effort to write these reports in the style with which readers have come to appreciate them over the years. It’s feeling more like work than fun. I’m afraid I’m a bit burnt out.

But don’t cry for me, Argenti – I mean – uh, Flyertalk! It’s been a great run and who knows – given a couple of years off, I might regain my trip reporting mojo for a single report or two.

In the meantime, enjoy the many fine trip reports from our fellow reporters and if I may be so bold, PLEASE, if you’ve enjoyed someone’s report, let them know with an actual comment. People here invest a lot of time and effort into putting even the smaller photo reports together, and the fact that someone could presumably “enjoy” reading all of the prose and/or pictures involved in anyone’s submitted report – especially some of the more detailed ones - and then show their “gratitude” with only a cheap and easy “Like” click - it’s kind of like leaving a 5 cent tip for your waiter after a great meal. Be kind to your Trip Reporters.

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