It only counts if you actually get "soil" (dirt) from the country/state/city on your shoes. LHR isn't England, CDG isn't France and AMS isn't Holland.

In the US, DTW is definitely not Detroit, however JFK comes close to being New York City.

My rule is quite simple: If I've flushed there, I've been there.

AA still flies from NO (MSY) to STL, DFW and ORD

Arrrrrgh! You beat me to it!

My rules for declaring I've been in a particular state/country/etc is if I have done one or more of the following things:

1. Spent greater than 4 hours there
2. Cleared immigration, gotten a passport stamp, etc.
3. Spent actual currency there
4. Used the plumbing facilities

To answer the OP, no, I definitely do not actively seek to inject connections into my travels. I usually don't even do it for the more-common Flyertalker reason, adding EQM/RDM to the trip. It has to be for some very specific reason for me to do it: in December, needing a known and precise number of segments/miles for a meaningful elite tier, that kind of thing.

Connections increase the chances that something goes wrong. Perhaps less so if it's a "direct" flight on a carrier where they really don't change planes, but still a lot higher chance than with a nonstop.

I don't focus on my "lists", but if I did I'd simply describe it as two separate lists: locations I've genuinely visited and airports I've flown through. I'd only socialize the airport list with serious travel nerds...that is, I'd never tell my "normal" (non-FT'er ) friends I've been to Salt Lake City when all I've done is use SLC for connections a few times in my life. Anyone other than us would say "That's stupid, you haven't really *been* to Salt Lake City. You don't know where to go get a good burger, you don't know where to go for a morning run, you don't even know what neighborhood in which to select a hotel." My SLC knowledge starts and ends with what's around and between the Delta gates...

Wirelessly posted (Samsung Galaxy S: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.0.4; en-us; SGH-T989 Build/IMM76D) AppleWebKit/534.30 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/534.30)

I presume you are talking about using your own plumbing facilities.

What I miss are the classic "milk run" flights where a number of stops were made en route with no change of plane....

Such as LAX-PHX-TUS-ELP-MAF-AUS-IAH-MIA which was flown by Continental with a B727-200....

Or HOU-DAL-MAF-ROW-ABQ-SAF which was operated by TTa with a DC-9-10....

Or JFK-PHL-DCA-JAX-MCO-TPA-MLB-PBI-MIA which was flown by National with a Lockheed L-188 Electra.......

Or SEA-SIT-JNU-YAK-CDV-ANC-UNK-OME-OTZ which was operated by Alaska Airlines with a B727-100....

Nothing like sitting in a window seat ahead of the wing for all of these takeoffs and landings while watching the world go by as well as the various airports.....

Milk run routes are still flown. But the aircraft might carry different flight numbers. I have flown, GPT-MEM-EWR-MSP on the same plane with the same crew with different flight numbers. The plane was headed to somewhere in North Dakota-BIS, I think.
It was hilarious. The first class FA recognised me right away when I got back on the plane in MEM. When I got off in EWR, she joked, "I had better not see you again". Of course, I didn't know that I was going to be on the same plane for my next leg. Neither of us could believe our eyes when the same FA greeted me. She told every member of the crew and we all laughed. When I got off in MSP, she remarked, "Are you coming with us again?" I was going to SEA.

I was referring to those type of flights that had the same flight number with multiple stops en route with no change of aircraft (although you might well see a flight and cabin crew change during the journey, especially with regard to the old interchange services that were flown between Alaska and the lower 48 states back in the day).

Using the same flight number criteria, there are just not that many milk run routes left that are operated by U.S. air carriers. SEA-JNU-YAK-CDV-ANC operated by AS comes to mind as does the old Air Micronesia island hopper route between HNL and GUM that is now operated by UA.....

No.

LHR IS ENGLAND! It is IN England so it is part of England! where else would it be? this is getting silly.

It's why I go back to having two lists. One is for my fellow aviation nerds. The other is for everyone else.

Similarly, the air 30,000 feet above England is IN England, and hence a part of England. Having your feet touch ground, or not, is a meaningless distinction when it comes to being "physically in" a country.

I think there's something a little cool about milk run flights, and I can't really put my finger on why...

Been on three I think, where there was no getting off the plane...

IST-DXB-SIN - Bizarrely, we were checked by UAE immigration in DXB, on the plane, no idea why
BUD-WAW-GSE - Had to point out our luggage in WAW to make sure no one left anything.
BNE-HIR-INU - Anything involving going to the world's smallest republic is pretty interesting. The milk run on this flight continues to either TRW or NAN on alternate weeks. It's not scheduled to stop in HIR anymore, but the last time I went, we had to stop there anyway, due to low fuel stocks on Nauru.

Still waiting to do the Island Hopper!