A very useful essay on long haul travel in our modern world, a lot of good advice.
Charles Stross is actually a science fiction writer (an exceptionally good one actually), but this is essay is just about travel.

Side thought: How and why air travel has gotten so genuinely insane and whether all the madness surrounding it actually has any purpose other than making government officials pretend to be useful and citizenry feel a false sense of security is an entirely different (though very important) issue.