Christine Landis regularly takes a private jet from San Diego to Mammoth Mountain with two kids and an 80-pound chocolate Lab.

The drive is eight hours, including the stops you make when you’re traveling with children and a large dog. The flight is about one hour. And time, as they say, is money.

Landis is part of a group that has grown a lot bigger than most people realize. WingX Advance counted 3.9 million business jet departures worldwide in 2025, up 5% and the highest annual total on record, breaking a mark set in 2022. Back then the surge was a pandemic story. This time there’s no pandemic. There’s something more durable going on.

At passport control in Istanbul last month, I watched a border officer look at my passport, then at my face, then back at my passport. His eyebrows knit together. He called over a colleague. Then another. Within seconds, I had a small panel of Turkish officials studying the seven-year-old photo in my passport and comparing it to the person standing in front of them: me, but 88 pounds lighter than I’d been when the picture was taken.

My weight loss had been gradual, over three and a half years, and achieved without GLP-1 medication. But it was still enough to make me look like a different version of myself in that little blue booklet. The exchange lasted only a minute or two, but it left me wondering: If a slow transformation could raise questions, what happens when someone’s appearance changes faster?

Dmitri Laush was finishing a round of golf in Dubai when everything changed. By that evening, an explosion had rattled his hotel, the airport had shut down, and rockets were streaking across the sky. With no clear guidance and limited options, he made the decision to move quickly rather than wait for help. His experience is just one example of how fast a routine trip can turn into a high-stakes situation, and why travelers today need to think differently about safety, planning, and getting home.

It never crossed my mind that the most dangerous thing in Nairobi would be on the road. A mosquito carrying an exotic disease or a hippopotamus, maybe. But when I boarded a bus — and then gripped the seat in front of me in panic as it nearly collided with several vehicles on the road — I knew I was wrong.

If you have ever knocked on a plane before boarding, tapped your suitcase for luck, or stuck to a small ritual before a trip, you are definitely not alone. The Dallas Morning News recently explored the world of travel superstitions, highlighting the quirky habits travelers rely on, the traditions that have stuck around for generations, and the question we all wonder about before takeoff: which of these rituals actually help make a trip feel smoother?