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Solar Plane Completes Cross-Country Journey

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Travel Technology

Solar Plane Completes Cross-Country Journey

SmarterTravel

There's a 95 percent chance Senior Editor Christine Sarkis is thinking about travel right now. Follow her on Instagram @postcartography and Twitter @ChristineSarkis.

Christine Sarkis is an SATW-award-winning journalist and executive editor at SmarterTravel. Her stories have also appeared on USA Today, Conde Nast Traveler, Huffington Post, and Business Insider. Her advice has been featured in dozens of print and online publications including The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, and People magazine. She has also shared travel tips on television and radio shows including Good Morning America, Marketplace, and Here & Now. Her work has been published in the anthologies Spain from a Backpack and The Best Women's Travel Writing 2008. She is currently working on a travel memoir.

The Handy Item I Always Pack: The Trtl Pillow. It's easy to pack and comfortable, and makes it so I can actually sleep on flights.

Ultimate Bucket List Experience: Seeing the Aurora Borealis from the comfort of somewhere warm, like a glass igloo or hot spring.

Travel Motto: Curiosity is an amazing compass.

Aisle, Window, or Middle Seat: Aisle all the way.

Email Christine Sarkis at editor@smartertravel.com.

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In a feat that would have pleased both Icarus and Daedalus, a solar-powered aircraft capable of flying during day and night ended its multi-leg cross-country journey in New York last Saturday.

The AP has the full scoop, but here are some of the flashier details: the Solar Impulse started from California in early May, powered by about 11,000 solar cells on its large wings.

The plane could cruise at 30,000 feet, but its top speed was … 45 miles per hour. Since its journey began in San Francisco this spring, the Solar Impulse has visited Phoenix, Dallas-Fort Worth, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Washington, D.C.

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Sure, there are much, much faster ways to cross the continent, but it’s great to see the spirit of adventure and innovation is alive and well in the skies. Of the trip, one of the plane’s two pilots said, “Flying coast-to-coast has always been a mythical milestone full of challenges for aviation pioneers.”

An upgraded version of the plane will be used in a 2015 flight around the globe.

(Photo: Charles Barilleaux via flickr/CC Attribution)

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