In 1931 Wiley Post and navigator Harold Gatty flew around the world in the aircraft Winnie Mae. Their journey took just over eight days and broke previous speed expectations for global travel. It made rapid aerial circumnavigation a public measure of modern progress.

Fast world flights altered the literary sense of distance, season, and foreignness. The globe became something that could be narrated through headlines and elapsed hours, not only through long voyages and epic wandering.