The short answer: Peter Shankman really did buy a round-trip business-class ticket from Newark to Tokyo basically so he could trap himself on airplanes long enough to finish a book. He wrote chapters 1–5 outbound, turned around in Tokyo, got back on the same plane in the same seat, and wrote chapters 6–10 on the flight home.
He Flew to Tokyo Because Apparently a Coffee Shop Was Too Convenient
Shankman has told this story for years: he had a book deadline, the research was done, and the actual writing was not.
So instead of renting a cabin, locking himself in a hotel room or doing the normal writer thing where you rearrange your desk seventeen times and call it progress, he bought a business-class ticket to Tokyo.
His own Faster Than Normal account says the Newark-to-Tokyo flight took about 14 hours. He wrote chapters 1 through 5 on the way there.
That part alone is aggressive productivity.
The “Two-Hour Return Flight” Was Never a Thing
The old version of this story said Shankman landed in Tokyo and then wrote the second half of the book on a “two-hour return flight.”
Unless somebody quietly moved Tokyo to Cleveland, that was obviously wrong.
In Shankman’s own retelling, the return flight was about 12 hours. The short part was the turnaround in Tokyo: get off the plane, clear the arrival process, briefly reset, then get back on the aircraft and fly home.
He says he returned to the same plane and even the same seat, then wrote chapters 6 through 10 on the way back to Newark.
Tokyo was less a destination than a very expensive U-turn.
How Much Did the Tokyo Writing Trip Cost?
This is where the story gets annoyingly human.
The old article says $4,000 in one paragraph and $5,000 in another. Shankman’s own retellings also vary somewhat depending on when and where he told the story.
On his own site, he describes the business-class ticket as costing upwards of $5,000. Other interviews have used slightly different figures.
So I am not going to pretend there is a sacred receipt laminated somewhere in a museum.
The useful fact is simpler: this was a several-thousand-dollar business-class flight purchased specifically to create a place where he knew he could focus and write.
How Long Did the Whole Trip Take?
Same problem.
Shankman’s published retellings have put the total elapsed trip at different numbers — roughly 31 to 37 hours.
In a 2020 On Top of PR interview, he said he landed 37 hours after leaving with the book completed. On his Faster Than Normal site, he gave the figure as 31 hours.
Rather than average those numbers and invent a new number nobody ever said, I am leaving the variation visible.
The point survives just fine: he went to Tokyo and back without actually going to Tokyo in any meaningful tourist sense, and used the flights as a flying office.
Was This the Dumbest Reason to Fly Business Class?
If the metric is “Did he experience Tokyo?” then yes, this was an absolutely terrible vacation.
If the metric is “Did he finish the book?” then the ridiculous plan worked.
That is what makes the story interesting. Shankman knew airplanes were one of the places where he could focus. So instead of trying to turn his normal environment into an airplane, he simply bought the airplane problem at full retail.
I am not recommending anyone spend several thousand dollars and cross the Pacific because Microsoft Word feels more productive at altitude.
But I do admire the commitment.
Most of us procrastinate by cleaning the kitchen.
Peter Shankman procrastinated so aggressively he accidentally went to Japan and wrote a book.