A gift for someone moving abroad: the day they flew

A gift that travels light

Someone moving abroad has spent weeks deciding what is worth the luggage allowance. A framed picture rarely makes the cut, and a parcel sent after them can take weeks and cost them customs charges at the other end.

Our prints are files. After you pay we draw the pack in under a minute and email you a link: four print files and wallpapers for a phone and a desktop. You forward the link, they print the poster once they have a wall to hang it on, and nothing has to be packed, posted or declared.

The day they left home

Choose the airport they left from and the day they flew. We draw every take-off of that day as a line along the path it really flew, coloured by how long each flight lasted, so a move across the world shows up among the longest lines. Their flight is one of them; it is not singled out, but the date and the line you write make the picture theirs. How a day of flights becomes a print explains how it is made.

The one catch: the day has to have happened

We can only draw a day once it is over and its flight data is complete, so a print of their leaving day cannot be ready for the leaving party. There are three good ways round it:

• Give it after they arrive. A link in their first week abroad, with a line from everyone at home, often means more than one more gift in a crowded farewell.
• Choose a day that has already passed: their last trip home before the move, the day they flew out for the job interview, or the day they flew in for a visit.
• Draw the arrival. Choose their new city's airport and switch the print to arrivals: it shows every flight that landed on the day they did. "Welcome to Sydney" works as well as "Come home soon".

Our calendar starts in late September 2025 and covers 385 airports, from Dublin and Heathrow to Sydney and Singapore.

What to write

There is room for one line of up to 60 characters under the airport's name. A few that work:

• Ciara, Dublin to Sydney. Come home soon
• From all of us at number 14
• The day Sam swapped Leeds for Lisbon
• Wherever you land, this is home

The name under the code can change too: it shows the city by default, but "Home" says it more simply.

Printing it in another country

Frame sizes differ around the world. Europe, the UK, Australia and most other countries use the A sizes; the US and Canada use inches. The pack has a print file for each: 3:4 for 18 × 24 in and 45 × 60 cm frames, 2:3 for 24 × 36 in, A-series from A4 to A1, and 4:5 for 16 × 20 in. Whatever the frame shop near their new home sells, one of the files fits it. Our guide to poster sizes and frames goes through them.

One for the people left behind

The files are yours as well as theirs, for your own walls and screens. Many people print a second copy for themselves, or set the phone wallpaper, so the day they left is on both sides of the world.