I think people are missing the point of the 'world tour'. It is not just what happens inside the IETF that is important, it is the perception of the IETF in other forums. In particular government forums. The politics of communication systems sit in the top tier in international diplomacy. Only actual military conflict outranks them. One thing that every successful politician understands is the impact of communication infrastructures on their position. The Clinton Gore online campaign set up a Web server in 1992. That is before Mosaic came out. The BA location was being decided round about the time that the Arab Spring was occurring. How quickly people forget. As far as travel goes, BA was less inconvenient for me than Hawaii. And dramatically less difficult than Japan or South Korea. But what we are up to is causing vastly more inconvenience to a lot more people than a few long distance plane rides. The Internet isn't just cat pictures and a mountain of porn. The Internet is the pulse of freedom.