Circumnavigation

Have you ever gone on a long car ride or trip with your family, where you drive in a big circle and end up back where you started? That's kind of what circumnavigation is, but instead of a car, it's done on a boat or a plane, and instead of a circle, it's a really big, round trip around the whole world!

Imagine you're standing on a big, round ball (like a beach ball). If you start at one point on that ball, and keep traveling in one direction, you'll eventually end up back where you started. It's like walking around a circle, except that circle is the whole world! That's what circumnavigation means.

People have been doing circumnavigation for a very, very long time - all the way back to the days of the explorers like Ferdinand Magellan and Christopher Columbus. They sailed in big boats across the oceans, going all the way around the world and discovering new lands along the way.

Nowadays, you can also do circumnavigation in a plane - by flying all the way around the world without stopping. It's still a really big journey, and not many people have actually done it!

So, that's what circumnavigation means - going all the way around the world in a big circle. It's like one really, really long road trip!