Map: Oh, the (Very Few) Places Edward Snowden Can Go

Somewhere in a Moscow airport, Edward Snowden is watching a departure board.
Each flight spirits its passengers far from Sheremetyevo Airport and the "transit zone" where Snowden is holed up, with the international media prowling about for any sign of him, but none carries the NSA leaker. Oh, the places he could go -- if only he weren't the world's most-wanted man at the moment. Instead he's stuck, in limbo, while American officials clamor for his arrest.

What's particularly striking is how few options Snowden has. Using data from OpenFlights.org, FP put its travel agent hat on -- examining the potential routes Snowden could have taken from Hong Kong to end up in a country conceivably willing to shield him from U.S. extradition. In order to satisfy the requirements of this exercise, his itinerary couldn't connect through the airport of a U.S.-friendly country -- a scenario that would all but assure Snowden's arrest. Many of the potential sanctuaries that emerge are about as unappealing as the prospect of a stiff U.S. jail sentence.

So when he left Hong Kong over the weekend, what options did Snowden have? We've sketched out some possible itineraries in the map below:

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