When airline pilot Mark Vanhoehacker wrote his book, “Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot” about his life as an airline party he started the book with an invitation for readers to send them their own favorite photographs from the window seat. “This was important to me for a couple of reasons. One of the pleasures of being an airline pilot is the chance to interact with individual travelers. I find myself talking with passengers in airport terminals (people often chat to crew in elevators, I’ve noticed), on rental car shuttles, and of course on the airplane itself,” he said.

He didn’t expect to be inundated with hundreds of photos and stories that readers shared. Here are some photos snapped by passengers on a plane:

Wisconsin with fall foliage, from a Cessna 182. (Photo: Alan Josephsen)

Mount Blanc, seen from a flight between Nice and Frankfurt in April 2012. (Photo: Craig Parsons)

Sunrise from a flight between Chennai and Kolkata, in February 2015. (Photo: Sandhya Shekar)

A volcano out the window of a helicopter, from Rotorua, New Zealand, to White Island. The shadow of the rotor is evident at the upper right corner of the frame. (Photo: Alex Kramer)

Approaching the runway at Kilimanjaro International Airport in 2010. (Photo: Juliana Hinch)

Hong Kong harbor from on board a Cathay Pacific flight in 2015. (Photo: Susmith Gopalan)

A full moon rises over the wing of a flight between Stockholm and London. (Photo: David Spreadbury)

Approaching San Francisco in the sunshine, in August 2014. (Photo: Mila Gergova)

An ice-cap in Greenland, seen from a 767 en-route to Vancouver. (Photo: Graham Light)

Clouds, mountains and other aircraft: an early morning arrival into Santiago de Chile. (Photo: Andreas Symietz)

A spring morning over London. (Photo: Mark Vanhoenacker)

Grids of fields in Minnesota, spied on a flight between Nebraska and Baltimore. (Photo: Trevor James)

Looking out the window at The Columbia Gorge and Mt Adams. (Photo: Donella Russell)

Flying to Bagram, Afghanistan, from Dubai. (Photo: Jeanie Gaudette)

A view of the Himalayas from a Buddha Air propeller aircraft. (Photo: Laura Schwecherl)

Winter beauty seen from a flight over the St Lawrence Bay and River, in January 2014. (Photo: Gisela Rochelle)

The view from the back window of a Cessna 182 while training over Southern England. (Photo: Richard Evans)

The Alaskan landscape viewed from the passenger seat of a seaplane. (Photo: Edward L. Applebaum)

Clear skies after sunrise: approaching Los Angeles in early summer. (Photo: Travis Henry)

Flying over Nepal in 1994, in a high wing turbo propeller plan, with a view towards Mount Everest. (Photo: Clive Garrard)

Snowy scenes from a Bombardier Q400 turbo-prop airliner traveling to Toronto. (Photo: Anne Kelly)

A lake spotted on a flight from Moscow to the United States, in the frozen landscape of Greenland. (Photo: Shreenand Sadhale)

Mark Vanhoehacker’s book Skyfaring.