I think if you were to ask someone not trained in navigation "to fly straight" between two points on the globe, they are probably not going to come up with the

I think if you were to ask someone not trained in navigation "to fly straight" between two points on the globe, they are probably not going to come up with the concept of great circles and most likely will end up turning a bunch during their flight "to fly straight". I could be wrong but I think "most obvious" if we are defining it as "the most natural thing most people would do without explicit training" then the article is wrong and this thread would agree with this conclusion. I don't disagree that it is possible to deduce the great circle if you think about it and have the knowledge to coordinate systems. But why even ask the question this way when you can get to the core of the question by explicitly asking "Along the great circle that reaches its max latitude at Seattle, what's the next country it touches going eastward from Seattle?" This would yield many more correct answers and why people think its mostly wordplay (because it is).