Now take a mile in the middle of the journey, say from L to M. Back when the photon passed through it, that was just a mile. By now though, it's 5 miles.
Now take the last mile that the photon travelled, Y to Z. The universe hasn't had time to expand since then, so that's still 1 mile.
Now if you think about the average mile that the photon has passed through, that average mile is going to be most like that L to M mile. By now that average mile has grown to 5 miles.
So, the photon originally covered 13.7 billion lightyears in distance. On average, those lightyears have now stretched out to 5 lightyears. So the distance the photon has covered has by now stretched out to 5 * 13.7, or 68.5 billion light-years.
That doesn't mean that the photon ever went went faster than light. Back in the day when it moved between those points, they were much closer together.--"Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise." -- Bertrand Russell[ Parent ]