Until my teens, trips abroad usually meant kid-friendly tours of some Australia city with my immediate family and my cousins. The exceptions were a couple of school trips to China and Thailand. There was also a dash across the Strait of Johor to catch the Malaysian Grand Prix.
Things changed in late 2006. I boarded an airplane alone for the first time that year. Since then, most of my trips have been long ones. I also spent a few months in the United States and New Zealand where I did my student exchange and working holiday respectively.
As of November 2015, the map of the countries that I’ve been to looks like this:
I’ve visited 21 states (9.33%)
Create your own visited map of The World
Australia
Belgium
Canada
Cambodia
China (and Hong Kong)
England
Estonia
Finland
Germany
Indonesia
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
Mexico
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Poland
Scotland
Singapore
Taiwan
Thailand
USA
These are the itineraries of the trips that I made as an adult:
2006/07: Helsinki – Turku … Rovaniemi – Helsinki
2009: Warsaw – Mikolajki … Krakow – Zakopane – Warsaw
2010: San Diego (b) – Leon – Guanajuato … Los Angeles – Vancouver – Whistler … Seattle – Los Angeles
2011: Christchurch (b) – Hanmer Springs … Tekapo – Mount Cook … Kaikoura … Akaroa
2011: London – York – Newcastle – Edinburgh – St Andrews – Glasgow – Oban – Arran – Manchester – Birmingham – Northampton– London – Salisbury – Bath – Bristol – Stratford – London
2012: Taipei – Hualien – Taipei
2013: Helsinki – Tallinn – Kuressaare – Tartu– Riga – Sigulda – Cesis … Nida – Vilnius – Warsaw – Lublin – Krakow– Wroclaw– Dresden – Bamberg – Nuremberg – Cologne – Trier … Utrecht – Amsterdam – Antwerp – Brussels – Ghent… Berlin – Poznan – Gniezno – Torun – Gdansk – Turku – Jyvaskyla – Tampere – Frankfurt
2013/14: Auckland – Whangarei – Paihia – Kerikeri – Cape Reinga – Ahipara … Rotorua – Taupo – Napier – Wellington – Kaikoura– Christchurch – Akaroa … Oamaru – Dunedin – Curio Bay – Stewart Island – Invercargill – Te Anau – Queenstown – Wanaka – Fox Glacier – Franz Josef – Hokitika – Punakaiki – Christchurch
2014: Hobart – Launceston – Bay of Fires – Bicheno – Port Arthur – Hobart – Melbourne
2014: Shanghai
2014: Siem Reap
2015: Bangkok
2015: Yogyakarta – Borobudur – Surakarta – Yogyakarta
*****
I would love to paint the entire map red one day, but that is going to take some time and a lot of money. I would also like to return to a few of the countries I’ve already been to, such as England, Latvia, the US and Germany to see different cities and re-visit friends in familiar ones.
Many people are guilty of putting off visits to neighbouring sights in favour of faraway destinations. As you can see, I’m one of them. Europe is as exotic to me as Asia is to someone from the old world. I know I will go to Cambodia and Myanmar and revisit Indonesia, where all the ancient sites that I studied in art history class are. Hopefully it’ll happen before my legs give way or I get sick of flying. (Update 11.11.2015: I can now say that I’ve seen Angkor, Borobudur and Prambanan)
If you were to give me a free flight to any destination tomorrow*, any of the following places will make me happy. You can see the full list in my Bucket List.
I’d like to visit 25 states (11.1%)
* If La Sagrada Familia is completed tomorrow, please put me on the first flight to Barcelona.