ABC Wednesday - T is for Travel

I could have gone T for Tallinn but you can see my photos and account of that lovely city here and here.

I could have gone T for Trondheim but you can see my photos and account of that lovely city here.

I could have gone T for Tenerife but you can see my photos and account of that island here.

People seem to have the impression that I am well-travelled but I have only visited 13% of the world.



This map and the others you can compile on the net are bit misleading but interesting nonetheless. For the first 50-odd years of my life apart from a week in Amsterdam in 1980 [which included a day-trip to Brussels] and one holiday in Denmark, I never left the UK. However we saw an awful lot of the UK from St Agnes in the Scillies to Unst in Shetland. Very few areas of the British Isles are unvisited.

We didn't start world-travelling until 1999 when we ventured across the sea to Ireland. Later that year we flew via Amsterdam to Los Angeles. On the visited countries map that is enough to colour in the whole of the USA from New York westwards including Alaska.

In 2001 we had our tremendous holiday of a lifetime spending a month travelling around New Zealand which puts some colour in the bottom right-hand corner. The dot representing Singapore, our only stopover in Asia barely shows up.

The following year, having had to give up driving, we took a coach holiday through Europe visiting 9 countries in 9 days. There were some highlights but, in some respects it was possibly one of our grimmest holidays. It certainly colours the map though.

It was three years before we ventured abroad again on a fabulous cruise to Ireland, Greenland, Iceland and Norway. In 2006 we went quite mad (and why not?). Firstly we had a holiday in February to Tenerife, which adds Spain to the map even though we've never seen its mainland. June saw us on our second cruise, this time to the Baltics. Although we only visit St. Petersburg, the map covers in the whole of Russia all the way to Siberia! Finally at the end of September we went to Crete, which adds Greece to the map even though we've never seen its mainland.

Our only holiday this year was a week in Southport. We have enjoyed a few day-trips to various places. The likelihood is that we won't be doing very much physical travelling in the future except for short journeys. Any regrets? Absolutely none. I travel Around the World everyday without leaving home.