A Great Year of Travel
In his “Myths About Travel Bloggers” series, Efficient Asian Man recently tackled the subject of bloggers and travel. He asserts that many popular bloggers don’t travel very much at all. While I don’t agree with everything in his post, it definitely made me think.
I write this blog and participate in this hobby because I love to travel. I usually travel so much that my friends often say, “I’m surprised you are in the country.” While I did spend about four months abroad in 2014, it was less than the six months I spent traveling in 2013.
2014 started off with a bang since we ended up sleeping at Los Angeles International Airport on New Year’s. Through the course of the year I had several amazing trips including two marvelous weeks in India, a fabulous cross-country train ride on Amtrak, a wonderful family vacation to South America and my recently completed around the world journey to Europe & Asia.
Stats
While stats are often meaningless to many people, I do love to visualize my travels. Here are a few key stats from my 2014 travels.
- Countries Visited: 21
- Continents Visited: 4
- New Countries: 11
- Total Countries Visited Cumulative: 70
Countries Visited In 2014 (New countries in bold):
- United States
- China
- Singapore
- India
- Qatar
- United Arab Emirates
- Thailand
- Hong Kong
- Japan
- Taiwan
- South Korea
- Colombia
- Chile
- St. Martin
- Bahamas
- Italy
- Luxembourg
- Belgium
- Netherlands
- Macau
- Canada
Over the years I have documented all of my travels with maps like the one above. You can see all of them by heading over to my Travel Maps page and you can find a link there to make one of your own!
Conclusion
Travel is about the experiences and memories created, not being able to brag or tell people how many countries you have visited. I share my own travels out of joy and with the hope that they inspire others.
Each country visited represents experiences & memories that I cherish. Travel is my love and 2014 was yet another year I was able to fulfill my wanderlust. I can’t wait to see what 2015 brings!
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Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
[…] time blogger, I loved to map out my travels at the end of every year. A few weeks ago I shared my 2014 travel map, which I thought was pretty good and my 2013 travels are shown above as […]
Amazing! Nicely done! I think you travels are more in-line what a true traveller should be and not afraid to mingle with common folks vs. most of the other bloggers only interested in “First/Business class travel” and lounge foods.
Great travels and that travel perspective informs your great, practical content.
Thanks Stefan. That is an amazing compliment coming from you!
Shawn,
Shout out to all the TRUE BLOGGERS out there who are focused on showing us the power of our points accounts. With a family of four, I know points/$ matter. You have also maintained your independent spirit, and that is great to see. I look forward to a great 2015, with many more flights and nights it is going to be CRAZY!!!
Thanks Nathan!
[…] today I shared a travel map and stats about my 2014 travels. While some of my flying last year involved points redemptions and flying in International […]
Yes, you are a true traveler. Your blogs continues to keep my attention because you focus on the destination, experiences and memories. Keep up the good work!
Thank you Denise!
Very cool, Shawn. 70 countries is impressive!