Latest trip by the numbers

If you like statistics and maps, like I do, you’ll be interested in this post noting where I’ve been over the last two months and how I got there.

If you don’t like those things, well, that just makes me sad.

Here are the bullet-point highlights of my recent travels:

• ·         Total trip time in days: 66

• ·         Countries visited: 7, including the US, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Turkey, and Spain.

• ·         US states visited (not including layovers where I didn’t get out of the bus station or airport): Texas, Louisiana, Florida

• ·         Cities visited (not counting brief layovers at bus stations, train stations, airports, etc): 21, including Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, Tampa, Miami, London, Oxford, Bath, Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, Fort Augustus, Amsterdam, Berlin, Istanbul, Barcelona, Tricio, Najera, Bilbao.

• ·         Number of flights taken: 10

• ·         Number of hours on airplanes: 39.25 (give or take)

• ·         Number of buses taken (not counting rides within cities): 11 (including a 3-day tour in Scotland)

• ·         Facebook friends added as a result of the trip: 5

• ·         Amount of money spent: about $7,000

• ·         Amount of money I would’ve spent if I hadn’t stayed with friends and Couchsurfing hosts in several spots along the way: A lot more

• ·         Amount of money I’m now in debt: way, way too much

• ·         Articles of clothing lost along the way: 4, including a sock stuffed into a broken air conditioning vent on a Greyhound bus in Texas; a pair of flip-flops left under a bed in a hostel in Barcelona; a hoody left in a friend’s car in Bilbao; and a hat blown off my head and into a river in Bilbao.

• ·         Amount of planning I did: A lot

• ·         Amount of planning I should have done: A lot more

• ·         Number of photos and videos taken: 2,250

• ·         Favorite place visited: Spain. No one city in particular, just every bit of it. (When I told a British friend I loved Spain, he noted that sentiment was popular among other Americans he’d met on a recent trip to Andalucia. “These Americans were jacking off about Spain,” he said. He asked why we like it so much, and my explanation was that the lifestyle there is so pleasantly different from that of the US, and you see it especially in their approach to food. Meals tend to be occasions for gathering with friends and enjoying oneself. The TV is off. There is no desire to eat and run. And another contributing factor is the fact that Spanish women are sexy.) 

Please enjoy the map below, and feel free to zoom in and out and play with it.
 

View Europe in a larger map