I’ve always enjoyed looking at the numbers that define my year in travel, and it’s no different this year — especially because I have a lot more out-of-the-ordinary numbers than usual (since I can’t say I’ve ever experienced – 38ºC or have ever been to 3 Grand Slams in one year before)!
While there’s no way this post could tell the full story of my year — 10 posts wouldn’t even begin to cover that — I think it does give an interesting insight to what I got up to in the 192 days I was away from home this year. Plus, it’s fun to compare to previous years, especially when it shows that I spent a lot less time injured (and a lot less time on planes) this year than last!
Citizenships acquired: 1 (Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!)
Australian accents acquired: 0 (yeah, never going to happen…I still sound as American — or Canadian, depending on who you ask — as when I got here)
Round-the-world trips completed: 1 (Australia to England, England to Texas, Texas to Australia)
Jobs quit to travel: 1
Jobs started 7 months later because travel hates my bank account: 1
Flights: 18
Long haul flights: 5
Distance flown: 60,183km (37,614mi) — 18,000km less than last year!
Immigration officers who didn’t want to let me in: 1 (at Humberside Airport where they didn’t believe I was in England to visit my grandparents)
Immigration officers who looked at my new passport and said “G’day mate!”: 1 (in Amsterdam)
Airports: 20 (Sapporo New Chitose, Tokyo Narita, Coolangatta, Brisbane, Melbourne Tullamarine, Singapore Changi, Amsterdam Schiphol, Humberside, Manchester, Stockholm Arlanda, Oslo Gardermoen, Bodø, Rovaniemi, Helsinki, Frankfurt, London Gatwick, Split, Dubrovnik, Houston Intercontinental, Calgary, Dallas-Fort Worth)
Countries: 14 (Japan, Australia, England, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Holland, Germany, Belgium, France, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina (for 8 minutes), USA, Canada)
New countries: 9 (Norway, Finland, Holland, Germany, Belgium, France, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada)
Cities/towns: 55
Cities/areas visited that my grandfather went to during WWII: 3 (Hannover, Hamburg, Nijmegen)
Days away from home: 192
Days spent having quality family time: 105
Family weddings that I didn’t miss: 1
Occasions that it was fun/interesting being in England for: 2 (Maggie Thatcher’s death, Andy Murray’s Wimbledon win)
Occasions I kind of wish had happened while I was still in England: 1 (royal birth)
Beds slept in while traveling: 56 (planes don’t count)
Hotels that locked me out and refused to give me a bed for the night: 1
SIM cards: 6 (Australia, England, Sweden, Croatia, USA, Canada)
Stolen wallets: 1 (because I left my cabin unlocked in Split)
Stolen wallets returned to me: 1 (4.5 months later too!)
Cops who told me all Australians lie because they are drunk and lose all their belongings: 1
Grand Slams attended: 3 (if only I’d managed to stay another week in America, I could have had a calendar-year Grand Slam!)
Winners of Grand Slams watched live: 3 (although Andy Murray was only practicing — I later watched him on the big screen from Henman Hill)
Epic 5-set matches watched: 3 (including the Djokovic-Wawrinka match at the Aussie Open that ended at 2am and Nadal’s first-round-near-loss at Roland Garros)
Hours of sleep between getting home from Djokovic-Wawrinka match and flying to Brisbane to go to work: 1
Hours spent queuing for Wimbledon tickets: 6.5hrs across 2 days (only 1 day of which resulted in an actual ticket)
People I know from the US that I ran into at Wimbledon: 2
Knee surgeries: 1 (here’s hoping this ends 4 years of knee problems)
Number of cancelled Three Peaks Challenges because of my knee: 2
Trips cancelled: 2 (both relating to the Three Peaks Challenge, one including a 3-day jaunt around the Scottish Highlands beforehand)
Number of days spent on crutches: 0 (beats the hell out of the 9 weeks I spent on them last year!)
Attempts at snowboarding: 2 (surprisingly, neither are related to the aforementioned knee injuries)
Times playing tennis: 1 (this has to change next year)
Multi-day hikes: 1 (Rheinsteig along the Upper Middle Rhine Valley)
Pairs of boots that will soon need to be duct-taped up: 1
Blogging conferences attended: 2 (TBU Rotterdam and Problogger)
UNESCO World Heritage sites visited: 10 (Lapponia, Gammelstad, Cologne Cathedral, Upper Middle Rhine Valley, Brugge, Banks of the Seine, Maritime Greenwich, Diocletian’s Palace, the Old City of Dubrovnik, Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks)
Canadian National Parks visited: 3 (Banff, Jasper, and Yoho)
Northern lights spottings: 11 (8 in Finland, 1 in Sweden, 1 in Norway, 1 in Canada)
Coldest temperature: -38ºC (when I slept in the glass igloos at Kakslauttanen — I walked outside and then immediately back in again!)
Coldest temperature I went out in: -33ºC (1hr of northern lights watching in Inari, Finland)
Coldest temperature slept in: -8C (in the IceHotel)
Coldest temperature in an outhouse I was trying to use: -20ºC (I was pretty sure my bum was going to freeze to the seat)
Coldest temperature I attempted to swim in: 0ºC (it’s never a good sign when there is a motor in the water to keep it from freezing)
Warmest temperature: 120ºC (I may have added a bit too much water to the coals in a sauna)
Official reindeer driving licenses obtained: 2 (both valid for 5 years!)
Photos taken: ~24,600
Northern lights photos taken: 478 (+115 for a timelapse)
Photography gigs: 1 (official ship photographer for Sail Croatia in exchange for a free trip — not bad!)
Instagram photos posted: 264
Number of photos on my phone before I had to clear space: 7,200
Fun camera gear acquired: Hard to put a number on (a menagerie of film cameras and lenses courtesy of my grandfather, plus a new Nikon Df)
Number of books read: 14
What numbers sum up your 2013?