As you might suspect, it takes a while to digest a trip like this. I’ve been home for a couple weeks now, and at times it all seems surreal. Sometimes it feels like it happened a long time ago. Sometimes I wake up and forget I’m actually home. It’s hard to describe.
The time has however, allowed me some time to go through some things and reflect a bit. I’ve had a chance to compile a few numbers. Below are some interesting facts and figures I’ve managed to generate. A bit of an “at a glance” sheet if you will. And I will.
General
- Start Date: January 8, 2007
- End Date: January 8, 2008
- Total Days on the Road: 365
- Continents: 7
- Individual Nations: 43 (Does not include USA, Hong Kong or Antarctica)
- Cities/Towns Visited (at least one night’s stay required): 101
Distances
- Total Miles: >70,000
- Total Kilometers: >113,000 (*The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,901.55 miles or 40,075.16 kilometers. These numbers do not include day trips, metro rides, walking…)
- Longest bus ride: 31 hours – 1657km/1030mi (Arica, Chile to Santiago, Chile – includes 3-hour breakdown in Atacama desert)
- Longest plane ride: 14 hours: 12516km/7777mi (Sydney, Australia to Vancouver, Canada)
Transportation
- Flights (including connections): 35
- Individual Airlines: 24
- Bus Rides (inter-city): 56
- Rides in friends’ personal vehicles: >15
Miscellaneous
- Languages Encountered: >25
- Currencies Used: 36
- Pages Filled in Passport: 27 of 37 possible (extra pages added at US Embassy in Buenos Aries)
- Stamps/Visas in Passport: 81 (includes all entry and exit stamps/stickers – number is not indicative of countries visited for a variety of reasons: My request for Israel to not stamp my passport, the Freedom of Movement agreement in the EU, etc.)
- Longest time in One Country: 32 days (New Zealand)
- Longest time in One City: 21 days (Beijing, China)
- Movies Seen: >25
- Haircuts: 4 (Cape Town, South Africa; Dublin, Ireland; Beijing, China; Perth, Australia)
- Emails Sent: >800
- Emails Received: >1600
- Toothbrushes: 14
- Bottles of Antibiotics: 2
- Immunizations: Polio, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Typhoid, Tdap, Yellow Fever) + weekly anti-malarials
- Contacts Around the World: >55
- Books Read: 12 (not counting 5 guidebooks)
- Total Unique Visits to www.tallmatt.com in 2007: >13,000
- Pictures Taken: >21,000
- Journals Filled: 3
- Pens Used: 5
