World Tour Wrapup: Travel Stats

Including my departure and arrival days, I checked off 36 calendar days but actually experienced 37, thanks to crossing the date line going east.

I flew 30,000 air miles in 17 fights totaling 60 hours air time. I spent 55 hours in 13 separate airports during arrivals and departures. That means I spent 115 hours or 4.8 days (13% of my vacation time) in the business of air travel.

I began in Nepal's autumn, moved to Cambodia's eternal summer, relaxed in Australia's spring and returned to early winter in Canada.

Beside aircraft, I traveled on/in buses, cars, boats, an elephant and on foot.

I spent 4 nights either waiting in airports or on night flights. It saved on hotel bills but wreaked havoc with my sleep cycle.

I visited 2 new continents and 4 new countries. (I don't include India or China since I did not leave their airports.) I made purchases in 8 currencies.

I climbed as high as 3880 meters above sea level and descended as low as 0.

I passed through all of the 24 major time zones and several that were either 30 minutes or 15 minutes different than their neighbors.

I crossed every meridian and spanned the latitudes between 51 degrees north (Brussels) to 43 degrees south (southeast Tasmania).

I added 143 new bird species and 16 mammal species to my life lists.

The best airport (based on thoroughness of services in the least time) was in Brussels. The worst was in Kathmandu. The best airports for free wifi were in Cambodia and Melbourne. Vancouver is OK too.

I posted 25 articles to this blog. This is the last.