Thanks to Valarie for pointing out this link: a website where you can easily map out the US states, countries or (somewhat oddly) Indian states traveled to. Although I have a big fat zero when it comes to Indian states, I gleefully watched my other two maps fill out.
Which is not to say I'm exactly a world traveler with stamps from every country on an old leather suitcase. According to the map, I've visited something like 11 countries out of 227. But that's about seven more countries than I had been to five years ago. And in a way, I count it as 12 countries visited, because I think of Scotland and England as separate nations even though they're not. They have different national soccer teams and parliaments, after all. Still, I've never been anywhere in Africa, South America or Australia. Hell, I live in the western United States, and I've never been to Mexico!
visited 11 states (4.88%)
Create your own visited map of The World
In terms of states, my map mostly is a collection of east coast and west coast ones, excepting those visited on a cross-country drive from Oregon to Washington, DC in 1993 with my friend Joel. (I had an internship that fall during a year-and-a-half break from college.) It makes me think of a headline from The Onion several years ago: "'Midwest' discovered between East and West Coasts."
visited 28 states (56%)
Create your own visited map of The United States
These maps may carry more significance for me than for some people. I don't own a home and I don't have kids. I place a high priority in life on travel. Not only is it the chance to see places, but going there provides endless material for my twin hobbies: taking pictures and making videos.
Looking at the US map, my next priority in terms of unseen cities has to be New Orleans. That would have been the case even before Hurricane Katrina, with its music and food and architecture. But now, I feel an added desire to spend my tourist dollars there, in a place that needs it. Plus, even though I feel slightly guilty for saying this, I'd like to see some of the remaining devastation. A couple years ago I interviewed a couple Portland architects who had gone to the Mississippi Gulf to help volunteer by advising homeowners about the status of their damaged homes. Some of the pictures she showed, particularly of large boats aground nowhere near any water source, were extraordinary enough to remain branded on my mind all this time later.
I'd also really love to see New Mexico, not only to visit my old friend Brooke (a very talented painter, by the way), but also the extraordinary desert and mountain landscape. And I'd love to see some of the American south, no matter how wrong they are about politics and a mountain of socio-cultural issues. I'd like to make a pilgrimage to Memphis, even though I don't think Elvis held a candle to The Beatles. And I'd like to visit the Clinton Library in Little Rock, or either of the Carolinas. And Maine, even though I don't eat seafood. It'd be fun to see that 'other' Portland.
And I really regret not adding Michigan to my states list last fall, by traveling to Ann Arbor to see Oregon beat the stuffing out of college football's winningest program before 106,000 of their fans.
Honestly, though, getting out of the United States is still what gets me the most excited. The flights there can be murder, but I still put Switzerland pretty far ahead of South Carolina in terms of traveling priorities.
I'd definitely like to go anywhere in the South -- I think Atlanta would be cool, and perhaps a trip to see Toni in Durham.
Posted by: Sara | September 12, 2008 at 05:48 PM