A dream in numbers, part 2
As mentioned in part 1, ten years ago I decided to visit every member state of the European Union and then ended up extendeding my goal to the whole world, with the intention of visiting as many different countries as possible in my lifetime. Since June 2015 I’ve been to an additional ten countries and I’ve now been to all 28 EU member states. Time to look at the stats again.
I only count “actual” visits to internationally recognized countries, so no transits and no autonomous regions. A visit usually only counts if it involved a minimum of two over-night stays, with some minor exceptions (like the Holy See, can’t sleep there).
- spent a total of 816 days abroad
- visited Andorra, Austria (uncounted), Belgium, Bulgaria, Cambodia, the Cayman Islands, China, Croatia (3x), Cyprus, the Czech Republic (3x), Denmark (2x), Egypt (2x), Germany (uncounted), United Kingdom and North Ireland (4x), Estonia (2x), Finland, France (uncounted), Greece, Indonesia, Italy (uncounted), Hungary, the Holy See (3x), Ireland, Laos, Latvia, Lichtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Maldives, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands (2x), Norway, Poland, Portugal (2x), Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Sweden (3x), Switzerland (uncounted), Singapore (2x), Slovakia, Slovenia (3x), Spain (4x), Thailand (2x), Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (3x), the United States of America (2x), and Vietnam
- traveled approximately 311.000 kilometres by air, 66.000 kilometres by train, 59.000 kilometres by car/bus and 3300 kilometres by sea, for a total of 440.000 kilometres
- been on 137 flights, 27 in 2015 alone and 23 in 2016, the shortest just 192 (Phu Quoc – Can Tho) and the longest around 10.200 kilometres (Frankfurt – Singapore)
- spent approximately 416 hours (more than 17 days) in-flight
- used 79 different airports
- booked 130 hotel rooms or apartments
- booked 33 rental cars
- started or landed in Frankfurt Airport 34 times
- spent 91 days (I had to check twice) living on boats
- driven motor-powered vehicles in 32 countries
I became a certified scuba diver in 2013 and have been under water for a total of 52 hours and spent 38 days diving from liveaboards. This is me diving the USS Kittiwake wreck on the Cayman Islands:
Here is me doing the highest bungee jump (233 meters) in the world at AJ Hackett Macau Tower:
…and me doing the highest decelerated descent (260 meters) at StratoSphere Tower in Las Vegas:
I also did one of the highest tandem skydives (4500 meters) and some of the deepest recreational wreck dives (40 meters).