Yes, I’ve been home for almost a month. I’ve been back to work for almost as long. Life is weird. It feels like it’s come to a complete halt, but also like it never stopped. It is easy for others to say this is just the beginning of the rest of my life, but I can’t move on yet. I haven’t grieved the loss of this year; the hardest year of my life. I feel like I was forced into a sudden stillness. As if I was traveling at the speed of sound and someone disconnected my bluetooth speaker.
This year I saw a lot of things, and that will probably be my answer if you ask me what I experienced during my trip. I was on the race for 320 days. Please don’t hesitate to ask me what my trip was like. I have a lot to share.
Aside from God, travel was a sincere constant in my day to day life for the last 11 months. From the moment I left my house, I started tracking every mile, minute, and moment relating to getting from one place to another. I racked up many hours and even days, and honestly, I didn’t know the exact numbers until a few minutes ago. I’m still in awe.
Back in January, Month 1, or Colombia as I will always refer to it, I started a serious travel log. My team teased me a little, but it became such a normal site to see me clock our travel or spend hours on Google maps when I had wifi. By month 6 people where asking me, ‘You’re still doing that?’ because I am terrible at sticking with anything remotely difficult, but I knew that I wanted a way to tangibly represent my year. If you know me, I am horrible with numbers, and also, if you know me, I’m a perfectionist and a little OCD. I’m obsessed with maps. I get that from my grandpa. The knowledge of knowing where I was at all times was important to me, and turned out to be a really great safety precaution and kept us all from getting lost in translation via taxis and walking.
For 320 days, I kept track of the time, distance, and the form of travel. I’ve taken 17 different forms of transportation. In the last 11 months I took/had:
- 22 Airplanes
- 2 Bicycles
- 8 Boats/Ferries
- 85 Buses
- 1 Chair lift
- 262 Walks
- 1 Gondola/Cable Car
- 12 Layovers
- 18 Metro/Shuttle/Subway
- 31 Mototaxis/Tuk Tuks
- 3 Motorcycles
- 147 Private Cars
- 136 Taxis
- 1 Toboggan
- 13 Trains
- 31 Ubers
- 64 Vans
Here are the final numbers:
|
Form of Transportation |
Time |
Distance |
|
Airplane: Those metal contraptions in the sky 😉 |
5 days 10 hours 20 minutes |
101,412.7 km (63,015 mi) |
|
Bicycle: Two wheels accompanying a funny story about a cat. Ask me about it. |
18 minutes |
1.1 km (.68 mi) |
|
Boat/Ferry: Not your standard fishing boat. |
1 hour 5 minutes 48s |
9.4 km (5.8 mi) |
|
Bus: Includes private and public transportation. |
8 days 13 hours 4 minutes 15s |
10,816 km (6,721 mi) |
|
Chair Lift: A two seater with no snow in sight. |
8 minutes |
0.5 km (0.3 mi) |
|
Foot: We walked everywhere… |
4 days 11 hours 42 minutes 3s |
460.4 km (286 mi) |
|
Gondola/Cable Car: This was actually part of the metro in Colombia |
21 minutes |
2.2 km (1.4 mi) |
|
Layovers: The amount of times I’ve ran to my next gate would make the Amazing Race proud. |
3 days 23 hours |
|
|
Metro/Shuttle/Subway: Public Transportation not including buses |
5 hours 23 minutes 50s |
275.6 km (171.2 mi) |
|
Mototaxi/Tuktuk: Little 3 wheels motorcycle car things that are just as scary as they seem. I’m in love with them. |
9 hours 30 minutes 10s |
154.9 km (96.3 mi) |
|
Motorcycle: I know, I know…we weren’t supposed to. Everyone does it. |
31 minutes |
5.5 km (3.4 mi) |
|
Private Car: Meaning someone’s personal vehicle. |
3 days 9 hours 23 minutes 58s |
2,867.7 km (1,781.9 mi) |
|
Taxi: Sometimes the most efficient form of transportation when only a few are traveling. |
1 day 22 hours 20 minutes 33s |
1,277.9 km (793.5 mi) |
|
Toboggan: One seater, also with no snow in sight. |
5 minutes |
1.5 km (0.9 mi) |
|
Train: chugga-chugga choo-choo… |
1 days 15 hours 55 minutes |
1,584 km (984.2 mi) |
|
Uber: Sadly our occasional cheapest ride share option. |
13 hours 19 minutes 36s |
352 km (198.5 mi) |
|
Van: Usually a 15 passenger van stuffed with well over the advisable maximum people. |
1 day 9 hours 46 minutes 18s |
986.3 km (612.8 mi) |
|
Total Time and Distance Traveled on My Race |
32 days 2 hours 15m |
102,207.7 km (74,693.6mi) |
And, since I was already doing all the math an individual can handle at once, yes, I worked out that the total distance I traveled this year would be equal to traveling the circumference of the world 3 times.
Fun Fact: I actually did complete an entire circle around the globe. It took me 320 days, but I made it from my house, kept traveling east, visited 4 continents, stood on both sides of the Equator, flew over the North Pole, visited 22 different countries, saw 2 World Wonders and a UNESCO Site, had Mountain Dew in 7 different countries (5 different continents), crossed the International Date Line, lived a single day that lasted for 40 hours (and had 2 sunsets and 2 sunrises) and drove down the coast from San Francisco to little ol’ Camarillo, CA.
Cooler Fact: I didn’t come back the same girl that left in January. I came back as a fearless, God loving, anxiety free, empathetic, adventurer, who cannot wait to tell you more about her journey.
Seriously, ask me anything.
