52 Countries in 52 Weeks, Chapter 10: 1st Quarter Stats + Mailbag

In Which I Break Down The First Three Months Of This Trip, And Answer Some Questions

You know what’s fun? Travelling the world for a year.

You know what’s almost as fun? Obsessively tracking every part of it.

So far, I’ve been to 12 countries and 34 places, travelling (approximately) 51,728 kilometres.

This will come as no surprise to folks who have followed my writing for a while, but I’ve been keeping logs on pretty much all aspects of this trip. I’ve also been rating every city, accommodation, train quintessential food, and big activity out of 10.

The reason, of course, was best encapsulated by a person commenting in a Prince George newspaper.

Just kidding! It’s probably just the autism.

But given how unique and big this year will be in my life, along with the fact that in late evenings I’m mostly just unwinding in bed, I thought it would be fun to track as many aspects of this trip as possible. And since I’m now a quarter through this journey, I thought I would share where things are at.

Will I share any of the rankings at this point? No. First of all, it would be incomplete, given that it’s just three months in. And second of all, some (extremely silly) things need to be saved for the book that will come out after this is all done.

Alright, with that out of the way, let’s write something I haven’t said for a while.

who is ready for some charts

Sadly, planes were a big necessity in the first quarter of this trip (unless I wanted to take bus rides thousands of kilometres long through very rural parts of South America), but I was still surprised by just how many there ended up being. That’s probably more air travel in three months than I had done in the previous six years combined.

Suffice to say, I did not particularly enjoy that aspect of the trip, but thankfully the number of flights is set to dramatically decrease in the 2nd quarter of this.

I quite like the fact that hostel and private hotel room are tied, even if I might selfishly like to be an income bracket where that wasn’t quite as necessary.

(Basically, I’m trying to average $100 a night on accommodations, and decided the best way to achieve that while having interesting places to stay was to mostly do hostels in the expensive countries, and mostly do hotels in the cheaper ones)

But in the 15 years or so since I was last in hostels, they’ve generally improved quite a bit (so long as you do a bit of research beforehand). The beds are less dank, the privacy is much improved, and the rooms overall have tended to be bigger.

In the course of planning this trip, it was interesting to see what sort of cities were good for hostels, hotels, or Airbnbs, and what what price point most of them were at…but I’ll save that for a separate post.

Hey I like old-timey things, who knew?

This isn’t an exhaustive list of everything I’ve done (there’s a bunch of stuff not on this chart that could probably called “miscellaneous attractions”), but I realized I could separate out most of the big things I was doing on a day to day basis — outside of wandering and eating — into seven main categories.

I was surprised at how many art galleries I went to — I had never considered myself a big art person, but I’m slowly gaining more appreciation and having more takes towards different styles/eras/painters — and how there’s less parks in here than I would have imagined.

But that’s been mitigated by how much I’ve been walking.

Here’s a chart on how many kilometres per day I’ve walked or hiked.

That’s an average of 9.29 kilometres a day, or 854.31 in total. Even on days that have a lot of travel, I’m making an effort to wander the city in the morning or evening, and I can definitely feel the effects in my lungs and my blood pressure.

Amusingly, the day that I walked the most probably had a minimal effect on burning calories, because it was Disneyland.

Part 2: Mailbag!

I’ve been doing monthly mailbags (by which I mean, “two mailbags”) on Instagram, and people seem to like it?

Given the theme of this entry, I thought it might be fun to do the monthly feature here, so I could answer a few questions at greater length.

I put out the call on Instagram, and got more than 100 questions (haha oh no i have commodified my year off).

A lot of them centred on particular themes or topics, and given that it’s still early on in the trip, I figured I would take on some of the broader ones now, with the idea of taking on quirkier/more specific questions in the months to come.

@nsmithca: “Are you tired?”

I don’t know why people would…

@nicbara: “Are you getting tired of moving around so much?”

Look, just because I’m posting all the time doesn’t mean…

@sjmact: “Do you ever get sick or feel tired & can’t keep the pace?”

What I’m doing is perfectly normal and…

@bunnycafevancouver: “Do you get tired of all the constant going to see all the things and feel burnt out and want to spend a whole day laying in bed staring at the ceiling doing nothing?”

Okay, okay.

I get why folks wonder about this, because a) travel can be tiring, b) every day I’m posting an Instagram story showing me doing a lot of stuff, c) there are no days where my report is “Did nothing. Napped a bunch. 10/10 would do again.”

And truth be told, the one big worry I had going into the trip was if my entire strategy was flawed. Was 52 countries too much? Was I planning too much time in trains and airports and not enough time in the real world? Would I wake up at some point two months in and realize I was constantly burned out and had to fundamentally change what I was doing?   

Thankfully, the answer is no. I feel great and more relaxed than at home. And the biggest reason could probably be summed up as “I’m fully in control the entire time.”

Because I’m doing 85% of this as solo travel, I get to choose when I wake up. I get to choose when to have a nap. I get to start my days around 10 or 11am, and I’m not out partying until 1 in the morning.

The city to city timeline of this tripped is fairly set out, and quite busy. But that tends to be the most stressful part of travelling for me, and it’s already taken care of.

Meanwhile, the day to day activities on the ground are very minimally planned: unless it’s a big thing that I know requires booking days or weeks ahead of time, I’m keeping my schedule pretty open.

Instagram sort of flattens things out to make it look like action all the time. But if I want (or need) a lazy day, I can make that happen, and have, lots of times. When you have 365 days of discovery, it’s easy to let a few of them be a little lackadaisical.

Plus, I’m not working! I’m not having to deal with 200 people replying to me on Twitter! None of my brain is devoted to thinking about British Columbia mayors who don’t understand that being mayor doesn’t give the ability to do whatever you want!

That alone is worth like a 20% energy boost.

@wombat1962: “How long in advance of this trip did you start planning?”

@isabelmontoya: “How did you decide how many days each country got?”

@roik.anna: “I would love a breakdown of your planning process before & during”

@diannebrooks1: “What sources did you use most in planning your trip/choosing what to see?”

@arcvancouver2: “Any particular sites you frequent to find tours of places you are visiting?”

These are all sort of the same question, and I answered some of them in the first chapter of this ongoing travelogue.

But that was done in a *writerly* way, so here are the nuts and bolts of how I’ve planned this:

• I came up with the idea in late 2020, and decided in early 2021 when it would happen, and that it would be as train-based as possible

• From about the middle of 2021 to the middle of 2022, I read lots of books and websites, but particularly Lonely Planet ones (the “Cities”, “Countries”, and “Top 500 Attractions” books in particular), and made a spreadsheet of countries/cities/attractions I felt I *had* to see

• I kind of intuitively came up with the idea that any city I really wanted to spend time in would require 3-4 days at minimum to enjoy, that there were some secondary places that only required two days, and that I should give myself a day of travel on either side to stay on the safe side

• In the first half of 2023, I added all the places up to guesstimate what the itinerary would look like, and what I might have to cut. Had to cut about 30 days worth of places, either due to 1) war, 2) too much money or time to get them, 3) I realized I could spent a week in Atlantic Canada anytime in my life

• Then I started plugging in the “must dos” that would force me to be in certain places at certain times: the Machu Picchus, the Disneylands, the cruises, etc. Once those started being 100% booked, at gave a focus to things

• In the second half of 2023, I started booking the air travel I required, and provisional accommodation everywhere (trying to get places where I could cancel with 48 hours notice). I also started creating little custom Google Maps for the places where I was spending lots of time, making markers for the airport/train station, place I was staying, and a bunch of interesting restaurants, museums, attractions, etc. in each place

• Creating those maps would take an hour or two at the end of each day, just vociferously going through Reddit threads, Lonely Planet articles, online listicles, and everything else to list a bunch of options and get inspiration for the 1-2 things in each city that really striked my fancy

• Once I’m in each city, each night I use the map as a starting point for inspiration for the next day, use GPSmyCity for walking tours, and sometimes use Víctor or GetYourGuide to do a paid attraction    

Hey that was a lot of words! But what it’s meant is that I’ve sort of orbited each place I’ve gone to in a series of progressively closer orbits over the course of three years: first at very broad level to determine interest, then a year later to determine accommodations and the one or two must do highlights, then six months later to figure out what sort of culture and vibe I’m hoping for, and then when I’m in the city a final study through.

It has put the pressure off from “cramming” for any one country or city, and means my brain has tended to quickly remember all the past things I’ve planned once I’ve arrived.

@_mallc_: “How is the packing going? Add anything? Ditch anything?”

I actually ditched something just the other day!

There were lots of questions about what I brought, buying souvenirs, and managing all that, so here’s a brief summary:

• For baggage, I had a carryon suitcase, backpack and small travel knapsack

• For clothes, I had six pairs of socks and underwear, two shorts, two pants, six shirts, one sweater, one rollup puffy coat, sandals and shoes

• For accessories, I had one main toiletry bag and one main electronics bag for things I used daily, along one secondary bag for things in both categories I would only need sporadically, along with an iPad    

Here are the things that I’ve had to adjust:

• After the first month, I got really tired of wearing the same sweater again and again, and realized there would be lots of places in the world even once I got past April where it would be below 15 degrees at night and a tiny bit of variety would be helpful. Thankfully, I met up with fashion team in the Puerto Rico wedding, and they got me a second sweater

• I decided that it would be fun to get one souvenir in each country (generally for 25 bucks or under, generally something that could fit in the palm of your hand), but I did NOT do my research on how much it cost to ship things internationally

• Fortunately, I’m meeting up with someone I know every 5-10 countries, and they can take souvenirs back for me. But once I realized my space predicament, I came to the conclusion to get rid of the thing that I hadn’t used at all to that point: my Lululemon backpack. Which is too bad! It’s a good backpack! But this allows me to get more things, while getting rid of something that I’m not actually using because my little travel knapsack is so good

@suefriesen1: “What kind of camera are you using? Your pictures are excellent…”

Thanks Sue! (and the people who asked similar questions)

It’s a very boring answer: I’m using an iPhone.

Specifically, an iPhone 14 Pro Max, which I got in late 2022, right before they were being discontinued for the newer versions.

I’m not a professional photographer and don’t have any gear, but figured I should get one of them fancy new phones with the triple lens for the trip (which I had on my work phone that I couldn’t bring with me), and it’s worked out really well.

In terms of editing, I just do it directly in the camera app, generally bringing the brilliance up and the highlights down.

People are very nice about the 10-20 photos I post on Instagram everyday, but there’s about 30-40 much worse photos that never see the light of day.

@mariadachsel: “How has this trip thus far changed how you think about Vancouver?”

Good question! Just maybe one the big themes of the book I’m writing!

It’s a thought I play with every day on this trip: Vancouver is the only place I’ve ever lived as an adult, I had never left Canada or the United States as an adult prior to this trip, and I’m aware of my, uh, unique relationship with the city at this point in my life.

A journey like this can’t help but put Vancouver in perspective: when you’re surveying a new global metropolis every four or five days, you quickly see the ways my city stacks up (nature! diversity! transit!) and doesn’t (cultural institutions! energy! pedestrian-oriented infrastructure!), at least when it comes to that dreaded “world class” monicker.

But I think it’s also deepening my appreciation for concepts that inform not just Vancouver, but most big cities in the world, and will improve my thinking (and hopefully reporting) when I return.

One thing I know for certain: in the first week I get back, I’m going to explore the neighbourhoods I think about the most, bike the Seawall, and wander Stanley Park.

I have no idea what feelings I’ll have when I do those things, and that’s both exciting and terrifying.