My 2022 of Travel

1 minute read

Intro

If you closed your eyes tight enough and opened them without hesitation, it felt like pre-COVID a little this year. If you acclimated you’d realise it was not yet.

I did over 100k miles/160k km this year (or nearly 300/482+ by Delta’s qualifying) and over 130 nights in a hotel. I am lucky enough that my family, more often than not, travels with me, but that is still a gruelling schedule. Who knows what next year brings, but it will likely be a lot of the same.

Travelling takes its toll more now than when I was a young man. Those days of jumping on a 16-hour flight in coach and walking into a boardroom are gone. In place of that superpower is a much more humbled approach to meeting the world where it is. I spent much of my younger years travelling to compare to something else. How is this place like or not like this other thing?

Now, I hope that my demeanour is such that the wonderful people I meet recognise I am just there to exist and know them in a place they love. As I have stopped needing to compare the world, I can better appreciate a place for who and what it is - on its own.

My family has made what little time I had at home incredibly special. Those respites in nature and around a table with smiling faces sustain me through these jaunts around the globe. We made new friends this year, spent time with old ones, and explored parts of Michigan we had never seen. Next year’s days abroad and days home lean more towards the mitten.

Stats

I wanted to break it down into a few facts as that makes me feel better:

I travelled the equivalent of…

  • 898,876,404 bananas
  • 246,153,846 baguettes
  • Halfway to the moon
  • 88,000,000 of me end-to-end

I stayed more nights in a hotel than…

  • Elizabeth Truss was Prime Minister of the UK
  • An NFL Season
  • A season of Firefly

Visited

  • 8 countries
  • 8 states
  • 3 continents

Wore a suit 3 times

In Closing

As I was compiling some of this, I realised this year of travel is outside my Top 5. Early Spec Ops Technology days still take the cake there.

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