A few days ago I looked the calendar and said to myself “holy cow, we’re already half way through 2014… I feel like I haven’t gotten anything done!” This is especially true for my life as a travel blogger – I have not done a great job of sticking to a regular posting schedule, and I’m not sure exactly when that will happen again.
But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. In fact, I had no idea just how busy I was this year until I checked my TripIt account to see just how much travel has happened so far in 2014.
Here are my travel stats for the first half of the year:
I had no idea I have gone to 8 countries this year! And 58k miles is probably the most I have put on during a 6 month period at any point in my life. Add it all up and over 33% of my time has been spent away from home… and very little of that was for vacation.
January – British Virgin Islands and Hungary
It started with my sailing trip to the British Virgin Islands in December/January to begin the new year and continued on to an opportunity to speak at a conference in Hungary at the end of the month.
The rest of January/February/March featured very little travel was spent while teaching courses in Minneapolis. I also learned a very big lesson: Never teach classes in Minneapolis during January, February and March. Just don’t do it.
February – No Travel
Although I didn’t travel at all in February, I did manage to spend about 50 hours teaching in the classroom, which created opportunities for future travel.
March – Las Vegas and London
In March I made my way to Las Vegas for the NCAA basketball tournament and then headed to London for a speaking gig.
April – Cape Town and Safari in South Africa, Sioux Falls, Seattle and Austin
This was the month that the wheels started to come off from over-commitment. A peaceful Vacation in South Africa was followed up by a whirlwind speaking tour in various parts of the US. It was all very fun and exhausting at the same time.
May – Kentucky Derby, Iowa, Toronto, San Francisco
One small trip for every week of May seemed manageable at the time, but was really what did me in. It was a lot harder than I expected to recover from these trips.
June – Seattle and Richmond, VA
Speaking in front of large groups, speaking in front of small groups. Lots of preparation time, very little sleep in between. Trying to get my house ready for the market, helping organize a 300 person conference and working on presentations took just about every spare minute I would have had for travel blogging.
Note: I’m actually not sure where the 8 countries tabulation came from with TripIt – I can only count 6.
Second half of 2014
The second half of the year I decided not to book any travel while I get settled into my new life in San Francisco, so travel should be light until September. Then things start to heat up again, with a trip to Copenhagen and Boston for speaking gigs, a Boarding Area event in Las Vegas, an award trip booked to Munich and Bangkok, teaching in Minneapolis in October/November and maybe even a vacation in there at some point.
Unlike some of my fellow travel bloggers, I am more active posting when I am not traveling. That should mean the next few months will spark a more consistent Jeffsetter. At least that is the hope.
Tripit Stat Counter
For anyone interested, here are my full TripIt stats since I started using the service around 2009. Not as crazy as some travelers, but a lot of time spent on the road!
How has your travel year been so far?