BURBANK, CA, USA -- Welcome to my new blog!
I have been contemplating getting things going on this for a good year or so now, but for a combination of being extremely busy and a little lack of direct inspiration, I have yet to update.
Well, here it is: Seven continents and fifty states before turning 25.
For the past two or three years this has been my long-shot goal. Always in the background, I have sought to try and travel with this goal in mind. Longtime readers know about my trips to Brazil and Egypt in order to reach new continents. My plethora of trips (mainly road trips) within the United States to reach new states. Since the last time I blogged, I've accomplished more of these goals. This past August I spent a week in and around Sydney, Australia - continent #6. I will dedicate a specific blog post to this trip in the coming days. State #44, as mentioned in my update in December 2010, was Montana. Since then I ventured to Oregon in July (Klamath Falls, Crater Lake National Park, Medford, Grants Pass, and Brookings) for state #45 on a road trip from California. In September, just over a month ago, I made it to Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota via Chicago for state #46.
For the past two or three years this has been my long-shot goal. Always in the background, I have sought to try and travel with this goal in mind. Longtime readers know about my trips to Brazil and Egypt in order to reach new continents. My plethora of trips (mainly road trips) within the United States to reach new states. Since the last time I blogged, I've accomplished more of these goals. This past August I spent a week in and around Sydney, Australia - continent #6. I will dedicate a specific blog post to this trip in the coming days. State #44, as mentioned in my update in December 2010, was Montana. Since then I ventured to Oregon in July (Klamath Falls, Crater Lake National Park, Medford, Grants Pass, and Brookings) for state #45 on a road trip from California. In September, just over a month ago, I made it to Fargo and Grand Forks, North Dakota via Chicago for state #46.
As such, I now have two trips (or more, but probably two) in order to accomplish my goal. What has for a very long time been a long-shot, fringe travel goal is actually within my grasp and it is that thought that motivates and excites me. Maybe now that it looks like it is actually going to happen is the inspiration for this blog.
This upcoming December, exactly six weeks and one hour from now, I will be on an airplane en route to Ushuaia, Argentina. After two days of travel to get down there, on December 11 I will board an icebreaker ship with 120 adventurous global citizens heading south with G Adventures. Two days later, after crossing the Drake Passage, I will set foot on Antarctica, the true final frontier, the last continent, the white continent. Maybe I want to document the preparation for and then the actual trip itself. Perhaps that is the inspiration for this blog.
Finally, I have four states to reach my goal: Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia. They are all doable in a single shot, in one direction or the other, over say five days or so (with the added bonus of additional time in Georgia, a state I've only been to once, and Virginia as well). At the latest, I will try to make this trip happen sometime in April prior to the 21st, my 25th birthday.
With that by way of introduction, for longtime readers, welcome back to the blog. My apologies for letting it go dormant for so long. For new readers, welcome and thank you for joining! You can see my archive of posts going back quite some time. The most extensive posting I did was from the December 2009 COP15 in Copenhagen, the global UN summit on climate change. I'd advise checking some of those out. I also really liked my trip (and consequently my posts) to Wien.
Looking forward to posting and I appreciate any comments, questions, and suggestions you may have. Happy reading!
