2022 TRAVEL REVIEW
MY TRAVEL STATISTICS LAST YEAR
LOOKING BACK
Happy New Year!
As 2023 begins, with lots of ideas for places I want to visit and new adventures to enjoy and then tell you all about, its also a good time to look back.
Personally I love a good travel statistic. There’s something about ticking a new place off a list, collecting them all, counting up where I’ve been, that really appeals to me just as much as visiting the places themselves.
So as another year is over I’ve been reviewing where I went, what I did and recording the stats.
This is the Gary Travels review of 2022 in a bunch of travel statistics.
50th COUNTRY COLLECTED
I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions, but for many years I’ve had a list of “10 Things to Do” that covers all sorts of things. I usually score about 4 out of 10, but you have to have goals.
One of those goals is always to visit a new country each year. The more the better, but at least one.
During the pandemic I contented myself with the Orkney Islands as a new place, since leaving the UK wasn’t really possible, but as a general rule I’ve achieved this target every year for quite a long time now.
What counts as a country?
That is not as obvious an answer as it seems.
The United Kingdom is one of 193 member countries of the United Nations. The Vatican and Palestine, both of which I have visited, have been granted observer status making the total of 195 countries I want to visit in the World.
However I am as proud to be English as I am British and a citizen of the UK. So the UK includes the countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but they all count as one on the UN list. Lots of other countries have similar geo-political associations within them.
So I also follow a second list, created by the Traveler’s Century Club (TCC). This list has 325 places, and solves my UK conundrum among others by including the UK’s constituent countries.
To be eligible to join the Traveler’s Century Club you need to have visited 100 places on their list. That seems like a great travel ambition too.
2022’s new country
Despite it being the closest foreign country to where I live, it took me until March 2022 to visit the Republic of Ireland for the very first time.
I was pleased to tick a new country off my list and stick a pin in the map on my wall that marks the countries and places I have visited.
The Republic of Ireland also made for nice round numbers on my lists, being the 50th country I had visited out of the 195 and 70th on the Traveler’s Century Club list as well.
Actually the TCC list got two entries in 2022, as in February I visited the island of Madeira, which is part of of Portugal. So although I have previously been to Portugal and ticked that off the main list, Madeira took 69th slot with the TCC.
9 COUNTRIES VISITED
Ireland may have been a new addition to the travel statistics last year, but I revisited some old favourites too in 2022.
England
Home is England, and is usually the starting point for my adventures. But its also good to explore at home as well as abroad and it has its own travel statistics.
I visited Lyme Park in Cheshire which I wrote about on the blog.
Beetham in Cumbria was home to some of my ancestors. I met up with friends in Liverpool. Other places included Manchester, my local big city, which had a visit for the Christmas Markets to round off the year.
The cruise stats are coming, but one of these was from Southampton, which gave me the opportunity to visit some other family history haunts in Hampshire.
I have a tick list of places I’ve visited in the UK too. I actually re-started that list in May 2019, when I began my mid life gap year travel adventures (that I’m still on!!). Seeing my home country is just as important as seeing the World.
Some friends bought me a UK scratch map for Christmas, and scratching off where I have visited so far showed I’m doing well, but there is plenty more for me to see.
And the rest of the World…
2022 was a year where I stayed fairly close to home and explored the British Isles and Europe.
Will we remember the challenges the Covid pandemic brought in years to come? I saw a photo of me on a cruise ship dance floor in February the other day, complete with face mask. Already mask wearing is starting to feel like a memory.
Anyway, thankfully Covid entry restrictions became fewer and I didn’t do bad getting to some other countries.
Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Greece and Malta all got another visit in 2022.
I think that’s quite a good tally myself.
8 CAPITAL CITIES EXPLORED
I have a Capital City list to tick off too. I’ve stuck with the 195 capitals of the UN for this one. Of course regional capitals are generally very interesting places to visit too, even if they don’t qualify for a tick on the list of travel statistics.
In 2022 my country visits almost all included a visit to their capital city as well.
New Capitals…
My trip to the Republic of Ireland was really a trip to Dublin, and in keeping with the round numbers it was my 30th capital city visited.
That record didn’t last long as in April I got to visit Oslo, capital of Norway, for the first time, which took my Capital City count to 31 out of 195.
What a beautiful city. It has scenic fjords, a Royal Palace, interesting flat roofed opera house and for an art fix I went to see Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” (I saw two of their three versions while I was there) at the Munch Museum.
Oslo is certainly one of my favourite places I visited last year. I would definitely go back.
…and old ones revisited
I had a few days to explore Copenhagen before the cruise that took me to Oslo. And Rome was the start point for another cruise that included Athens and Valletta.
I even had a visit to London, taking the opportunity to pay my respects after Queen Elizabeth II died in September. I stood on The Mall as her coffin processed from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall. An experience I won’t forget in a while.
Last of all was Lisbon in Portugal.
That just leaves Madrid in Spain as the capital city I missed in 2022, even though I had three separate trips to Spain. Maybe that should be a target for my 2023 travel statistics. It has certainly been on my list of places to see for a long time. Not least because Spain was the first foreign country I visited lots of years ago.
4 CRUISE SHIPS SAILED ON
I do not take it for granted that I have been very lucky.
When I went on my first cruise in 2007, for a week, I had no idea if I would like it. Was this going to be a once in a lifetime event.
Little did I imagine I would be bitten by the cruise bug and reach a point where I could have 4 cruises in one year. So for cruise statistics in 2022 this took my cruise total to 26 and I spent my 258th night (that’s 8 ½ months) at sea.
Marella Explorer
For the first time I celebrated my birthday on a cruise ship, with the first of the year aboard Marella Explorer.
Any would be solo cruisers among you wondering if you should do it? This was the cruise where I appreciated going to the solo cruisers meet up. Two of us had the same birthday and everyone in our small group of five joined in to make it amazing. I’ve not spent so many nights in the late night disco in a long time! I’ve set a precedent that I’m not sure I can beat this year.
Marella Explorer took us from Tenerife around the Canary Islands and out to Madeira.
Voyager of the Seas
Next up I switched to Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas, sailing around Denmark and Norway for that trip to Oslo and some beautiful scenery.
We also explored the Danish ports of Skagen and Aarhus, as well as Norway’s Kristiansand. I was surprised at how similar the Danish countryside was to home.
Celebrity Beyond
As the Mediterranean warmed up it was time to fly to Rome to meet Celebrity Beyond.
This one has to win the award for best ship. I wasn’t even particularly sociable on this cruise and yet I really had a memorable time.
We sailed around the Greek Islands, explored Athens and called at Malta, on the way to Barcelona and home.
Iona
Then finally my last minute bargain cruise in October aboard P&O’s Iona.
Back to the Canaries, Madeira again and Lisbon in Portugal and the Spanish mainland with Cadiz and Vigo.
All very different.
“A Tale of Four Cruises” sounds like a good title for another blog post!!
4 NEW ISLANDS CALLED AT
One thing about cruises is that you get to visit new ports of call, and quite often these are islands, because how better to visit an island than by cruise ship.
My 2022 cruises visited quite a few different islands, but four stood out because I had never visited before.
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands are apparently made up of eight main islands. I can already feel another checklist coming on to bolster the travel statistics.
I had previously visited Tenerife, Lanzarote and Gran Canaria, and went back to all three twice in the year. Now I checked two more off the list.
La Gomera, where Christopher Columbus left on his voyage to discover the New World, was my first new island. We only had a short stay. It was enough to see this small place, but certainly worth the stop.
Fuerteventura’s capital Puerto del Rosario was less exciting, but we visited on a Sunday when most things were closed and I did get off the ship and enjoy a walk, so I won’t judge it too harshly this time.
Madeira
Then Madeira has had a few name checks already. Its tacked onto the Canary Islands cruise itineraries, but is actually not part of this chain, sitting much further north in the North Atlantic.
I visited twice in one year. Its easy to see why many people think its their favourite port.
This was where I spent my birthday, tobogganing down the hill. Fabulous!!
Greek Islands
Rhodes and Santorini were already favourite Greek Islands that I was glad to revisit.
However I’ve heard so much about Mykonos that I was excited to see this one for myself.
Its typically white painted buildings, narrow streets and landmark windmills are wonderful to see.
Its not quite big enough to cope with a mega ship, or two, full of tourists though.
I know that being one of those tourists makes me a bit of a hypocrite, but I think a beach holiday may be more in order here if I ever go back.
1 NEW TRAVEL BLOG CREATED
My travels are not just about visiting places, counting where I’ve been, taking the photos and buying souvenirs, although I do all of that.
They are about making memories and telling the stories.
I’m a self confessed holiday bore.
For a long time people had suggested I write a blog to tell my stories. In 2022 it finally felt like the right time to do just that.
gary-travels.com
So on the 9th July 2022 gary-travels.com was born as home to my travel blog, holiday photos, travel tips and tales of my adventures.
With this blog post I’m celebrating 6 months as a travel blogger and just over 900 views of my website. Those are pretty nice travel related statistics, even if I say so myself. I’m not exactly an internet sensation yet, but you never know with time and effort.
Who knew the skills I would have to learn. Not just writing, but search engine optimisation, crafting text with keywords and cross-references to other stories, as well as trying to make it sound interesting.
I’m quite pleased that a Google search for Gary Travels now brings up my website in number one spot. It certainly didn’t last July!
There are a bunch of posts, telling my stories from trips around the World. A gallery of photos.
And a new World Map for me to add my virtual pins to. The collector in me is happy once more.
LOOKING AHEAD
What does 2023 hold?
As I write there is absolutely nothing booked or even planned, though I have lots of ideas.
My TV is full of holiday documentaries that are met with calls of “I’ve been there!” or “That’s a new one for my list”.
I gathered enough photos and tales to tell more of my 2022 travels in the blog, but new content is always good.
So whatever you do in 2023 I wish you safe and happy travels and remember to keep coming back to hear about Gary’s Travels!
I have a lot of places to tick off the lists to improve those travel statistics!
