Been there, done that

Update: Ooh! Piffy! Just a week after writing this, it turns up as the Viikonloppuviitonen (”Weekend fiver”) on Skrubu.
Here’s the “map of the world” that i once thought i’d create myself, but fortunately somebody else did before me. It displays the countries i’ve visited.

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands
I’ve set my foot on Canada, USA, Ecuador (& Galápagos),  Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland (duh) and Åland, Denmarl, Ireland, UK (Scotland, Wales, England and Gibraltar), Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Estonia, Hungary, Swizerland, France, Spain, Italy (& Sardinia) + Vatican, Greece and a bunch of Greek islands, Kenya (& Lamu), Nepal, India, Bali (technically Indonesia), Thailand, Timor-Leste, Australia and Japan.

Of these, i’ve really been to only a handful; the other ones have been quicker stop-overs. When i travel, i like it when i can settle down enough to actually get a feel of the place. I want to have some time where i can just sit down and feel that i don’t have to rush and experience stuff. Still, while i can spend one day at the beach (two at the most), i’d rather do something… and snorkelling does count as doing something
Apart from the Timor-thing, i haven’t really done much work related travel. That’s probably why i can say that my work travel has been good.  The Timor trip extraordinarily so :).
The USA and Canada part on the map above is a bit over-representative for a month in Ontario, another in Ohio and a week’s tourist visit in Florida, but hey. Same goes for India (a week and a half in Delhi and surroundings) and Indonesia (uh, Bali. Twice.) and most of all, Australia (five hours in Darwin to get new glasses). But, hey.

My favourite city outside Finland…. might be Tokyo.  It’s fun, it’s big, it’s lively, and it saved my sanity after four months of Dili (which i also love, but did need the break from at the time). And it’s just overwhelming. I must return.  I also liked Edinburgh and Amsterdam for their non-overwhelmingness.
What i miss is a list of countries/places i want to visit before i die. New Z, Antarctica, those specks between Iceland and the north pole, Papua (both sides), Yemen, Patagonia … and a few other spots on the Southern continents….
Thanks to Mad for the link