The Year of Travel

Over the past twelve months I have done a lot of travel, enough to get me to gold frequent flier status.

Being a numbers and lists geek, I have broken all the travel down into the following summary:

• 

  10 trips taken: 4 domestic, 3 to New Zealand and 3 long haul.
• 26 flights flown: 7 for work, 4 for free on airpoints.
• 6 airlines travelled on: Virgin Australia (7x), Air New Zealand (6x), Delta (6x), Air Canada (1x), Etihad (4x), Scoot (2x).
• 11 plane models flown on: 737, 767-300, 777 (-200 and -300), 787-9, A320, A330, A340, ATR-72, CRJ-200, ERJ-145.
• 16 airports transited through: Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Canberra, Auckland, LAX, Orlando, Boston, Montreal, Quebec, JFK, Abu Dhabi, Munich, Amsterdam, Singapore.
• 8 countries visited: Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Singapore.

• 

  27 cities visited*: Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Auckland, Wanganui, Ohakune, Orlando, Boston, Montreal, Quebec City, Munich, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Würzburg, Nuremberg, Salzburg, Leipzig, Berlin, Potsdam, Osnabrück, Wuppertal, Bonn, Cologne, Aachen, Maastricht, The Hague, Singapore.
  (* I define visited as having deliberately gone to that city for work or leisure. Transiting through a city is not counted.)
• 16 train journeys taken between cities in four countries (Canada, Germany, Austria, Netherlands).
• Experienced jet-lag in 7 time zones: AEST, AEDT, NZST, EDT, CET, SGT.

• 

  15 hotels slept in for a total of 36 nights and 14 nights spent staying on friend’s couches, floors and spare rooms.

Finally, some good and bad highlights from the year:

• Missed connections: 1 due to late inbound flight.
• Best Airport: Gold Coast – due to Virgin Australia’s fantastic ground staff
• Worst Airport Terminals: Abu Dhabi terminal 1 and Boston terminal B.
• Best food: Etihad Amsterdam to Abu Dhabi (dinner) and Eithad Abu Dhabi to Sydney (breakfast).

• 

  Best flights: Etihad Amsterdam to Abu Dhabi and Scoot Singapore to Sydney (both red-eyes!)
• Worst flight: Air Canada Boston to Montreal – grumpy cabin crew.
• Best planes: Etihad’s A340 and Scoot’s 787-9.
• Worst plane: Air New Zealand’s 767-300.
• Best ground staff: Virgin Australia at Gold Coast.
• Worst ground staff: Delta at JFK.

I have now caught the travel bug, nine years ago I had never been on a plane, six years ago I’d never been outside of New Zealand, less than three years ago I had never been outside of Australia or New Zealand.

I’m unlikely to repeat this much travel in the coming year, or years. But I’m scheming plans for more amazing places I now want to visit. Returning to Europe remains high in first place in those plans.