This is a somewhat simplified graphic representation of my journey.

It took 542 days, between leaving Brussels by train, to head to my parents, and landing in the European capital again, 18 months later.

According to Google maps, I travelled roughly 165.850 kilometers, however the actual figure is higher due to to longer actual flight paths, plus added road trips, train, bus and ferry rides.

I’ll come back to these statistics in a future post.

Here are the explanations:

Blue line         : First RTW tour (10/2013 – 04/2014)
Green line     : Second RTW tour (05/2014 – 01/2015)
Red line          : Third RTW tour (01/2015 – 03/2015)
Red star         : Major city (stayed more than 7 days)
Yellow cube : Secondary city (up to 7 days)
Blue circle     : technical or overnight stop

To simplify matters, I have left out other cities that I only visited for a day trip – such as Kyoto, Nara, Rotorua, Kaikoura, Canberra, or Te Anau.

Maybe I find a way to integrate all the road trips, too. But I think it might render the map overly complicated.

But even in its simplified version, it looks pretty confusing, doesn’t it?

However, for me, in my memory, I know this journey by heart, every flight, the airline I took, sometimes even the plane model, I know the dates of travel, the rental car company or the ship.

It feels like it has burned itself into my brain. I can close my eyes and, in a minute, relive it again and fly around the globe in an incredible rush of images, feelings, smells and memories.

I think I actually do that at least once a day, in a quiet moment, on an elevator, in the metro… closing my eyes and racing through the cities on the map…

Below you find the embedded map to zoom in and out.