Places I've Visited

I'm really big into travel. I think Americans are far too provincial in our world view because we never travel outside our country. We sit here and thump out chests and claim to be the greatest country in the world, and that's that.

Well, that's not necessarily that. If Americans traveled, they would understand that we are not necessarily the greatest. Militarily we are. But how about quality of life for our people? There are plenty of countries in this world where the citizens live peaceful, prosperous, healthy lives. I'm thinking Canada, Australia, New Zealand, anywhere in Europe. Even Asian countries like South Korea and Japan. The common denominator for all these countries is they tend to be left-leaning politically (socialist by American standards), and they are not militaristic. Imagine what a quality of life we could have if we weren't blowing billions of dollars a year in Iraq and other military adventures.

I think Americans need to travel more. If they did, they would understand how feared we are in the world. How much George Bush is despised by everyone, even our closest friends. My last trip abroad was 2 1/2 years ago. Everywhere I went, all anyone wanted to talk about was Bush and how much he was hated. That was 2 1/2 years ago. Imagine how it would be today.

All of that is a big lead in to the fact that I found this cool website where you can map out all the places you have traveled. Here's my map for the United States:



create your own visited states map

As you can see, I've been pretty much everywhere except Oregon and South Carolina. I need to knock them off my list sometime.

My world travels are not as extensive. Here's the map for that.



create your own visited countries map

One of my goals is to start filling out more countries in red in the next few years. I think travel makes all of us better people.