49

Today is my 49th birthday. It's also day 1,462 of this blog. If I keep to my plan that I unveiled on June 22, 2013, I have 365 days after this one to explore the world. I'm nowhere close to what I want to do and see in my life. I can't imaging stopping this after five years. I have a year to reconcile how that notion works with the title of this blog.

Year four of my quest to see the world in many ways has been the best so far. I took more major trips this year (five) than any of the previous three years. Two brand new places and three spots that I've been before. I broke new ground by traveling to two new continents in South America and Asia; returned to my culinary homeland in Mexico to explore Chichén Itzá; and revisited one of my favorite states in the U.S. (New Mexico) and my absolute favorite city in the world (Paris). I've said before and I'll say it again: give me English beer and French cheese every day and I'll be supremely happy for the rest of my life. I got half of that for a week this year.

Along the way in the last 12 months, I've slept on a boat, swam with sharks, eaten guinea pigs and snails, attended symphonies, learned about the planets, seen some of the greatest landscapes I've ever seen, eaten with chopsticks as my only option, sung my heart out and of course eaten as much French cheese as I could in one week in Paris without solely eating cheese. Some of this I have written about. Some I haven't. I've set foot on Mount Fuji. I've been covered in butterflies. I've drunk coffee that I still dream about. I've explored ancient cliff dwellings. I've found treasure at the top of an enormous flight of stairs in Montmartre. Above all, I've lived and learned.

Monarch butterflies in Mindo, Ecuador.

So how am I doing with my list? This time last year I claimed all my original goals complete save one: to set foot on two new continents. I made it to continent number three (Africa) less than 12 months after I started this blog. It was another two years and three months before I got continent number four (South America) which fulfilled my promise to myself. What was a long time coming for number four turned in to continent number five just nine months later. I'm pretty happy about that. But I'm very happy I did what I set out to do. Maybe it's time to start thinking about a new list?

If there's something that this five year quest has proved to me, it's that we really gain a lot of perspective about our planet and the people who inhabit it (including ourselves) by seeing different parts of the globe. Travel is usually confusing and strange when you go somewhere new for the first time and there are frequently situations that challenge us. But once you work through that initial shock and once you break through and start figuring things out and engaging other people, you start to appreciate the differences and the samenesses that exist everywhere and those experiences add to your being when you get through them. Whether it's as simple as communicating with gestures when you don't speak the same language as the person you are communicating with or as seemingly life threatening as a plane you are on aborting a landing twice in a row, what we have been through and done and seen changes us. And usually for the better. This year has been full of life-changing experiences.

Over the past few years, I've been fortunate to take one or two trips here and there with friends. I was very lucky to spend a week and half in Japan this year with two friends whom I have known for a decade and a half or more. I find traveling with different people helps us pay attention to things we sometimes don't notice by ourselves. This is especially true in a place like Japan, where so many things seem foreign to a western hemisphere guy like myself. I appreciate Larry and Rachel making the trip at the same time we did. We definitely got into some things that would have been way less fun as a twosome than a foursome.

So now it's on to year five. I see a big trip in the late winter or early spring overseas somewhere but I think unlike last year, I'll be spending a good amount of time at home this year. And by "at home" I mean about as far from where I live as I can get and still be in the United States or in other words not really at home at all. But that's to come in a few weeks. For now, happy birthday to me (again). This time next year my age will start with a 5. Craziness!

Traveling is thirsty work; fortunately, they have beer machines in Japan. Near Daigoji Shrine, Kyoto.