When I started this blog in the summer of 2013, I expected that it would serve as motivation for me to travel further in every direction of the globe than I had before. I meant that in every sense of those words; I wanted to visit more places than I had ever been before but I also wanted to stretch my global footprint, meaning that I actually intended to head further north, east, south and west than I had ever been before. This page tracks the furthest from zero in each cardinal direction I have been in my life.
For perspective, I'm including before (meaning before my 45th birthday) and after (meaning any time I stretched my range in any one direction) locations. This is still a work in progress. I pledge to continue to stretch.
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| Greetings from Gullfoss. |
North: Gullfoss Waterfall, Iceland (64.33 degrees north)
In the year 2000, my friend Nick and I went on a pilgrimage to Finland to do the grand tour of works of the Finnish Architect Alvar Aalto. To this day, Finland is one of the most beautiful natural places I have visited, along with (and in complete contrast to) northern New Mexico. Part of Finland is above the Arctic Circle and while we didn't head that far north, I couldn't imagine visiting anywhere more remote or further towards the top of our planet. We were there in mid-August and I don't think we saw too many minutes of night on that trip; true darkness as I remember it came at about midnight. The furthest north we made it to was Aalto's home town of Jyväskylä which sits at 62.24 degrees north of the equator.
Turns out I was wrong. Six months or so after I started this blog I hopped on a plane to Iceland. In our second day in country, I went further north than I had ever been before. The bus trip I took that day took us to see Thingvellir, the largest natural lake in Iceland, before heading to Gullfoss waterfall, which in mid-December was about the windiest place I'd ever been, hurling wave after wave of frozen spray into my face as I struggled against the gusts to get as close to the falls as possible. Our trip to Iceland was right before Christmas and I saw about as much daylight on those days as we saw darkness in Finland in August of 2000. I still can't imagine going further north, but I've been wrong about this once. Who knows; maybe I'll head above the Arctic Circle one day.
East: Rotorua, New Zealand (176.29 degrees east)
From a stretching my global boundaries perspective, that trip I took to Finland right at the turn of this century got me further north and, as it turned out, further east than I had ever been in my life. Imatra, Finland is about six miles from the border with Russia. So close, in fact, that we considered for about five minutes making the trip to the checkpoint so we could say we saw Russia. Ultimately this proved to be too little temptation and we high-tailed it out of town to get to Lahti, the city where we would spend that night. Alvar Aalto's Church of the Three Crosses, which is an incredible example of Aalto's later work just east of Imatra itself, was the eastern-most point of my journeys around our planet for almost 17 years.
Then I blew it out of the water when I landed at Narita Airport just outside of Tokyo in May of 2017. And by that I mean really really killed it. When I came back from that trip I wrote Tokyo is about as far east as I could get on this planet without hitting some very tiny islands in the Pacific Ocean or by going to east east east Russia. Well, i guess I didn't check my map very closely because New Zealand is east of Japan and less than two years after my first Japan trip, I found myself in Oceania (or at least I think I was). The furthest east I got in New Zealand was to Rotorua. The picture above shows the Redwoods Treewalk, a series of suspension bridges between 30 and 65 feet off the forest floor which allows a more intimate look at the California Redwoods (yes, they were imported) used to quickly repopulate New Zealand's forests after mass stripping of the islands pretty much as soon as white men arrived and settled the place.
Then I blew it out of the water when I landed at Narita Airport just outside of Tokyo in May of 2017. And by that I mean really really killed it. When I came back from that trip I wrote Tokyo is about as far east as I could get on this planet without hitting some very tiny islands in the Pacific Ocean or by going to east east east Russia. Well, i guess I didn't check my map very closely because New Zealand is east of Japan and less than two years after my first Japan trip, I found myself in Oceania (or at least I think I was). The furthest east I got in New Zealand was to Rotorua. The picture above shows the Redwoods Treewalk, a series of suspension bridges between 30 and 65 feet off the forest floor which allows a more intimate look at the California Redwoods (yes, they were imported) used to quickly repopulate New Zealand's forests after mass stripping of the islands pretty much as soon as white men arrived and settled the place.
South: Ulva Island, New Zealand (46.93 degrees south)
At 45 years of age, I had never in my life crossed the equator. That's right, the furthest south I'd been on our planet was in the northern hemisphere, specifically Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados sitting a whopping 13.07 degrees NORTH of the equator. I stopped here with my parents on the way to St. Lucia in 1985. It was not our first stop. I can't remember if we stopped in the United States or not on the way down to the Caribbean but I know we stopped at Antigua before flying to Barbados. If going south of Barbados once in a five year period seemed like a pretty low bar to clear, you would be correct. Since I started writing this thing, I've set foot in the southern hemisphere more than a couple of times.
So as of the beginning of me writing this blog, the southern-most point I'd been on our planet was an airport in a country that I claim I have never visited. Since then I replaced one of those with another, Johannesburg's O. R. Tambo International Airport, and then really got serious about heading south when I visited Ulva Island, a small bird sanctuary off the coast of New Zealand's Stewart Island which is the third New Zealand island visible on some world maps located just south of the south island. The picture above is of me standing on the south beach of Ulva Island which is literally maybe 20 feet north of the southernmost point I've been standing on our planet.
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| Dragging my surfboard out of the Pacific Ocean at Wai'anae. |
West: Wai'anae, Oahu, Hawaii, USA (158.18 degrees west)
In 2011, my friends Mike and Bryan and I drove across the country from our homes near Washington, D.C. all the way to the Pacific Ocean. When we got to St. Louis, we sort of roughly followed the route (although not the means of transportation) that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark followed on their Corps of Discovery Expedition from 1804 to 1806. We ended up in Portland, Oregon but made sure we visited the Pacific Ocean at the exact same spot that the Corps of Discovery did. That would be at Seaside, Oregon and at that time, at 123.92 degrees west, it was the furthest westward I'd ever been.
Then about halfway through the first five year period that forms the title of this blog, I went to Hawaii and blew Seaside out of the water as far as being west of the prime meridian. On the second day we were on the island of Oahu, we went surfing, which required us to head north and a little bit west of where we were staying in Honolulu. Where we ended up, a small town called Wai'anae, is now the most western point I've traveled to. Technically speaking I guess somewhere in the Pacific Ocean about 100 yards west of Wai'anae's beach would be the furthest west. I can't imagine I'm ever heading further in that direction. Yes, there are some spots I could go to stretch it (including Kauai) but I don't see it happening anytime soon. I think Wai'anae is safe. For a while at least.
I thought this page would be worth another map (I LOVE maps!) so I've made the one below. The reddish markers are the points that represented my furthest north, east, south and west at the start of this blog. The blue circles with the planes show what's changed since then. I'm happy to see the footprint is much much bigger. Not done yet.
In 2011, my friends Mike and Bryan and I drove across the country from our homes near Washington, D.C. all the way to the Pacific Ocean. When we got to St. Louis, we sort of roughly followed the route (although not the means of transportation) that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark followed on their Corps of Discovery Expedition from 1804 to 1806. We ended up in Portland, Oregon but made sure we visited the Pacific Ocean at the exact same spot that the Corps of Discovery did. That would be at Seaside, Oregon and at that time, at 123.92 degrees west, it was the furthest westward I'd ever been.
Then about halfway through the first five year period that forms the title of this blog, I went to Hawaii and blew Seaside out of the water as far as being west of the prime meridian. On the second day we were on the island of Oahu, we went surfing, which required us to head north and a little bit west of where we were staying in Honolulu. Where we ended up, a small town called Wai'anae, is now the most western point I've traveled to. Technically speaking I guess somewhere in the Pacific Ocean about 100 yards west of Wai'anae's beach would be the furthest west. I can't imagine I'm ever heading further in that direction. Yes, there are some spots I could go to stretch it (including Kauai) but I don't see it happening anytime soon. I think Wai'anae is safe. For a while at least.
I thought this page would be worth another map (I LOVE maps!) so I've made the one below. The reddish markers are the points that represented my furthest north, east, south and west at the start of this blog. The blue circles with the planes show what's changed since then. I'm happy to see the footprint is much much bigger. Not done yet.
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