Oh, The Places I've Been...

In the Fall of 2002, I was entering my second year at college and had declared myself an international finance major.  I knew I wanted to travel, and had found two programs that would let me do so that year - I was to spend winter break traveling Europe with International Business Seminars (including spending NYE '03 in Paris - something I'll never forget!) and the summer living and working in France (major for me as I spent most of my middle and high school years studying French) followed by three weeks backpacking through Europe.

Once I had signed myself up for both programs, I worked on renewing my passport and by October of that year had a fresh new passport in hand.  I remember feeling so "adult" as I had completed and processed the application myself, and I vowed then to fill all the pages in my new passport by the time the expiry date arrived.  Well, here we are ten years later and I am happy to say that I achieved my goal (actually ahead of schedule as I was told on my last international trip in October that I could no longer fly abroad without either getting additional pages or a new passport)! 

As I start the proceedings to get a new passport, I can't help but look back on all the memories I created doing what I love to do most - travel - over the last ten years!  Unfortunately, travel stamps aren't as pretty in real life as some images make them seem so I'll only share a few pictures of my passport pages to show just how full they really are. (and sorry for the Iphone pictures - but my camera is still not working!)

And to tally it all up for posterity, these are the places I've been (with this passport - a bit misleading as all the travel I did within Europe was mostly by train so no stamps from those places visited):

Dominican Republic - Puerto Plata, Punta Cana and Santo Domingo

Colombia - Bogota

Mexico - Mexico City and Cancun

France - Paris

Chile - Santiago

United Kingdom - London

Costa Rica - San Jose

Venezuela - Caracas

Jamaica - Montego Bay

Brazil - Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro

Canada - Toronto

Panama - Panama City

Argentina - Buenos Aires

Peru - Lima

And in map form (including all countries visited, regardless of whether I have a stamp or not ;))

http://bighugelabs.com/map.php

I really need to get over to Africa / Asia / the Middle East!