Where I've Been

This post is kind of a humble brag to show how well travelled I am...in the local sense, of course. Sure, I've been to several continents - four - but to be honest, I find it far more interesting how much I've explored my own country. Anyone can buy a plane ticket with the illusion it will be fun, fewer can head off to Waltham Forest just to see Leyton, and believe it was worth it.

Because I have - it will be blogged about eventually, hopefully. Right now there's a backlog. But either way, here's a map of all the boroughs I've been in. Dark green indicates I've been there, light green indicates I've blogged about it. And so far, it's very promising:

There are only six boroughs left to visit; luckily for me, I can think of something to write about for all of them at some point. Unsurprisingly, south London is all lime green, though if you zoomed in on a ward-by-ward basis, which I won't, it will look far less covered than it does already. You might be surprised to learn I've never written about Camden, aside from the rare mention of UCL, at a push. And Harrow makes for a very odd island in the north - I've flown from Heathrow, so that ticks off Hillingdon, and I went to Hampstead Heath as part of a hiking society trip, so that's Barnet off the list.

All in all, I'm on 26/32 boroughs visited + City, which is fantastic. Few can say they've been to that many purely out of boredom.

You might then wonder how I'm faring for all the other counties - honestly, it won't be much better, since I've lived in London all my life. But here's what it looks like for the Surrey districts, which I've blogged plenty about before:

Okay, this one's weirder - it seems that whenever I go to Surrey, I always end up blogging about it. The only districts without any visits are Spelthorne, Runnymede, Surrey Heath, Woking, and Waverley, though again I'm pretty sure they could all be satisfied with the odd train journey. 6/11 is honestly not that bad!

As for UK counties in general - click to zoom in - it's not as impressive. 

You can tell I'm a southerner, can't you? I wasn't kidding when I said Norwich was the most northerly place in England I'd ever been to when I visited, only to later adjust that to Leeds. And Leeds sits on its own in an island surrounded by grey on the map, as West Yorkshire - coincidentally, that's also what Leeds is like in reality. I've also been to Warwick Castle before, when I was very young - maybe 8? - so that's why Warwickshire is on its own. The rest is either northern Scotland or South Glamorgan in Wales, which counts because I went to Cardiff for a Millwall away day back when I was 12. Here's the match report, it was very dull. I've also been in Belfast as well, hence the Northern Irish dot of green. I barely remember anything, and I was there two years ago.

For English counties, then, the tally is a far more sad 18/48, I think...but if all goes to plan in the next few weeks, that number could slowly go up. 

I think the weirder thing is how I've not done all the Home Counties yet. There are only six, but I don't remember ever being in Berkshire or Buckinghamshire. Maybe I've been to Windsor before, in which case Berkshire has been done. However I've never managed Bucks, which is really weird - I'll be honest, when I went to Watford, I really thought I was there, but no, that was only Hertfordshire.

I might as well end with a bit of a humble brag, and highlight where I've been in Europe. Many of these were when I was far younger than the blog, which explains why I've not blogged about many countries outside of the UK:

Unsurprisingly, I've been to all the tourist hotspots, plus a few more "niche" countries. A few years ago, I went to Bosnia on holiday, and it was really enjoyable - most travel brochures don't advertise Sarajevo. Whilst there are still some countries here I'd love to visit - mostly just the Nordic and Baltic countries, along with swathes of central Europe - I'm happy with this map. I'm probably more travelled than most people, and that's never a bad thing. 19/51 is quite impressive, I reckon.