Mapping Out Your Travels

I got to talking with my wife last night about all the different states that we have been to over the course of our lives.  I've decided that there should be some universal rules in place to determine whether or not you've truly visited a state.  They are as follows:

1. You must have been old enough to have memories of the state you visited. (I was taken to California in 1979, when I was only a couple months old, but that doesn't count because, clearly, I have no memory of the trip nor the destination.)
2. A flight layover at an airport doesn't constitute visiting that state unless during the layover you left the airport and went somewhere.  (I have changed planes in Memphis, TN, Charleston, NC, and Atlanta, GA but since I never left those airports, I can't claim that I've been to those states.  I'd like to be able to check them off since that would complete the entire southeast U.S. for me, but I didn't really experience them just from walking through an airport there.)
3. Driving through a state does count for having visited that state.  (I feel that driving is a much more intimate way of travel than flying.  While it can be debated whether or not you actually "experienced" the state by zooming through it at 65 mph, I don't believe that an argument against having been there would be a valid one.  When driving or riding in a vehicle, you see the landscapes, the big cities, the small towns, the geography.  You experience the climate, see the local fauna, the habitats, etc.  It may not be as good as a guided walking tour and certainly isn't as equal to having lived in a state.  However, I maintain that driving through a state counts.)

The map at the top indicates all the states that I have visited.  The lower map is all the states that my wife has visited.  Ours are pretty close.  She's been to fourteen and I've been to seventeen.

I found this cool little map maker at Big Huge Labs.  It lets you check off all the states that you've visited and it turns them blue.  It gives you the html code for the map you create so that you can insert it into your blog, website, whatever.  It's fun to see what yours looks like.  It also lets you change it to the globe to check off countries you've been to.  But, I stuck with the U.S.A. only since Haiti is the only other country I've been to.  Go check it out and make yours now.  How many states have you been to?

Posted in: autobiography,game