Problem
A girl I spoke to in a restaurant said she loves travelling and had visited 25 cities in the past year. I was surprised that:
a) She had visited so many cities
b) That she had taken the trouble to keep count
c) That she had counted cities instead of countries.
If, for example, you live in either the USA or Europe, without taking a flight or changing money, you could easily travel to a lot of cities.
In the case of the USA, you might know only one country, the USA, but visit up to 25 cities in a year, just by driving and using your American dollars, no passport or plans needed. You could even visit near 50 (without flying to Hawaii or anywhere offshore).
Capitals and Other Cities
I've just realised I am thinking of capital cities. Taking just cities into account, reaching an impressive count is much easier. It's easier to visit more capitals when lots of small coutnries are grouped together or one country has split into two or three smaller ones.
Non-capital Cities
If you want to count only cities, you can take city-hopping planes, trains, overnight coaches, buses, bicycle, hitch-hike (not recommended for safety reasons nowadays), taxis, uber, or share costs with a group of four or five friends or family members or colleagues.
Sponsors and Charity
You could also do it as a novelty exercise to raise money from sponsors for charity. Another way is to pick landmarks, such as cathedrals, or pubs or restaurants, or a trail following a theme or famous character, tourist boards being your starting point for ideas.
Weekends Away
For example, if you take a weekend trip to another city, setting off Friday night you have dinner and stay overnight in another city. Number one.
Home And Away In A Second Family Home
Now count your home city, if you live in a city, and you have now done two. If you have two homes, or stay with parents or family over Christmas, New Year, or any holiday, automatically two.
Long Weekends
Let's go back to our weekend travel trip. Next day, Saturday, you stop for elevenses, lunch, tea, and dinner on Saturday stay overnight at another city. Add five to your original one or two. That makes six or seven.
On Sunday, taking a triangular or circular route, you came back in a different direction on and see different cities for elevenses, lunch and tea. Add three. So that's up to ten on a weekend starting Friday evening and ending Sunday evening.
Take a four-day break, at the same pace as Saturday, and you can make your total up to 16 or 17.
New Year
That's an impressive start, if you want to begin your year with a New Year's Eve getaway. I find it easier to start counting travel trips from January. Your own diary or work appointments book will help.
American Holidays
Many Americans get less holiday than Europeans. Americans tend to get 10 days holiday a year minimum (in a new job, as a school leaver, university leaver, or somebody switching jobs and companies - unless they negotiate a special deal).
Long Weekends and Half Days
As a result, Americans often use their odd days to make a series of long weekends. Almost one a month. You can have one long weekend ten months out of twelve. If you are allowed to take half days, using four half days, you can extend that to four weekends leaving work lunchtime Friday.
UK and Europe Holiday Allowances
Check the allowances in the country where you are working or planning to work. In the UK workers tend to get a minimum of a fortnight's holiday (14 days). Anybody senior would ask for or be offered three weeks. Top management would get four weeks.
European Coach Trips
A famous film about Americans visiting Europe on a 'whistle-stop tour' used a phrase now in common use, which was the title of the film: 'If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium'.
Who Has The Time To Travel?
Many well paid, overworked sales and other executives are sent from one city to another with little time to see anything. Two ways around this: ask for a city centre hotel and go for a walk in the evening or before breakfast. Ask the taxi from the airport to show you two or three main landmarks en route. Tell the boss you need an extra day to recharge before flying on and use your day of rest for sightseeing on a pre-booked tour. Many major cities have a hop on hop off bus.
Students have long holidays. Teachers have long holidays. You can take a work-related course in another city.
Conferences
If you are booking a conference, look for one in a city you would like to visit, or one near enough for a side trip to two or more other cities. Many conferences organise a spouse programme during the day of arrival (trying to get everybody on site in advance to minimise the risk of VIPs being delayed and arriving late or too late on day one).
Retirees
Hotels in London frequently discover or tell journalists that their most expensive rooms, which make the difference between profit and loss, are honeymoon suites occupied by young rich honeymooners or elderly recently retired couples who still have the energy to travel.
To go back to the young woman who started my consideration of this city-hopping and city-counting project, she was a freelance teacher of both sports (such as pilates) and music (piano, violin etc). She travelled with other single young ladies in groups.
UK Groups
Hen parties and stag parties to foreign cities are also popular, with UK groups going to Europe or Dubai.
Off-Season Breaks
If you are retired or an empty-nester, you can take advantage of off-season breaks.
If you are going nowhere today, think about
a) Going to another city, maybe across the country or state border.
b) If you are taking a break and just want to stay home, you can amuse yourself by counting the number of cities you have visited in the past year, perhaps comparing your count with another family member, the number of cities you have vistied in your lifetime!
Here are some quizzes for Christmas and New Year gatherings?
How many capital cities have you visited?
How many USA cities have you visited?
How many cities have you visited this year? (Make the question 'your parents or family' - to include childen in this game).
How many cities have you visited in your life? (Compare the generations.)
How many cities did you visit before you were aged 21? After the age of 21?
To help contestants, you may wish to give each person a map marked with cities of your coutnry, continent or the world.
This could be a challenge, a list of achievements, or a competitive game.
Which cities have I visted and written about on my blogs?
In 2017:
Brasov, Romania
Bucharest, Romania
London, England
Perugia, Umbria, Italy
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Singapore (city), Singapore (island and country)
I could immediately think of six.
Going through my blog posts I can expand the list of places I have described this year to give you a guide as to where you might like to visit:
Brussels, Belgium
Cardiff, Wales, UK
Edinburgh, Scotland
Fishguard, Wales, UK
New York, New York, USA
Paris, France
Rome, Italy
Rykjavik, Iceland
Stratford, England, UK
Venice, Italy
York, England, UK
Washington, DC, USA
Useful Websites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_cities_by_country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City Defines cities by size or type. Analysis of city development. Half the world's populations lives in cities.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
