<p>Okay, this week has me chewing my nails off waiting for S’s last decisions, so, inspired by the travel stories in the thread “Cool Stuff Our Kids Are Doing”, here’s the question…how many countries have you and your children visited? And how do you decide which countries to include?</p>
<p>In my family, DH has visited 50+ countries, I’m 40+, and DS is hovering around 30. We don’t allow a country to be counted if we’ve only been to its airport, which deprives me of about 10 more. Some friends allow a country’s airport to be counted if they have a drink in its bar. Do you count Hong Kong if you visited pre-97? What about a territory, like Guam? We haven’t visited Antarctica, which isn’t a country, but I would definitely count that one.</p>
<p>Yes, this is a waste of time. Humor me. <em>Grin</em></p>
<p>Just chiming in (to help you pass the time) to say that I counted places for DS when he was in utero and even toyed with the major cheat idea of counting places DH visited alone while DS was in my utero. Still doesn’t get any of us (well, maybe DH) up to your #s.</p>
<p>I’ve visited 47 of the 50 states and also don’t allow counting pure airport stopovers, but do allow car or train “drive-throughs.” Also I did count Hong Kong (visited in 1982,~). Don’t know whether/how to count Puerto Rico, US Virgins, British Virgins. Without those, I think I’ve only got about 16 countries. DS only three.</p>
<p>There is, of course, there is the issue about depth of travel: What about six months spent in a single country? What about six individual trips around the same country at different times instead of visiting other countries? What about the difference between time in a posh English-speaking resort and time spent traveling around small local villages? What about day trips to other countries? Does Canada really count? What about Puerto Rico? Do you count the Vatican? </p>
<p>My count is about 15 as a first year in college. I’ve had five or so trips to two of the countries, three trips to one country, and two trips to two others, off the top of my head, as well as pretty extensive travel around the US. I do not count airports. If you want to include day trips to countries, I think you can count those overnight or full-day layovers where you go out and experience the city.</p>
<p>If it’s for college application purposes, I would not count a country that was visited for less than one week; the purpose is to show some educational benefit from travel as opposed to totaling free mileage! :)</p>
<p>Gosh, don’t I feel poor and/or deprived, both culturally and financially, with my sole foreign excursions consisting of trips to Mexico & Canada. Although I did grow up about 10 miles from the Canadian border, and we would ride our bikes across the border as kids every so often just to say we “left the country,” ha ha. Hey, it was a small town, we had to entertain ourselves.</p>
<p>Sheesh.
For our younger three-- zip. The oldest-- one. He and I left the rest of the family during a vacation in VT, and drove up to Montreal for the day.
Maybe this is why he wants to become an IR major!</p>
<p>My H travels at least one or two weeks a month; probably every 3rd trip is international. I just went to world66.com and generated his map: it’s mostly red (= visited), he’s at 56 off the top of my head (and there may be other countries I couldn’t remember he’d visited). I can only claim 23 (24 if Hong Kong pre-China-merging counts), but that’s going to increase after we get both those boys packed off to college and I wrap up my employment to the point where I can tag along on his globe-trotting.</p>
<p>Oh my gosh, son wouldn’t have dreamed of mentioning his travel history on college apps…didn’t want adcoms to think “spoiled rich kid” instead of what’s actually the truth, “kid of parents who are travel nuts and spent all the college money traveling”!</p>
<p>I lived in Thailand for a year while working in a refugee camp, but with our family’s “rules”, the few hours in Uruguay counts the same! Ditto for repeat visits…can only count the country once. Of course count Canada, why not?</p>
<p>Mootmom, thanks for the site…can’t wait to show it to DH.</p>
<p>I was in someone’s home the other day, and they had this wonderful large map on the wall with little black flags stuck in all of the places they’ve traveled to and red flags in the places everyone in the immediate family was living or attending school. It looked fantastic in their home, and it was so much fun to look at. I would love to have something similar when I grow up.</p>
<p>H’s family had one of those maps in their house, and his parents belonged to some kind of “miles flown” club. One of their family goals in the 60’s was to see all 50 states (and they did). Back then his parents were school teachers and they spent 6 weeks one summer in an unairconditioned station wagon pulling a camper and did pretty much all the western states, nat’l parks, etc. He said it was the best summer of his life.</p>
<p>As a result, H grew up with the travel bug and we are also a pair who have spent a lot of what could have been college money on travel. D1 has chickened out of all her school’s study abroad opps, but D2 is off to Brazil this summer to study alternative fuels and flex cars.</p>
<p>I’ve lived in Thailand, Japan (Yokohama and Tokyo), Somalia (Hargeisa and Mogadishu), Tanzania, France (Tours), and Germany (Munich suburbs). I couldn’t begin to tell you how many places I’ve travelled to, though I’m missing three continents - Australia, South America and Antarctica. My kids have vacationed or visited relatives or colleges or done CTY in California (LA area and San Francisco), Dewey Beach DE, Vermont, NH, PA, MA, DC, MD,Scotland, Japan, France (Normandy and Paris), and the Virgin Islands.</p>
<p>Oh and I spent a year between college and grad school photographing fire stations around the country. I’ve been to all but 8 states I think. (Upper midwest - Montana to N. Dakota more or less got left out.) We didn’t do Alaska or Hawaii, though was in Hawaii at age 4.</p>
<p>Visited 12 countries outside of US. Includes living in Germany 3 years. Only 2 continents though - North America and Europe. I’m really kind of a homebody, though, and I hate to fly.</p>
Same here, altho D has been to “only” 9 countries. God forbid she mentions camping in Botswana, given that she did not start a fund to distribute soccer balls there. We had a wonderful time, and she learned alot about a very different part of the world, as well as the fact that not everything you do in life will fill a checkbox on a college application.</p>
<p>My D’s application was all about Germany, by necessity. Aside from the strange transcript and long explanation, it was also her main EC (learning the language), the reason why she didn’t have a job, or belong to any honor societies, etc. </p>
<p>Under ECs, though, she did list “travel throughout Europe” - and in the explanation area, listed some of the countries. It never occurred to her that this would mean “spoiled, rich kid” since other areas of her application would disprove that! What it meant to her was taking advantage of the situation to the fullest.</p>
<p>Besides the number of visited countries, which country (or region) did you like best?
I didn’t travel so much like most of my virtual friends here, but I did some travel abroad and I can’t decide on my favorite place.
I love Japan, even when many people feel Tokyo to be ugly, I liked it; I found so easy to move around and with many polite residents who were eager to help every time they saw me trying to understand the maps. I still have in my mind the beautiful sight of the rice and tea plantations with the Mount Fuji on the back.
I like Spain, Costa del Sol and Andalusia are my favorites. I think London is a nice city to visit (the underground is fantastic).<br>
And of course, I have to brag a little about my southern lands, the ones that have amazing waterfalls, spectaculars sky areas, glaciers, mountains, planicies, and a long coast with wonderful scenery.</p>
Too many repeat trips to the same places!</p>