2006: A Year In Review

Now that 2006 is fading into recent memory, I put some thought to my travel adventures and misadventures during the year.

By my own estimate I logged about 140,000 miles in the air on a variety of airlines in 2006. Mostly United and Lufthansa, but also American, Delta, US Air, Continental, LAN Peru, Kingfisher, Jet Airways, Air Deccan (the worst airline in the world) and Paramount Air. I spent lots of time in India, side trips to Thailand (twice) and Singapore. Also spent three weeks in Italy and a few days visiting Machu Pichu in Peru (thanks to a few extra days off from my firm!).

I also continued my US travels for work and fun, making trips to NYC to visit with my brother and his wife; Miami and the Keys; Las Vegas for the first weekend of March Madness; Indianapolis for the NCAA Final Four; Chicago and South Bend for the UCLA-Notre Dame game; Las Vegas again for a work conference (yes, it was work!); several trips back home to LA for high school reunions, family gatherings and Christmas; Chicago, Atlanta and Cleveland for work; plus a few other random trips I'm forgetting. All in all I spent about as many night sleeping in hotels or in my little brother's house as I did in my actual bed! Yikes!

And although I have a nice new kitchen back in DC, I probably ate at least 400 meals in restaurants. Surprisingly I also managed to lose weight. Thank god for Indian food and food poisoning!

What does 2007 look like? It's already looking to be as busy as 2006. Work trips in January to Cleveland, Dallas and Nashville; another month long trip to India, followed by 3-4 more trips over the course of the year. And I haven't even begun to plan vacations.

Hope you all have a great 2007 and remember you now have to have a passport to travel anywhere outside of the US. So get off your ass and go get one!

Happy travels.