World Traveler? Find out how much of the planet you’ve explored with Travel Apps!

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime. ― Mark Twain

It is better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times – Anonymous

We travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us

By – Jaunty Staff

World Traveler…Really?

After decades of corporate travel,  two years living overseas & taking the kids on “experience other cultures” vacations,  I felt that we’d really covered a lot of ground! Travel has always been a priority for us. Our world-view & place in it stems from travel &  an objective look back towards home

Yep… We’d already awarded ourselves the old “pat on the back” for all that we’ve seen & experienced!

The Revelation –

Three months ago our oldest came home from college (for the purpose of this article, we’ll refer to him as “the dream crusher”) & said “Hey, have you guys, tried the Been app? It lets you track everywhere in the world you’ve traveled!”

I thought to myself, how great will this be!  An app allowing us to quantify the vast regions of the world we’ve scoured. So we took the Dream crushers suggestion, downloaded the app, & got to work.

The app was simple to use and within 20 minutes, we’d accounted for each country we’d ever visited and every state in the US.  The app makes it a fun exercise. It then calculates what percentage of the world you’ve seen…Drum roll please!

13% for each of us

WTF!   Well that can’t be right?  We’re world travelers, dammit!

First, thank God we both came in at 13%. We’re a little competitive and that would have been yet another rat hole to dive into!

After a careful review of our input, we determined that the Been app was indeed correct. It was clear that our world-view shrunk somewhat that day. I was also unsettled to be hovering on the number 13… (future blog on ridiculous superstitions to follow).

 Dream Crusher unceremoniously removed from will!

The Silver Lining

After our bruised egos recovered a bit, we went back to the Been App and began to look at it more objectively. While the app made a note of where we’ve been it, more importantly, provided a clear outline of where we needed to go…of where we heretofore, had sadly overlooked through years of travel.

How quickly sadness gives way to optimism –

In order for us to “bump the number” (&  world perspective) we needed a more thoughtful approach to travel. We kinda winged it in a younger day; more of a “let the wind blow us onto a particular path travelers.” Now, as 50 something’s, it occurs to me that our travels might benefit from a more targeted approach… there’s so much to see and experience. With a little assistance from these apps, our direction & enthusiasm for future travel is on the rise

Asia tops our list! –

As it turns out, one of our Achilles heels on world exploration is Asia. With culture dating back almost 4000 years, how did we let this go unvisited for so long!  The Been app, Visited App & Polar Steps do a nice job of visually outlining where we have yet to visit… and Asia is a big country-rich zone to begin exploring. I can feel my number jumping already!

Best Travel apps 2019

Visited App

Been App

Polar Steps

Have some favorite “must see” destinations? Fire off an email and we’ll add an addendum to the article.

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