2016

This is a map of all the flights I took in 2016.

Nineteen trips. Thirteen different countries, across five continents. Seven different trips to Africa (yes, all of them in Economy class).

I started this blog a year ago because I knew I'd be traveling a lot, and I wanted a way to capture my experiences. To be honest, I ended up traveling even more than I anticipated.

I didn't post each time I traveled, because I didn't just want to give a chronology of my movements, or a play by play of the places I visited; the world has enough guide books. I wanted to post only when I thought I had something unique or personal to say about a place, however small. All in all, 12 posts: not bad considering I have a full-time job, but not great considering how much time I spent staring out the window, watching the world go by at 30,000 feet (actually that's a lie, I try to sit in the aisle seat).

But, in looking at the map above, I'm struck by a glaring empty space: America. Save for a couple of trips to Indiana, where Michael's family lives, and a layover in Atlanta, I basically did not travel within the United States. Not only have I not traveled within the United States, but, as the last several months have increasingly shown me, the United States can be as foreign as Beijing.

On November 9, 2016, I woke up feeling like a stranger in my own country. Three days later, I flew to Mozambique for work. As I checked into my hotel, the concierge flipped open my passport, looked up at me, and posed the first of what would become a predictable series of comments that trip: "America, former land of Obama. Now, land of Trump! Trump, big friend of Putin, yes?"

"Don't remind me," I muttered, the jetlag and 26-hour journey not mixing well with the realization that as an American Government Official, I would be subjected to an endless series of such questions during my stay here.

"But tell me," the concierge continued, unassailed by my laconic response. "Every American I meet here, has the same reaction about Trump. But then, why did you elect him?"

"Because the people who voted for Trump don't have passports," I snapped, grabbing my room key and bolting.

I admit, it wasn't a very nice thing to say (though it's probably pretty accurate, if you assume international travel correlates with wealth and education levels). Still, it exposes how much of a bubble I truly live in. I live in a city where the overwhelming majority believes in climate change, supports gay marriage, and associates Muslims more with hummus than with 9/11. When I travel, I go abroad, where I am prepared for "otherness" and try to open my mind to cultural norms (like polygamy) that I would probably judge more harshly were they on display here.

And yet, I don't really understand what goes on in my own country. And with a lack of understanding, comes a lack of tolerance and empathy.

So with that, I have decided to focus 2017 inward: on America. I will take opportunities to travel within the United States, and to venture outside of the liberal Northeast and West Coast. And I will write about what I find. My first trip of the year has been to South Carolina; I hope to post about that in the coming week.

My job continues to have an international component and so I will continue writing about those trips, as they come up. But I'll make a conscious effort to see and understand more of the heartland, the unexpected places, and the places I have neglected.