I was looking thorugh my passport collection and cataloged all the trips. I found 81 - some of the entries were hard to read so I might be off by 1 or 2. And I think there might a few Canadian ones with no passport entries.
My first trip was a solo trip to London and Paris in 1964. About 8 days in each with various side trips. In London I stayed in hotel near Trafalger Square that no longer exists and had a pub on the first floor where I often hung out. In Paris I stayed at Hotel Des Deux Continents on Rue Jacob which still exists. There were lots of young people there and we'd usually meet at breakfast and plan an outing and dinner location.
My second trip was in 1966 to Colombia and Ecuador with my new wife (marriage lasted about 4 years - we are still friends).
Some of these trips were work trips - quite a few to Paris since I was working for Bull, the French Computer Company ( I say
the since it was the nationalized company that was affiliated with Honeywell where I was employed and eventually bought the Honeywell computer business. Also trips to Germany, Italy, Sweden (these three to present technical papers I wrote), and Tokyo. I remember one that was Paris and then Calgary. We had an affiliate spin-off group from Calgary University. I always took a few days after the trip to enjoy myself; on several of them Robert
rsc came and joined me after the work trip.
I think I've been to Paris 12 times - not all work trips. I love Paris and all the nearby places you can go to. A few years I read a book:
Paris to the Past by Ina Caro which talked about renting an apartment in Paris and taking train trips to nearby places. So we did that.
There is a small village in central France: Conques that I have been to 4 times. I want to go again. A picture I took is is my desktop picture.
Some of the trips were dance trips (Contra or English Country dance): Costa Rica, Greek Islands, Western Ireland, Florence, Loire Valley.
We heard about a person, Ken McFarland, who was a trip organizer - dance and non-dance trips. We went on one of his and were hooked so went on 13 more of his trips - (some were sequences so only counted as 1 trip). Machu Picchu twice, the upper Amazon and Colca Canyon in Peru plus Easter Island and the Galapagos. Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar, Egypt and Tanzania. Florence, Loire Valley, Western Ireland, and Greek Islands were dance trips. Most of the other travelers were dancers and on several non-dance trips we did a bit of dancing: in Myanmar, on Easter Island, on a boat in the Amazon, Tanzania,.... Sadly Ken died last year.
We have taken a lot of winter trips to the Caribbean. We tried St Vincent and the Grenadines (Young Island and Palm Island), Tobago, and Bermuda (not in the Caribbean) but found this wonderful resort:
Guana Island in the British Virgin Islands; we have been there 24 times. It is a small private island with at most 30 guests, beaches, hills, iguanas, easy hiking, excellent food, nice other guests...]. Expensive but wonderful.
Other side of the world: Japan twice, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Austrailia, New Zealand.
Africa: Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana.
South and Central America: Chili, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Belize, Guatamala, Costa Rica, Mexico.
Europe: Ireland, England, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Yugoslavia (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina now), Georgia, Armenia. I have stood with a foot on each side of the equator and arctic circle. Sadly an August dance trip to Finland organized by a pair of people who went on many Ken trips has been cancelled.
Another instigator of trips is soc.motss - originally a Usenet news group for LGBTQ people and allies - has had a yearly gathering - called a con and several were international: Toronto, Vancouver, Utrecht, Stockholm, and Montreal. This year's is supposed to be in Ireland in September, but probably won't happen.
