Oh The Places You’ll Go… [2011 Edition]
Since January 2009, I’ve posted a list of all the cities I visited the previous year and this list promises to be a bit much. I spent about 4 months traveling through Eastern Europe from Turkey to Italy and everywhere in between. A map of that trip along with a selection of photos can be found on mine and Nick’s travel blog: Tabula Rasa.
These are the cities I visited in 2011 (not counting single-day flight connections). The asterisk denotes cities I visited more than once.
Fort Collins, CO: Bit of a college family reunion for Ashley’s wedding
Copper Mountain, CO: My first snowboarding trip out West ended the day it began with a fractured humerus. It was not very humorous.
St. Louis, MO*: Road trip back to the midwest from CO with Bart before flying home to NY and a 2nd trip later in the year to meet with a client
Tannersville, NY: Snowboarding trip up to Hunter Mountain. Though with a broken arm, I just hung out in the lodge.
Stowe, VT: Same story as above- snowboarding trip I tagged along on
Boston, MA: Visited Boston with Rachel for potential client meetings and attended Cooking for a Cause, an awesome event benefiting the East End House, with Lindsey.
Arlington, TX: Visited Adam and Blair in the Lone Star State
Republic, MO *: Spent a few weeks at home with the family before heading to Europe and also around Christmas
Columbia, MO *: Visited my sister at school (twice) and had a couple of great client meetings (more on that in 2012)
East Hampton, NY *: A couple of visits out to Nick’s aunt and uncle’s place to escape the city.
Istanbul, Turkey *: Our first stop on our epic adventure, Istanbul is nearly indescribable. Visited it twice- once on our way into Turkey and again before leaving.
Göreme, Turkey: Six days in a landscape more alien than anything I’ve ever seen. One of my favorite places on Earth.
Kayseri, Turkey: Interestingly industrial town with a downtown area reminiscent of Midtown East in NYC
Kahramanmaraş, Turkey: First true ‘Eastern Turkey’ city- home to amazing ice cream and our first spontaneous interaction with a bunch of turkish children. Also the most fun day of hitchhiking one could have.
Gaziantep, Turkey: Home to a huge citadel housing a Turkish military history museum, also where I finally purchased Adam and Blair’s wedding present (3 years late)
Bilecik, Turkey: When we arrived, I thought this was the coolest place - a small, welcoming village on the banks of the Euphrates. The next morning I had the worst food poisoning of my life.
Şanlıurfa, Turkey: Abraham’s birthplace and a much needed pit stop where I had one of my favorite evenings of the whole trip watching the sun set over a skyline of minarets.
Mardin, Turkey: A city built on a mountain, it was the perfect place to end our Eastern adventure
Diyarbakir, Turkey: Nick and I spent the night in the airport here frantically trying to figure out if the riots happening in Greece warranted canceling our trip there. No WiFi and few Turkish skills made this a bit difficult. We opted instead for Istanbul.
Bucharest, Romania *: Met my sister here after a 23 hour train ride from Istanbul and visited again on my way down to Bulgaria
Brasov, Romania: Cool little city in the middle of the country with a huge Hollywood-esque sign on the mountain
Sighişoara, Romania: The most aesthetically medieval place you could ever hope to find
Sibiu, Romania: Most modern and vibrant city we found in Romania
Sofia, Bulgaria: Incredible architecture in this cross-section of East and West
Sapareva Banya, Bulgaria: 2 days of camping/hiking in the Rila Mountains, including the coldest night of my life
Skopje, Macedonia: Stop-over on our way south.
Prizren, Kosovo: I lost left my iPhone on a bench in a bus station here. Uncool.
Ulcinj, Montenegro: Beach camping. Awesome.
Dubrovnik, Croatia: Very awesome Old City and amazing view from our guesthouse.
Zagreb, Croatia: Surprisingly a very cool looking city where we slept in a train station.
Vienna, Austria: The city is beautiful… unfortunately it rained for 4 days straight.
Bratislava, Slovakia: Sort of a weird city but with a lot of cool art.
Brno, Czech Republic: Home to the Design Cafe, my favorite working cafe in the world. Unfortunately, also home to bed bugs.
Olomouc, Czech Republic: One of the most fun places I visited with some of the coolest people. There is a bar inside of an old Soviet airliner. That alone is justification for a trip there.
Krakow, Poland: [redacted] Let’s just say it was awesome.
Prague, Czech Republic *: Spent a total of about 3 weeks in this city of beautiful streets and amazing history.
Kařízek, Czech Republic: A small village that is the ancestral home of the Cafoureks.
Plzeň, Czech Republic: Original home of pilsner beer.
Český Krumlov, Czech Republic *: One of the most beautiful villages I visited on my trip. So much so that after visiting for a weekend in early August, I came back for 10 days at the end of the month.
Český Budjovice, Czech Republic: Attended a Czech reggae festival with some friends from Český Krumlov.
Salzburg, Austria: Visited Hangar 7, the home of the Red Bull Air Force. One of the coolest places on Earth.
Ljubljana, Slovenia: One of my favorite cities- this place felt like Brooklyn.
Kranj, Slovenia: Visited Katja and got to jo hiking in the Julian Alps
Piran, Slovenia: Enjoyed the beach and seafood of Slovenia
Celja, Slovenia: The epitome of Slovenian hospitality- visited Katarina and Tjasa and got to talk to a high school class about life in America
Maribor, Slovenia: I may or may not have stolen a cluster of grapes from the oldest wine vine in the world
Florence, Italy: Last stop on my grand adventure, Nick’s mom was nice enough to put us up in an amazing villa for a week where we got to enjoy all of the amazing food and wine to be found in Tuscany.
Hartford, Connecticut: Overnight stay to see Jack’s Mannequin with a symphony orchestra
Phew, that was a heck of a list, but it was a heck of a year. A trip of a lifetime and some amazing memories, people and places.
Check out my Dopplr listings for future travels (not much planned right now, but stay tuned for pending epic adventures).
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