30+ at 30

What a trip, man, what a trip. I would never have dreamed that it would turn out this way. 122 days of being on the road, of resting in one place for five nights, max, and then moving on. Throughout it all, I kept my sanity and I kept my thread. The great eats I had, and got to chronicle, provided an ever-changing yet still stable anchor for my time with no home.

And the adventures, well, they just piled up. A calm and tranquil temple garden in Kyoto. A sunrise, slow and steady, seen from a volcano top in Bali. A weekend trip to the birthplace of the Malaysian state, Melaka. A night on the open grasslands in Inner Mongolia, just me and Max and the sheep. A float in the magical and astringent Dead Sea. A fantastic, loving, and one-of-a-kind wedding in southern Turkey. A balloon ride to the heavens and back in Cappadocia. A trip to days of Jewishness past in Krakow and southern Poland. A celebration of sport and of beer and of the outdoors with 1,000 friends in Munich. A loss of sight to bring out a stronger sense of taste at a dunkelrestaurant in Berlin. A trip to a community striking out on its own in Christiania. A bike ride that couldn't be beat up and down the canals in Amsterdam. And a short but sweet exploration of Helsinki, land of so much reindeer meat.

And so we are here, blog post number three hundred and sixteen, the last of them for this grand adventure. The blog waxed and waned, with faulty Internet connections overcome throughout. China managed to put a three week delay on the blog that never went away, but that just adds to the nostalgia of each post, I think. Thanks so much to the people that hosted me, that gave me recommendations, that traveled with me. And thanks so much to all of you for reading and for sharing my trip with me.

Now, I managed, barely, to get past 30 countries visited just past the age of thirty (see full list below). However, I don't want to get so far behind, comparatively, next time.

So, time to plan the next trip! Where to?

-----------------------------------------

Before the trip

USA

Canada

Mexico

Nicaragua

Chile

Argentina

Cuba

Aruba

Spain

France

England

Ireland

Germany

Switzerland

Italy

India

Sri Lanka

Thailand

Vietnam

Singapore

Cambodia

Hong Kong

On this trip

Japan

Indonesia

Singapore (again)

Malaysia

China

Turkey

Israel

Germany (again)

Poland

Czech Republic

Denmark

The Netherlands

Finland

---------------------------------------