When I donate blood or platelets, I need to list the countries I've visited during the last twelve months.
This has been complicated in recent years.
In 2013, I began a "ten month rotation" on a special, global project for my employer. The project required visiting my employer's headquarters in Switzerland, and various regional offices around Europe. Ultimately, my peculiar professional skill set allowed me to continue taking on new roles during the rotation, which ultimately lasted FIVE YEARS. I went from being the sort of person who had a passport with two countries' stamps, to one where I began to run out of pages. Each time I've donated blood or platelets, I've had to look up my most recent list on my phone. My intake coordinators have been pleased that I wasn't at risk for malaria or ebola, but it was novel to even NEED to keep a list.
My life hasn't historically been like this. I love to travel, but have always paid for my own travel, and the combination of savings to travel and time off have rarely aligned well for me. And then.... THIS. While I first just hurried from meetings at my local office to meetings in CH, I eventually realized that I could take weekend (or longer) trips coming or going, if I planned correctly (and could persuade my colleagues to stop assuming I could run workshops immediately after international meetings!). Also, I accrued miles to travel on my own in my imaginary time off! :)
I'm still processing these remarkable travel experiences...
I took a bus to Vienna from Budapest, after all the train tickets sold out. A few hours of driving through lush Hungarian fields was relaxing, though it was strange later to recognize that road during the refugee crisis, where thousands of people walked that same route.
2015.07 Vienna, Austria
65 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
I decided to stop just flying over Belgium, and actually land there for a cloudy, and sometimes rainy, weekend.
2014.07 Brussels, Belgium
58 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
This was a pre-digital trip. I'll post something when the photos resurface. (Of course there were photos! With my Nikon F film camera.)
I visited Vancouver and its surrounding areas for fun, and visited Mississauga for business, with evenings and a stray afternoon in Toronto for fun.
2018.04 Toronto, Canada
33 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
A weekend with my delightful friend CM brightened up a long business trip filled with meetings elsewhere in Europe.
2017.08 Prague, Czech Republic
57 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
I had wanted to visit for so long, and finally took a proper vacation to do so, as part of a three country tour. I'm so glad I did!
2016.10 Copenhagen, Denmark
79 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
This most recent trip included a delightful weekend eating at many wonderful vegan/vegetarian restaurants with my friend CM, plus a week of additional adventures at the end of a business trip, and the beginning of a sabbatical.
2018.08 Paris and Versaille, France
63 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
Business travel took me to Mannheim and Grenzach; I visited Berlin, Heidelberg (with fun coworkers!), and Frankfurt (with CM) for fun. (CM objected to Frankfurt, but it was directly between the two of us, so it was CONVENIENT.)
2016.10 Berlin, Germany
57 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
2018.03 Frankfurt, Germany
42 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
2016.03 Heidelberg, Germany
18 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
2016.03 Mannheim, Germany
21 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
This was also very pre-digital, and part of the trip to Belize.
The farthest east I've traveled from home (excluding Asia, because I travel WEST from home to get there!) A spectacular city which charmed me completely. I can see why some of my colleagues immediately wanted to move there! The Hungarian language is a challenge, however.
2015.04-05 Budapest, Hungary
54 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
2015.07 Budapest, Hungary
41 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
2016.12 Budapest, Hungary
23 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
YEARS after planning to go, and having a friend follow my plan and tease me about it, I finally went as a side trip from Germany. It was the dramatic landscape I had dreamed of! I just wish I'd had a better winter coat.
2016.03 Iceland
70 new photos · Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
I 1992 I went to Japan with a plan to teach English (and a vaguely worded job offer), and then I went in 2008 to translate and manage logistics for someone else for their work, but my direct employers didn't pay for it, so it is hard to categorize. Both trips were visually stunning and arduous.
1992 Japan Travelogue
In 1992, I took my first ever trip out of the United States, to visit a country I had become obsessed with: Japan. I had high hopes for the visit: I planned to teach English in Japan, learn Japanese, and live there for a year or more.
Under Autumn Clouds
In 2008, I visited Kyoto again after a 16 year absence. Kyoto is a remarkably beautiful city, filled with both modern and ancient places. This is a collection of my favorite details from the ancient side.
Call Me volume 3
Volume 3 of "Call Me" continues AEG's collection of EVERY unedited iPhone photo taken, photo-diary style. Set entirely in Japan, it includes photographs of fellow tourists taking photos, meal sets, train stations, hotel rooms, and other images that are concerned more with the experience of traveling in Japan than with the Japanese traditional design elements that dominated "Under Autumn Clouds" (a larger format book also available at Blurb by the author).
I had no sightseeing, but my train broke there, so I did some unplanned walking.
I wrote an entire on-line book about this.
I've loved Korean contemporary art and design for years, so it has been calling to me! These are photos from a weekend in Seoul, part of my first trip to Korea.
2018.11 Seoul, Korea
77 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
I have wonderful photographer/artist friends living in Stockholm!
2013.06 Stockholm and Utö, Sweden
76 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
2014.05 Uppsala, Sweden
28 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
2014.05 Stockholm, Sweden
36 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
2016.10-11 Stockholm, Sweden
55 photos added to shared album
I worked in Basel, but was able to get out of town by train during or after my multi-week business trips. (I've written about the experience of being there elsewhere within the "yes" collection of posts - check those out!)
2013.08 Basel, Switzerland
96 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
2013.08 Bern, Switzerland
38 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
2013.09 Basel, Switzerland (buildings)
33 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
2013.09 Z¨rich, Switzerland
33 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
2013.10 Hiking in Grindelwald, Switzerland
23 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
2017.09 Lugano (and Gandria), Switzerland
76 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
Everyone I knew who has been to Taipei, for work or pleasure, have LOVED it. They got me excited enough to go!
2018.11 Taipei, Taiwan
80 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
This is pre-digital (associated with the Nepal trip), and I'll need to find the prints.
My employer had an office up in Welwyn Garden City, and I visited four times. After staying in Hatfield and being unable to book hotels in Welwyn at all, I gave up and commuted in from London, which turned out to be a VERY good idea.
2018.03 London, UK
45 photos - Album by A. Elizabeth Graves
(shown in order of preference):
images and original text Copyright © 2012 - 2019 A. E. Graves
(posted November 29, 2014, refreshed February 2019)