Around the World - Traveling Thread

Hello everyone

All of us here have explored the universe of Mass Effect, but I am curious as to where everyone has traveled to right here on Earth. Which countries have you been too? Which countries did you really enjoy? What is your greatest experience while traveling? Where do you want to go?

Share your memories and experiences here in this thread  

As for me I have traveled a lot over the years. My parents always enjoyed seeing new places so almost every summer we visited some new location in Europe. As such I have been to France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Italy with my family over the years.

However our travels were always limited to train due to our lack of car and my father's fear of flying. As such the distance we traveled was mostly limited and as i grew up I have wanted to travel to far away places and luckily I do not share my father's fear of flying.

As such my travels on my own have taken me to Ireland, USA and Japan so far, with Japan being the latest.

And Japan is also the journey I enjoyed the most. It was my first journey completely alone as I always had a friend or classmates on the two other trips and it was a journey planned entirely on my own.

It was a strange trip of two weeks where i was entirely alone in a very different, but also interesting and beautiful country. I saw so many great places and ate some great food. The greatest moment no doubt was visiting the Studio Ghibli Museum, a truly magical museum.

However the event which left the greatest impact on me and indeed the greatest impact anything on a journey has ever had on me was the city Hiroshima.

Hiroshima was a stop on my journey for its historical significance. WW2, especially the nukes have always been a topic that has grabbed my interest and I wanted to see first hand the city where one of the bombs fell...and it was a experience unlike any other.

To truly understand the scale of what happened there I think one has to have been to the city...and even then it is probably just a shadow of what it must have been to experience it first hand.

The Peace Memorial Park stands right beneath where the bomb fell with memorials for those who died immediately and those who suffered after as well as monuments hoping for a better future. In the distance, watching over it one can see bomb dome, a building wrecked in the blast and which has been preserved as it were then.

Nearby is the museum laying out the details of what happened and with models showing the scale of the devastation. It was seeing this model and afterwards walking from the center of the blast radius to the edge which made me truly understand the power of what had hit the city. One thing is to know about it, another is to have walked the breath of it and knowing everything between where you started and where you stopped was gone or almost gone.  

It is truly a moment I will never forget.

As for future plans I want to go back to Japan at some point, to climb Fuji and see Nagasaki, two things I did not have time for the first time around.

But what about you guys, where have you been?  

Ugh, I've been to so many places in the world. My parents like travelling a lot, so we used to go on a lot of trips :P

I've been all over the western world, mostly the USA due to half of my family living there. I've also been to France, Great Britain, Ireland, Belgium (lived there for 2 years), Sweden, Norway, Finland, Canada, Israel, Cyprus, Mexico, Russia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Poland, and Kuwait.

I can't perfectly recall all the experiences I've had in these countries, but the high points were definitely Italy, Israel, and Belgium.

When I was in Italy (this was way back when I was 14), I was in Rome. During that period of my life, I was extremely interested in antique european history, primarily the roman empire (which, in fact, actually made me ask my parents to visit Rome). I had of course already read books about Rome, but none of it was compared to what I saw there. I loved every bit of it. From the Colloseum to the palatine to Circus Maximus (which actually only is a giant ditch now, more or less) to the pantheon. What really shocked me about the pantheon is how well it is maintained. Seeing this old temple still be used for praying struck me with awe. It's... not really anything I can put into words. I just loved every moment of my trip to Rome.

In Israel, there was a lot that made this a memorable experience. My family has always been a staunch supporter os Israel in the conflict in the middle east, so we decided to visit them back in december 2008, right before the Gaza war. I visited Tel Aviv and Jerusalem when I was there. In Jerusalem, you can see lots of armed Israeli policemen and soldiers patrolling the streets. It became more after the war started. Regardless, I still liked it a lot. visited several roman ruins, and went to the "grædemur" (sorry, have no idea what it's called in english) in Jerusalem.

As for Belgium? Well, I loved it because I grew so familiar with it. My father was still a soldier at that point, deployed in Brussels. So I went to an international school. Met a lot of interesting people from different countries there. Learned a lot about their cultures and values talking with them. Haven't forgotten any of it since.

As for where I really want to go at some point... Well, I'd love to go to Japan and South Korea.

Well I can certainly recommend Japan in case that was not already obvious, Estebanus  

It is not cheap though, my own trip of 2 weeks cost me 14.000 danish crowns and that was a good price as it also included a 1 week rail pass (a rail pass is only available to tourists and allows free travel with most public transports, including some Shinkansen, high speed trains, within the time designated. The one week version earns itself in if you have to travel even twice with Shinkansen)

However once the actual travel expenses are paid things get a lot cheaper, especially food is very cheap. You can easily eat out for every meal without spending a fortune and a lot of it is very, very good for the price.

Personal recommendations on places to see would be Hiroshima, Kyoto and Fuji.

Well, getting 14.000 kroner certainly isn't a problem for me :P

But thanks for the info, regardless. It's appreciated. :)