Where I Traveled in 2019: The End of The Road
Jan 20, 2020
Finally ran the numbers: I was only on the road about 20% of the time last year, down from 25% or more the last few years (2017, 2018). The reason for the decrease is simple: After leaving my job at BuzzFeed in August, my travel schedule relaxed a lot.
And I mean -- what a relief! Going to make a bold prediction here, but I'm reasonably sure that number's going to be a lot smaller for 2020. My current job at Medium doesn't require international travel (though I'll be in Berlin speaking at DIS 2020 in March, hit me up if you'll be around!) and I don't have a lot of personal travel scheduled.
Will I miss visiting Tokyo? I will.
Will I miss leaving winter in New York for summer in Sao Paulo or Sydney? Sure, yes, of course.
Will I miss spending time at Newark? Will I miss TSA lines and stale air? Will I miss spending over a week inside an airplane cabin over the course of the year? No, no I won't.
I mainly traveled with one bag, my black Tom Bihn Brain Bag. That's my only travel tip after five years of international travel: Just get a backpack that will fit a week's worth of your stuff -- bags with wheels are the devil's tools.
And in what felt like some kind of late-stage capitalist consumerist karma, the Bose noise-cancelling headphones I bought when I started regularly traveling internationally for work finally broke on the first flight I took in 2020. Adieu old friends, and may flights of noise-cancelling angels sing thee to thy rest.
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— Scott, 2020