Yes, I have the travel bug.    I did not catch it until I started working where I do. In fact, I was pretty much a homebody until I was 25. 

So far my list of countries visited looks like:  Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, UK, Switzerland, Germany, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Spain.  (Plus layovers in Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan). 

My first really big vacation took me down to Argentina  for a 21 day adventure through Patagonia with a friend from high school in 1996. We saw Buenos Aires, Lagos Furiosos, Calafate, Perito Moreno Glacier, Chalten, Cerro Torre, Parques Nacional Torres del Paine in Chile, and Tierra del Fuego.  Trey and I rounded out the trip with a run up to the Brazil-Argentina border to see the Itaipu dam and Iguazu Falls in the tropics.  We took 14 rolls of films and have a few good snaps from it. .   

In 1997, I flew about 65K.  Many of my work trips were out to New Jersey, but most of my time was spent in California.  In December,    Gerardo and I went to New Zealand for a few days to visit some friends who were living down there.  I have put these stories up on a website called www.igougo.com . My guide name is chipper and you can find this story along with others there. 

In 1998 I took seven trips to Mexico and 3 trips to Brazil--again a good year with Premier Exec on United and Platinum on American..  That year, we only did some smaller trips--Colorado and Philly.   Gerardo has a conference around Thanksgiving at Wharton, and I would arrange to have client work there at the same time.   We did this for three years-1998-2000.  I will have to see if we go back in 2001.

In 1999, I flew more than 55,000 miles on American and over 25,000 on United, so I again earned status on both carriers.  This was handy to have when strikes or job actions occur. 

With two European trips in the first two months of 2000, I was on a pace to hit about 80,000 on AA and 27K on UAL.  Late in the year, we planned a trip to Mexico in November and a trip to Barcelona for December. That would put me at 89,000 as of December 20.  I did the math and saw that with a trip to Zurich, I could make Executive Platinum (100,000 miles).  Of course I had to do it and so I made a one day trip to Zurich on Dec 30 and 31.  My trips in 2001 on AA have been great because of the status--they really work to make you happy. 

A week in Mexico, a week in Barcelona--that sounds like a lot of travel, but our big trip in 2000 was the seven day cruise with 1700 other gays on the NCL Wind. Look for the story here.  Now that we have a digital camera (Kodak DC 280--great camera!), we will have more fotos more often. 

When I found out that we would be moving to Salt Lake City, I asked my travel agent to get matching status on Delta.   After a couple of weeks, I was informed I would get Silver Medallion (the first tier).  I think Delta made a mistake here, but I will not bother to correct this: I will  just take my business elsewhere and use them only when it is very convenient.  I will have to give an update later in 2001 about my status, but I will definitely make Platinum on AA and Premier on UAL and probably even SM or GM on Delta.  

My favorite site to learn about travel is flyertalk.  I read this religiously.  I am also quite fond of orbitz - the new ticket engine.