Comments on: Where in the world is $MefiMember ?

Where in the world is $MefiMember ?

Orange Goblin — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 01:29:31 -0800

Think you're well travelled? Make a map of all the countries you have been to. Here's my non-impressive offering.

By: LeLiLo

LeLiLo — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 01:55:09 -0800

I like that site: clean and easy to use. Even though I've only been to 8 countries (3%). Pitiful. (My map of U.S. counties visited would be a lot better: about 2100, just over 2/3 of them.)

By: scarabic

scarabic — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 02:23:50 -0800

Very fun indeed, though it feels like virtual bedpost notching. A little hard to see the small places. This month's trip to China sure gave me a boost, even though I was in and out of there in a week. My 6 years in Kuwait, however, are barely visible!

By: Paragon

Paragon — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 02:40:08 -0800

Excellent site, but a zoom would be nice. I made a point of visiting all the little countries (Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Monaco, the Vatican, Luxembourg...) of western Europe and on the map there's still a green gap between France and Spain. What gives?

By: blue mustard

blue mustard — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 02:54:24 -0800

Interesting. If you select every country, it says you've visited "194 countries (86%)". Is the math wrong, or are there countries missing from the list?

By: boltman

boltman — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 04:13:30 -0800

It also counts Puerto Rico, Greenland, and Antarctica as countries. So I'm not sure it's so accurate in that department. Still fun though. Not that anyone cares, but here's mine.

By: andrew cooke

andrew cooke — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 04:13:32 -0800

there's a little dot that looks like it might be hong kong that's red on my map, but i've never been there (or to china). it's there whether i have the uk selected or not. any idea what it might be?

By: timyang

timyang — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 04:26:48 -0800

Dude, the code breaks. At least it does on my iBook. It says 'in ' requires character as left operand... and much more Anybody else having the same problem? /bugfilter

By: TimeFactor

TimeFactor — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 04:41:41 -0800

andrew cooke, that's not HK - it's too far north. It looks like Vladivostok - see this map of Korea. It's on my map too.

By: andrew cooke

andrew cooke — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 05:11:07 -0800

ok, thanks. not been there either... :o)

By: einarorn

einarorn — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 05:24:00 -0800

I've got 13% (31 country). See here My trip to Russia really helped making the map look good. I would have liked bigger map though. For example, it's impossible to tell apart the countries in Central America.

By: rushmc

rushmc — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 05:46:15 -0800

Nice...I've been searching for a similar site for U.S. states...anyone know of one?

By: johnny7

johnny7 — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:18:23 -0800

12%

By: the fire you left me

the fire you left me — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:49:35 -0800

No one goes to South America?

By: dabitch

dabitch — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 07:07:12 -0800

a bunch of my mates just did, and now I regret not joining them, my map looks too green aven at 17% and I could use a bunch of red countries there. I better book a ticket to Brazil. :)

By: signal

signal — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 07:10:42 -0800

I do, fire.

By: mert

mert — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 07:22:08 -0800

11 % including airports. And I thought I was well-travelled!

By: smcniven

smcniven — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 07:29:37 -0800

13%. Gah, need to work on Africa and Asia

By: carter

carter — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 07:35:56 -0800

8%, not including airports. Not sure what those red dots in the Pacific are. Thanks, Orange Goblin!

By: geoffaw

geoffaw — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 07:58:52 -0800

Here's Mine

By: dazed_one

dazed_one — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 08:38:20 -0800

Here's mine. The red islands are French and British territories, I believe, such as the New Hebrides, French Polynesia and New Caledonia.

By: dazed_one

dazed_one — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 08:40:24 -0800

Could the little red dot that timefactor and andrew were wondering about be Macau?

By: drstrangelove

drstrangelove — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 08:49:22 -0800

While we're at it, let's go ahead and compare incomes, too.

By: zpousman

zpousman — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 09:02:49 -0800

Nobody's complained yet that the countries are in *crazy* orders?! Why put 'Spain' in the S part of the alphabet? It's alphabetized like it's 'Espana', but it's written out in English. And then El Salvador is alphabetized under S. And the three columns that read across is just plain wack. WHAT THE FUCK? ALPHABET

By: blue mustard

blue mustard — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 09:09:16 -0800

zpousman, I noticed that too, after I spent a couple minutes trying to find Cambodia (filed under "K") and Germany (see "D"). Looks like they translated the list from a language other than English (French? Spanish?), and didn't reorder it.

By: tboz

tboz — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 09:17:20 -0800

What gives? Where is Sri Lanka? What about Hong Kong (should I say China?).

By: amberglow

amberglow — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 09:23:34 -0800

14--6% (but my map's all us/canada and europe)...I have to do south america/asia/eastern europe/etc -- cool tho!

By: TimeFactor

TimeFactor — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 09:40:30 -0800

dazed_one, nope, Macau is very near Hong Kong in SE China. The red dot is north of Korea, i.e. in Russia. I still say Vladivostok. Or just a bug. Or a communist plot.

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 09:47:03 -0800

Seems to me that if they include Bermuda as a whole country, they oughta include the Cayman Islands as one too. They have their own money and everything, and I've been there. For like a whopping 9 hours, but hey. Told me 9 countries. Then I looked at the map and realized that I'd forgotten to include the US; oops. So make it 10. And I think that living somewhere vaguely-involuntarily for a while should count for more, so I want my 8 years as an AF brat in Germany to count double. Or I shall hold my breath.

By: plep

plep — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 10:29:49 -0800

Fun site, thanks very much. As for the alphabetic thing :- ... after I spent a couple minutes trying to find Cambodia (filed under "K") and Germany (see "D"). Looks like they translated the list from a language other than English (French? Spanish?), and didn't reorder it. I believe that the order is the same as the Internet country code for each country (e.g. .de for Germany, .kh for Cambodia, .hr for Croatia, .ae for the United Arab Emirates, .za for South Africa etc.). Take a look at the URL for each map, which is really just a string of country codes. (Oh, and tboz :- Sri Lanka is .lk). Here's mine.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 10:52:57 -0800

"Dude, the code breaks. At least it does on my iBook. It says 'in ' requires character as left operand... and much more Anybody else having the same problem?" Yeah, it was broken for me, too, because I have been to a grand total of 1 country (although I've been close enough to Canada and Mexico to smell their stenches). Add a second country and it works just fine. I chose Portugal, even though I'm still not convinced it actually exists.

By: sid

sid — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 11:13:44 -0800

I want hong kong to be a separate entity, cuz checking 'china' seems like cheating.

By: superchris

superchris — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 11:15:11 -0800

Cute link. Here's mine. "It also counts Puerto Rico, Greenland, and Antarctica as countries. So I'm not sure it's so accurate in that department. " Shoot, I always thought Greenland was a country. Next, you'll tell me it's not green. Anyone been to all 7 continents? Looks like smcniven is the most widely traveled so far, you jet-setter, you. But, I wait to see Miguel's.

By: adamsc

adamsc — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 12:09:45 -0800

I believe the list is alphabetized by ISO country codes - e.g. Morocco (MA) is sorted at the beginning of the M's, Spain (ES) is in the E's. Classic database-geek mistake... (Here's my measly 7%)

By: LeLiLo

LeLiLo — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 12:14:13 -0800

Nice...I've been searching for a similar site for U.S. states...anyone know of one? I mentioned U.S. counties for the same reason, rush, hoping someone would tell me that, and a nice guy from Canada named David (who can't get into the MeFi club, so he had to email me privately) told me about this site. I just got there, but it looks pretty interesting. A related site, The Extra Miler Club, is for the 'nuts' who want to visit all 3100+ counties before they die.

By: joaquim

joaquim — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:06:47 -0800

Anyone been to all 7 continents? Looks like smcniven is the most widely traveled so far, you jet-setter, you. Funny you should ask -- my first trip to Antarctica was last month and that completed the continent thing for me. The map didn't work for me, but it said I'd visited 68% of the countries. Given what blue mustard discovered about the math, I'm not sure what that means since I didn't go back and count them.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:21:24 -0800

While we're at it, let's go ahead and compare incomes, too. That's lame. In my travels around the USA last summer I spent less money than I would have sitting at home watching TV. International travel can be done even cheaper.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:29:16 -0800

Um, yeah. Click on Orange Goblin's first link, and scroll down. Now click on "Visited States." Here's my U.S. map, f'rinstance.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:30:11 -0800

Whoops. I forgot to insert the Nice...I've been searching for a similar site for U.S. states...anyone know of one? at the top of that last comment there.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:30:34 -0800

Anyone been to all 7 continents? Looks like smcniven is the most widely traveled so far, you jet-setter, you. But, I wait to see Miguel's. I dont think this was built as a contest yet its funny to see people will use anything that way. If it was, it would make more sense to award more 'points' for obscure countries rather than have everything be equal. Likewise, if you've been to both Moscow (on the far west near europe) and Vladivstok (on the far east near japan) you still only get 1 meager point - better to just remember to dip your foot into luxembourg next time you're in europe.

By: smcniven

smcniven — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 14:13:05 -0800

Anyone been to all 7 continents? Looks like smcniven is the most widely traveled so far, you jet-setter, you. But, I wait to see Miguel's. I dont think this was built as a contest yet its funny to see people will use anything that way. Well I don't think I was using it that way but whatever. Actually, I was sure that the Mefi crowd would be more traveled than I. And I must admit that many of those countries were visited on business and I often didn't get much (or any) time to sightsee.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 15:11:35 -0800

Adventures in real-world (and real-time) MetaFiltering! Ever since my last comment, I've been enjoying a very pleasant email exchange with Giorgio, from the World66 staff. I first thought about paraphrasing his comments, but now I think a straight copy-and-paste will do just fine, with a little cleaning up and re-ordering; my questions and/or comments are in italics, and Giorgio's are in regular type:

Hi, If you are interested in a mapping tool for US States you can find it here: http://www.world66.com/myworld66/visitedStates P.S. I found your comment on Metafilter :-) Giorgio Baresi (World66 Staff) You are speedy, Giorgio, I just made that comment. However, I was pointing out that the tool is in fact there on the link in the MetaFilter thread. I've been checking all the comments on Metafilter for a couple of hours! I think the comments you are posting there are really interesting for us to improve our tools! Maybe you can clear up a question or two that have come up in the discussion of the site - did you (or whoever at World66) use an alphabetized list of countries and states in a language other than English, and then translate the list into English? It appears that the list of countries, in particular, is not alphabetized properly in English as a result. No, countries are ordered according to their international "code": if you check United Arab Emirates are listed between Andorra and Afghanistan because their code is AE. I absolutely know this isn't a good way to order countries and I already told this to the creator of the tool (Douwe Osinga)... you know, I'm just a webdesigner and don't know much about programming stuff! However tomorrow morning we will at work again and I think we'll fix all those problems! Also, "Massachusetts" is misspelled in the list of states, which also makes me think the site may have originally been done in a language other than English I corrected it. Now it should be fine. Thanks! (P.s. the website is only in English and has never been translated from any other languages. Some spelling errors are due to the fact that none of us here is English Speaking as his mother tongue) Please let me know if you can, and I will pass on your comments to the folks on MetaFilter! Thanks... I've been trying to register to Metafilter for one year, but simply they don't let me do that! Giorgio

Thank you, Giorgio!

By: drstrangelove

drstrangelove — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 15:58:15 -0800

That's lame. In my travels around the USA last summer I spent less money than I would have sitting at home watching TV. International travel can be done even cheaper.
That might be true if I weren't in my own business, where the time taken away for travel is more expensive than the actual arrangements.

By: synecdoche

synecdoche — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 19:08:25 -0800

Yeah, I got 5 countries (Canada, US, Iceland, Ireland, and the UK), for a whopping two percent. And Iceland, to be fair, was just an airport.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 19:16:56 -0800

Thanks Giorgio! It's a cool tool--how about a world cities map?

By: cryosis

cryosis — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 20:36:26 -0800

And late to the party as always, I'm going with the US state map, seeing as I've never left North America. Map Come to think of it, this is the first time I've regreted not driving an extra hour so I could add Arkansas to the list.

By: silusGROK

silusGROK — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 22:09:00 -0800

Synecdoche: don't leave Iceland at just the airport ... it's a wonderful destination! For the record, my record is Canada, US, Mexico, Denmark, Iceland, UK.

By: davehat

davehat — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 01:34:44 -0800

I seem to have an inordinate amount of small territories cropping up on the map I made. Also, What is the %age thing about? I have visited 30 countries and this site reckons that this is "13%". If it is refering to countries, then this must be wrong as there are not 231 countries in the world. It can't be land mass either, so what is it?

By: einarorn

einarorn — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 02:14:09 -0800

If Giorgio is still reading this, then it would be excellent if they could make the map bigger, perhaps with zooming. Also, if the name of the country could appear on mouse-over, that would be great! But otherwise this is an excellent site! Oh, and I agree with silusGROK, there's so much to see in Iceland other than that lovely airport, but then again I'm a bit biased.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 02:28:26 -0800

Also, What is the %age thing about? I have visited 30 countries and this site reckons that this is "13%". Another note for Giorgio. As davehat notes the calculation is off. They are dividing by 225 or so (depends on rounding) but only offer up 194 countries to select. This means that even if you selected half the countries in the world (97) you'd only get a 43%

By: davehat

davehat — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 03:11:10 -0800

As far as I can remember, there are only 193 countries in the world. Minor territories of larger states and areas in dispute (eg, Western Sahara) might take the number up to 260 or so, perhaps this is where the figure is coming from, but even then the percentage would be wrong. As for the 194 selectable countries on the site, Greenland is not a country, neither is Puerto Rico, but East Timor is. This should give you the figure of 193. Hope this helps. I love the site.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 06:46:16 -0800

I've been to 49 states but the weird software rounds up and says that I've been to 50 states .... or 98% !?

By: i_cola

i_cola — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 07:00:22 -0800

Pah! You let some Brit beat your state-visiting butt yhbc? ;-) {I should visit New England one day. All those weenie states should get up the total nicely...}

By: PrinceValium

PrinceValium — Mon, 26 Jan 2004 22:53:10 -0800

For serious county-counters (I'm at 539), there's an Access database available at this site which includes not only a database of all U.S. counties, but the 9,332 possible "abutments" between neighboring counties. So for example, if you're on I-95 between New York and Boston, you'll be checking off, among others, the abutment between Fairfield County and New Haven County, Connecticut. Now that's hardcore.