map

For the last few months Marisa and I have been trekking around Taiwan and Southeast Asia. We’ve hiked the Caolin Trail in the rain, spent the night at a temple in Dali, been attacked by monkeys in Kaohsiung, swam in the 6:00am sea at Nha Trang, met Vietnam’s most celebrated photographer, helped an elephant take a bath in Mondulkiri , been tuk-tuked around Angkor, driven a “moto” around Pulau Pinang,  traversed the world’s longest jungle canopy walkway, heard Justin Bieber play after the Muslim call to prayer, and stayed with some of the nicest strangers we’ve ever met. I’ve also read thousands of pages of history, watched many hours of local cinema, written a few blog posts, had lots of inspiration for making games, and actually released far fewer games than I would have liked.

It turns out that making computer games while traveling isn’t the easiest (or most realistic) thing I’ve ever attempted. I’m behind, but that’s okay: I’m going to keep making things as I can, and then plug away at my backlog once I have some place to call “home” again. For now though, my funds aren’t quite depleted. Amazingly enough I’ve managed to survive the last eight months on less than $10 a day, thanks in no small part to the generosity of the many people who have hosted Marisa and I along the way. Even with transportation costs and everything else thrown in, there’s still about $1000 left in the GameTrekking fund.

With that money I’m going to visit Europe, for a different perspective on the world from the Asian one I’ve been immersed in for some time. Partly to compare and contrast two very different parts of the world, and partly to go back to a few countries I’ve already been to in the past, in order to try and gain some inspiration for a game about revisiting a place, something that one of my most generous backers is particularly interested in. 

$1000 isn’t enough for a leisurely trip through the most expensive continent in the world. But with the help of some savings, and a lot of generous couch-surfing hosts, it’s enough for a mad dash train trip between capitals that looks something like this:

This mad dash tour is clearly in a different style from the wanderings Marisa and I have taken around Southeast Asia, and that’s part of its appeal. I generally prefer slow and meandering to fast and furious, but I think there’s value in all forms of travel, and the goal of this trip is to revisit some cities I’ve been to before (about half of those shown above), and to get just the tiniest taste of Europe as a whole… a taste that can hopefully be built upon later. I won’t be reading individual books about every country that we travel through, nor making games for every country, like I’ve been doing (and plan to continue doing) for Southeast Asia… rather, I will be looking for themes and ideas and impressions that span the continent, and thinking over the concept of “revisitation.”

Another interactive travel map from my beautiful wife. Click on the circles to see pictures or read blogs posts.

Another interactive travel map, courtesy of Marisa:

Another “journey in review,” this time courtesy of my lovely tech-savy wife :).

A little interactive map of our Taiwan journey. Click on green circles to go to the corresponding photo album on flickr; blue circles will take you to their corresponding blog post.

If you find this interactive visualization interesting or helpful, please leave a comment, so that I can better decide whether or not to make similar maps for future countries—thanks!