What I really love about Foursquare is the ability to make MAPS. As you know, I’m a bit of a map nerd (read: huge map nerd). And Foursquare lets you export a KML feed on Google maps to make awesome maps of the places you’ve been. I already did this once on the blog for my trip cross-country with Miriam, but thought that in lieu of the this-is-what-I-did-this-year-post, I’d be a bit more creative and share in map form. I might still do one of those posts, since they’re funsies, but let’s wait and see.
So to start off with, here’s EVERYWHERE I went (or at least checked into) this year. You’ll notice there’s no international travel (2010 didn’t have any either, but 2009 had Costa Rica). Luckily, 2012 will be a great international travel year, with the very exciting ITALY trip in May to look forward to.
Nonetheless I did get to visit some new places, like:
Denver! (there’s not so much to see from this trip, since we spent a considerable amount of time on the couch. win. Slash, blame it on the margs):
And LA:
As usual I made quite a few trips up to NY, although perhaps not as much as in the past. Nonetheless, trips in April, July, and October (and stop-throughs in January and March) yielded a bunch of new favorite spots, chief among them the Waffle Truck, Fort Tryon Park/the Cloisters, and fantastic brunch spot Centro Vinoteca.
I also started a new job in the middle of 2011, leaving the wonderful non-profit I worked at for 2 ½ years for the equally wonderful, but very different energy efficiency software company where I now work. It’s located out in Courthouse, which means I have visited some (but not enough) new places in the Courthouse/Rosslyn/Clarendon area:
It was also a fantastic year for theater, but I cannot for the life of me isolate just Philly, New York, and DC in a way that has enough resolution to see theater locations, so that will have to be saved for another day.
Finally, and most wonderfully, I now live in an exciting part of a dynamic city -- so there's not often need to leave what some friends affectionately call "the radius." This year yielded more new favorites -- Stoney's grilled cheese and the guac at El Centro D.F., and lots of visits to old favorites Pica Taco, ACKC (which is closing the neighborhood location :( !), and Teaism.
All in all, a fantastic year for being places -- I added 5 new states (Indiana, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona), went to lots of new cities, and got to explore more of my wonderful adopted city, D.C.!