How many countries and continents have you visited? Which one is home?

[UKMikey]

Aside from a barely remembered school day trip to Paris I've only driven through France on the way to other countries. I remember stopping at a tiny roadside café on the way to Andorra. It was only for a coffee and a pastry or two but they were the best damn coffee and pastries I've ever tasted.

 

[GBalao888]

Home for me is either USA (particularly New York City, as I was born there), or the Philippines (Manila), as I grew up there. But, I’ve been to very few countries outside of the two, such as:

Hong Kong
Indonesia
Singapore
Taiwan
Japan

States outside of NY:
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Alaska
Hawaii
Connecticut
Massachusetts
California

 

[wfooshee]

Growing up, my dad's employer was a military contractor, so we moved a lot, almost as much as a military family. I was in the 9th grade before I went to the same school two consecutive years!

We were in several places in the US, starting in Lawton, Oklahoma, with Dad working at Ft. Sill. We went to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, and then back to Oklahoma. We then went to Germany for about three years, and while in Europe did the touristy stuff, visiting Denmark (with a brief overnight to Malmo, Sweden,) France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria. My parents went across the channel but the didn't take the kids (Dad was picking up his newly ordered '66 MG-B, which lasted long enough for me to learn to drive with about 8 years later.)

I was not even 10 years old when we were there, and for the most part absolutely bored with the sight-seeing. I remember asking in Rome, "Why don't they tear all this old stuff down?!?! It's no good!" I've been in the Sistine Chapel, up the Eiffel Tower, stood in front of David, rode a gondola in Venice, and hated almost every second of it. Climbing inside the Leaning Tower of Pisa was fun, though! (Those steps are incredibly worn, with big scoops in them from the feet of climbers through the centuries!) Sleigh ride up to Neuschwanstein was pretty cool, too!

OTOH, going to Spa or the Nurburgring for F1 and endurance races was quite exiting!! I was a kid in the stands while Jim Clark, Graham Hill, John Surtees, Bruce McLaren, Jack Brabham, Dan Gurney, were circulating the track. Jim Clark was my idol! I recall seeing a Ford GT on the public road going towards Spa one morning! I've touched the Alan Mann transporter with the Cobra Daytona coupes on it!

But cathedrals, ruins, art, statues... none of that interested me at all. What I'd give to go back, though!

 

[Pupik]

It's true. Our public transportation system is one of the worst in the industrialized world.

It bears repeating that networking the entire country with public transportation is a daunting task, but some large cities do a better job than others. 95-99% of our nation's local travel can be handled most efficiently by automobile or walking. There are a lot of barriers to ownership costs and upkeep in large cities which can be a burden but smaller towns and suburbs aren't designed for public transportation. (Mostly, those areas actively try to avoid the infrastructure for NIMBY reasons but I think that may change over the course of a few decades; people will have enough of one-hour commutes.)

There's just no financially responsible way to link two random medium-sized towns for any sort of scheduled service other than flying or a bus service. It would rely heavily on government subsidies and the Essential Air Service is mostly a financial loser for most small markets. So autos just work best in that scenario, even if the roads and highways are also in need of constant maintenance.

 

[MatskiMonk]

I've been to both Talladega and Bristol. I would probably recommend Talladega first if you had to make a choice.

I've actually been giving this a bit more thought, and a plan is forming.

Charlotte works quite will in terms of accessibility (direct flights from the UK and close enough proximity to lots of hotels), and the NASCAR hall of fame is literally on the route between the Airport and the track. The October race is also the week before Petite Le Mans at Road Atlanta, and only a couple of hundred miles away. And then Atlanta offers direct flights back home.

Hmmm.... time to have a few beers and throw my credit card details at Google.