I normally post this much earlier in December – my last trip was at the end of last month – but just forgot.

List the places where you spent a night away from home in 2025; indicate non-consecutive stays with an asterisk. This is the twenty-first successive year that I have made this list.

Leiden NL
Los Angeles USA
* London UK
* Beijing (Chaoyang, east of the centre) China
Beijing (Shijinshan, west of the centre), also China (counting separately as it’s 30 km from Chaoyang)
Bramley, Surrey, UK
Belfast, Norn Iron
* Loughbrickland, Norn Iron
Steendam, Groningen province, NL
Dunkirk harbour, France
Cherbourg-Dublin ferry
Rosslare-Dunkirk ferry
Chengdu, China
Paris, France
Buxton, Derbyshire, England
Podgorica, Montenegro

That’s 16 places, on the low side for the years since I have been counting (since 2005). I’m counting the overnight ferries separately, since they were different routes. I am not counting overnight flights to and from China, and back from California.

Those 16 places are in six countries (counting NI as UK), and I also travelled through Albania to reach Montenegro, so my country total for the year is seven, the second lowest since I have been tallying (which I did not do consistently before 2012).

To finish with, have a groovy embedded Google map:

I think it’s unlikely that I’ll spend any more nights away from home this year, so it’s probably safe to do the overnights meme. This year it’s 20 places in 9 countries, with those place where I spent non-consecutive nights marked with an asterisk.

*London, UK
Los Angeles, USA
The Hague, Netherlands
Geneva, Switzerland
Birmingham, UK
Kidderminster, UK
Cambridge, UK
Glasgow, UK
*Paris, France
St-Hilaire-sur-Helpe, France
Hoofddorp, Netherlands
Zagreb, Croatia
*Ferry between France and Ireland
*Loughbrickland, UK
Heathrow, UK
Beijing, China
Chengdu, China
Oslo, Norway
Natick, USA
Providence, USA

I am counting the overnight ferry, which I feel is in the spirit of the meme, though not four intercontinental overnight plane flights (two from the USA to Europe, two between Brussels and Beijing). Whether nineteen or twenty, it’s bang in the middle of the historical range since I started counting.

I also changed places in Germany and Denmark, and drove through the Republic of Ireland, and I live in Belgium, so my total country tally for the year is 13, the fourth lowest of the fourteen years that I have tracked, even though I added two new countries this year.

Next year will be the twentieth that I have done this calculation.