The numbers

Hello again blogland! It’s been a little while since I checked in, and since my last post all has continued to be interesting down here in the Windies. It’s been pretty busy to be honest, not exactly a holiday. Hold on a sec, not a holiday? I’m sure you’re saying that to yourself right now, how can cruising around the Caribbean be anything but a holiday?

Now it’s not exactly the same as, say working in a pesticide factory (I speak from experience on that one…) but it is work, it isn’t just beaches and sailboats. There is actually a fair bit to it. so in an effort to help shed some more light of what writing for Lonely Planet is all about I thought I’d run through some numbers;

Projecting a bit into the future, these totals include the next ten days on the road, so this is for the whole trip…

Days on the road – 49
Countries travelled to – 5 (USA, The Turks & Caicos, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & The Grenadines, Grenada)
Number of individual Islands travelled to – 16
Means of travel:
Planes (big planes that fit a couple of hundred folks, medium planes that seat 20 people, little planes that seat 10 people)
Ferry’s (Ferry’s that fit cars and lots of people, ferry’s that fit 20 people, ferry’s that look like the boat in Raiders of the Lost Ark)
Sailboats
Speedboats
Busses (some that fit 20 people comfortably, some that were the size of a minivan and had 19 people crammed in)
Cars (some with just me and some were ones I hitched rides in with random folks)
Bikes
On foot
Number of Points of Interest I’ll look at for possible consideration for the book (hotels, restaurants, attractions, etc) - 275
Rest days taken – 1 (although I did go to a beach that will make it into the book)
Photographs taken – about 800
Of those photos the number that are of menus, signs and other shots for research purposes – about 400
Number of sunburns – 2 bad ones and a couple of perpetual ones
Days of rain – 2
Number of nights where I was the only person in my hotel – 9
Number of nights I was unable to get free internet – 3
Number of words I’ll write for this project by the 29th of February – 57000
Number of words I’ve written on the road in blogs and other writing projects – 11000

Sea Turtle - Photo by Scott Kennedy

So as you can see it adds up. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining – I love my job! But it is a job… But don’t shed too many tears for me, it is the Caribbean after all!

Take it easy,
~Scott