My year in cities, 2008

Stealing an interesting concept from Matt Y's blog is something I'm wont to do. This time, it's a list of all the cities I've visited in 2008.

One or more nights were spent in each place. And the asterisks are for places I'd never been before.

Longboat Key, FL*
Houston, TX
Shreveport, La.
Key West, FL*
Chicago, IL
Miami, FL*
Austin, TX
Dallas, TX

As you can see, I had a rather nondescript year of travel. The economy and my awful, awful work schedule conspired to keep the First Lady and I from doing much globetrotting this year - with the notable exception of the First Lady's trip to Amsterdam in May with her mother.

My 2008 was in no way as interesting as my 2007, when I visited Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, New Orleans, Hot Springs, Ark., Dallas, Austin, Tampa (for what turned out to be a very fruitful job interview), Mobile, Ala., and Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Given my subpar 2008, I'm putting together a very ambitious wish-list for 2009. It's been much too long since I've spent much time up and down the East Coast, places like New York, Philly and D.C. I'm also curious about the Pacific Northwest, Toronto, Montreal, southeast Asia and, I don't know, Cuba.

UPDATE: Along those lines, I have a friend who powers the entertaining and informative blog, My Long Strange Journey. He's spending a year in Singapore but seemingly takes a trip to Sydney or Bali or some other picturesque locale every other weekend. I'm definitely jealous.