I don’t usually evaluate what happened in my life at the end of the Year, but this year was different in many good ways.

I am publishing this recap today because today is my birthdate number 40th, I know, I know a significant number.

But, beyond that number, I want to remember a lot of great things I accomplished this year, pursuing a dream I had from my childhood.

My dream came after reading the first book I bought with my money “Around the world in eighty days” written by Jules Verne; As you can imagine my dream was to travel around the world.

Fortunately, This year that dream became real, and I could combine with other passion, contributing to Open Source and more specifically to Drupal Community.

Here you could see a map of my voyage.

Map details here

Let me summary my dream with some stats.

Distance

As you can imagine making a trip around the world, involve a lot of travel and just to put some context, the Equator is about 40,075 kilometres across the globe.

When I started my trip wasn’t planned in about 75% of the route, mostly because I need to resolve some pending visas and I switch to some countries in the process.

But the reality was that by the time I was about to complete one round around the world I got some invitations to participate in others, events combine with some events that I was to participate.

As results, I flew 146.671 kilometres which mean 3.5 times the extension of the Equator line, and that was only by flying.

Because I did more than to millions step and other kilometres by bus and train. I also did some leagues by boat, but I didn’t have records about that distance.

Check the distances in detail in the following chart.

Numbers

A lot of things happens on this trip, most of them good and nothing awful, only time to time I get lost in translation and sometimes actually lost, you know the wrong bus or wrong subway line, and you end on the other side of the city.

Talking about scary situations, well I got two haircuts one in Hanoi, Vietnam and other in Bangkok, Thailand; I have to recognise could be worst, but I always got something between what I want and between what the hair stylist want. But still with two ears and my honour intact.

Also, I have the opportunity to read two books of my favourite writers of black novel Henning Mankell

I wrote a daily blog post to try to document all that I live, but to be honest only until my first round around the world, after that I was so tired, and I cheat, and after that, I wrote an entry by country, sorry about that.

One frightening moment was when a border officer report to me that I didn’t have space for more stamps and maybe in my next destination I could be deported back home.

That moment was discouraging for me because I still have to visit four more countries before the end of my tour in the next five weeks. So my solution was to include another country in the tour, Colombia, maybe you don’t know, but I am Colombian. So I visited Colombia, get my passport and participate in a Drupal Meetup in Bogota. Also, I visited my family in Bucaramanga quite a trip inside my journey.

Talking about numbers, I collect thousands of pictures and more valuable dozens of new friend around the world.

Check the figures in detail in the following chart.

Locations

When I plan my trip, I want to maximise the number of countries regarding Drupal communities I could visit on my route. I could visit Africa or the Middle East; Europe was skipped deliberately because their communities are healthy and one of my goals was to visit emerging communities regarding Drupal.

Even that I could visit more than 30 cities in 18 countries spread over four continents.

A lot of friends said all my trip was a huge vacation and maybe it was. But only in 3 cities, this adventure was totally tourist; those places were:

• Tasmania in Australia
• Honolulu in Hawaii
• Bucaramanga in Colombia.

I could say that enjoy all the towns I visited, but I especially love Asian food, I guess that in a previous life I have to be born in some place between Hong Kong and Tokio.

Check the locations in detail in the following chart.

Events

This this was all about the Drupal community, and I could participate in 32 events around the world, participating as a speaker in all of them.

I had the honour of being Keynote in 3 DrupalCamps

Maybe the most remarkable participation was during my Community Keynote at DrupalCon Dublin.

In all those events I always tried to share what I know about Drupal 8 and Drupal Console projects, trying to promote in all of them the importance of contributing and remark the importance of contributing using their language to try to enforce their community.

Check the events in detail in the following chart.

weKnow

One of the most significant achievements in this journey was the creation of a new company named weKnow. This new company will be dedicated to Drupal 8+ and Symfony 2+ Training and Consulting.

The companions on this trip are

Jesus Manuel Olivas an old friend and co-maintainer with me inside Drupal Console project.

Kenny Abarca an old friend and co-founder with me of Anexus company.

#Thank you Last, but not least I want to express a huge THANK YOU to my family, why? Well, let me elaborate.

Yersika, my wife my companion in all my adventures physically and a great remote supporter.

Axel & Zoe: My children, who may pay the big price in all my travels, accepting that his father is abroad in the best way that I could Imagine.

My Mom, who take care of her grandsons, filling out all the love we couldn’t provide in person, meanwhile we were out of the home.

My siblings Katherine and Mario, who provide aunt and uncle supervision to my children and why not spoil them a little bit.

Summary

In general was a great year and now I am looking for my next adventure/challenge for 2017 in my 40’s

Thank you for reading this very long blog post.