So, unless you particularly like to dress up as a pumpkin and ask strangers for out of date sweets, it is fair to say that October is not the most eventful month in the northern hemisphere. Everyone is craving those long summer days that they seemed to have just days ago, and no one is quite ready for Christmas to take its hold just yet. As well, many of us have just returned from our travels, and do not have anything booked in for the coming months.
Parasol Store wanted to both help tame your boredom, as well as put you in the travel planning mood. We therefore thought that we would put together a number of travel trivia nuggets together. 10 to be accurate.
1.The average Briton has travelled to 10 countries. In contrast, only 29% of Americans have ever left the U.S.
2. The most visited country in the world is France, with a whopping 82 million people travelling there each year.
3. The worlds largest hotel is the First World in Pahang, Malaysia. It has a massive 7,351 rooms.
4. The word Hodophobia translates to mean the fear of travelling or road travelling. The word hodo is Greek for travel or road, and phobia is the Greek word for fear. Just make sure you do not spend too much time with someone who suffers this, because you may not leave the house very often.
5. During the peak times of air traffic, which usually takes place between 2-4 pm on a Friday afternoon in July or August, there are over 16,000 planes in the air globally.
6. Jet lag feels worse when you travel eastwards, compared with travelling westwards. This is as it is more difficult to go to sleep earlier than you usually do, rather than later. Pretty much common sense really.
7. The largest human migration to occur annually in America is during Thanksgiving, with over 50 million people travelling home for the holiday. This is nothing compared to the largest annual migration globally, which occurs in the lead up to Chinese New Year. A massive 385 million people travel to loved ones. That is over 6 times the U.K. population...
8. You can probably guess which city is the most visited in the world right? Got to be London, or maybe Paris, or how about New York? Well it is actually Bangkok, which welcomes 20.2 million visitors a year. To be fair, you were not far off, as London does welcome 20 million annually itself.
9. The tallest mountain in the world is not actually Mount Everest. It is Mauna Kea, which is located in Hawaii. So you are probably thinking, that you would have heard about this right? Well Mauna Kea is located on the seafloor, and from base to peak is approximately twice the height of Everest at 32,000 feet tall.
10. If all this travel trivia is giving you wanderlust, then you might want to consider moving to Austria. Austrians are legally required to be guaranteed a minimum of 22 paid holidays and 13 paid bank holidays, so there is plenty of time to go plane hopping.