2025 Wrapped: Geographic Expansion

11 January 2026

"It was not true that travel was a false god and that you took your troubles with you and nothing could change.  There was the unimaginable and unforeseen thrill of being away, of renewal, and remembering that the world was huge and various, and you and your concerns were small.”

=> Ian McEwan, What We Can Know

I will hold myself forward as world-class in appreciating the unimaginable and unforeseen thrill of being away. I got my first passport as I neared graduation from university in late 1989. En route to Eswatini (then the Kingdom of Swaziland) in March of 1990, I made sure to use my half day layover at Heathrow wisely: not sitting in the transit lounge, but getting out to make the United Kingdom as my first ever passport stamp, quickly figuring out the Piccaddilly Line into central London and then just walking around the heart of the city with a few of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers. The world cracked open wide from there, I learned life lessons that serve me today, somehow crashed a Canada Day party and found the perfect globetrotting woman to accompany me on these adventures, and have been going, going ever since, trying to see just how huge and various this beautiful world can be.

2025 was an epic year for me in geographically expanding where I have swum on my #1001Pools quest.

Where I swam in 2025 ranked Left to Right and Top to Bottom by Pool Count

Across the 64 pools (second highest annual total) in which I swam ...

• I swam in 12 different countries

• I added 8 new countries for the first time

• I swam on three continents - North America, Europe and Africa**

I take something positive from every time I swim, particularly when I swim some place new. Three highlights from 2025:

• I learned time and time again how helfpul the global swim community is in getting me to cool pools, like in Malawi.

• How simple but effective ideas come from anywhere and should be propagated everywhere - like Warsaw's "shoe bouncer."

• And that a full circle trip back in time really makes you see how small your concerns are, reflect on how coddled we modern humans are and be impressed with the ambition and fearlessness of your forbears.

And, I ended the year with #776 total pools on my quest, putting me, I think, easily within striking distance of completing this quest in under a quarter of a century.

** The continent of Africa makes its debut on my official #1001Pools list in 2025, but I did swim in pools across Eswatini, South Africa and Mozambique between 1990 and 1992. I started this quest in 2007. At some point in my retired-from-work-life, I will attempt to recreate my complete history of pools, but that's going to take a deep dive into paper archives and photo albums squirreled away in various "memorabilia" boxes.