Are You More Adventurous than the Pope? The Interactive Scratch Map for World Explorers
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Holiday price comparison site TravelSupermarket.com has created an interactive scratch map that lets you see how you compare to prominent world figures – like the former Pope John Paul II, who’s been to 65% of the world.
Throw away your old scratch maps – the latest in traveller tech is a digital version. The new gadget from TravelSupermarket.com lets you scratch out the places you’ve visited, and tells you how much you’ve seen of each continent – and of the world – to help you pick out the next adventure on your list.
As well as checking where you’ve been, you can compare your journeys to those of some famous names. Have you seen more locations than the Pope? What about Queen Elizabeth? Can you outmatch Bear Grylls?
While even an amateur adventurer is in with a shot of beating Charlotte Crosby (who, despite hosting a show where she explored the world, has only seen 8% of it), you’d have to be a veteran world traveller to challenge the former head of the Catholic Church, as Pope John Paul II saw a massive 65% of the world, covering 83% of South America, 74% of North America, and 77% of Europe, though he never travelled to Antarctica.
Do you think you can beat that? There’s a range of other notable icons for you to compete with, from comedian and presenter Michael Palin (who is listed as visiting a total of 74* countries) to The Only Way is Essex veteran Joey Essex (who only discovered that China isn’t the capital of Japan during his travels).
The UK’s top 5 most daring cities
TravelSupermarket has asked Brits how adventurous they think they are on a scale of 1 to 10, and these are the top 5 cities that think they can stomach some extreme activities:
- Wrexham –82% of respondents rate themselves 6 out of 10 or higher for adventurousness, with an overall average of 6.6 making them the most daring city or town in the UK
- Coventry –respondents from Coventry rated themselves 13% more adventurous than the UK average, scoring 6.3 out of ten on average.
- Aberdeen – 31% of those questioned in the city want to try white-water rafting, more than anywhere else in the UK. They score themselves 6.2 on average
- Glassgow – people there put their money where their mouth is: 17% have tried base jumping and 10% glacier hiking, both more than anywhere else in the UK. They score themselves 6.04 on average.
- Norwich – 21.5% say they have tried white-water rafting, the highest response in the survey. They score themselves 6.0 on average.
Overall, the most popular extreme adventure was white-water rafting, tried by 11% of people surveyed . The least popular was wing walking, at only 1%.
Battle of the Ages
TravelSupermarket’s survey reveals that 18-24 year olds are the age group which consider themselves the most adventurous. Those who consider themselves the least adventurous are 25-34 year olds, rating themselves an average of 5.40 out of ten – very marginally less than those 55 or over, who view themselves as only 5.42 daring.
In actual fact, 25-34 year olds seem to be more adventurous than their younger counterparts – they’re just more modest about it! 25-34 year olds rate themselves as a whole 14% less adventurous than 18-24 year olds. But 18-24 year olds haven’t in fact done much in the way of extreme activities, with only 13% of them having tried sky diving, bungee jumping, white-water rafting, base jumping, glacier hiking, or wing walking – compared to a whopping 68% of 25-34 year old who have.
How Adventurous Are You?
Emma Coulthurst from TravelSupermarket says, “In terms of thrill-seeking, it seems the Scots really embrace adventure and show up the rest of us.
A whopping 79% of Brits as say they don’t want to try sky diving, bungee jumping, white-water rafting, base jumping, glacier hiking, or wing walking . And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. And, unsurprisingly, most Brits list Europe as their most visited continent, with 97% of Brits having been there.
“Travel and adventure is personal. It most definitely isn’t the number of countries which you clock up that is important. It is having the holiday that you want and where you want and with the level of adventure which is right for you!”
Use TravelSupermarket’s interactive scratch map to see how much of the world you’ve seen and compare yourself with famous travellers and icons. Check it out here.
