The Long Way Map

The long way began here, with a house to pack up, farewells to make, and a westbound plan that was still more idea than reality.

This Pacific Northwest chapter gave us family, ferries, weather, and the breathing room to ease into the long way before heading overseas.

The oldest city in the Philippines, built around a working port, with four centuries of Spanish, American and Japanese history layered under everyday Visayan life.

A high-rise capital of monsoon afternoons and three culinary traditions, where colonial railway stations, the National Mosque and Merdeka 118 share one skyline.

A northern Thai city built around a moated old town, with hundreds of temples, cooler air than the south, and food drawing on Lanna and Shan traditions.

A planned capital on the Kazakh steppe, moved here in 1997, known for wide avenues, ambitious modern architecture and severe continental winters.

The largest city in Central Asia, rebuilt after the 1966 earthquake into wide Soviet avenues, with Silk Road bazaars above and a mosaic-tiled metro below.

The capital of Georgia, built along a river gorge in the Caucasus, known for its sulphur bathhouses and the hillside fortress above its old town.