What 1,674 Saved Places Taught Me About How I Explore Cities

I've tracked every place I wanted to visit and every place I actually went to. After 1,674 entries across 10+ cities, here's what the data says about how I explore and travel.

What 1,674 Saved Places Taught Me About How I Explore Cities

Somewhere between wanting to remember a great ramen shop and forgetting the name of that one cafe with the garden, I started tracking every place I visited, and every place I wanted to visit.

It started small. A list on instagram, a pin on google maps. Then it became a web base workflow. Then I built an app for it. And now, 1,674 saved places later, I have something I didn't expect: a dataset that tells me more about myself than any personality test ever could.

Here's what the numbers say.

The Numbers

1,674 places saved. Of those, I've actually visited 915 — a 54.7% hit rate. That means 759 places are still on my wishlist, which either means I'm ambitious or I save things faster than I can experience them. Probably both.

Only 25 are marked as favorites. That's a 1.3% favorite rate. I am, apparently, very hard to impress.

Only 67 places have earned a repeat visit. If a single visit is a compliment, a second visit is a commitment. And I've made that commitment exactly 67 times out of 915 visits. The places that earned it? A matcha cafe, a ramen shop, a cocktail bar, and a few more. Pull that thread and you see someone who values consistency over novelty — and great drinks over great decor.

Where I Actually Go

Here's the breakdown by borough:

Manhattan dominates, unsurprisingly. But Queens at 112 places tells a story too… specifically, it tells the story of Astoria (87 places). Astoria alone accounts for more saved places than the entire Bronx and Staten Island combined, whats worse about it, is that I used to live in the Bronx.

My Most-Explored Neighborhoods in NYC

Midtown at the top surprises me. I think of myself as someone who avoids tourist-heavy areas, but the data says otherwise. Midtown's density and variety of restaurants and cafes keeps pulling me in despite the crowds.

What I'm Looking For

The category split reveals something I have never been able to articulate:

Nearly 70% of everything I save is about eating, drinking coffee, or drinking cocktails. I thought I was a museum person but the data says I'm a food-and-drinks person who occasionally goes to museums… But to be fair, i  go to the same museum s over and over again so the number of cultural places is lower because i consistently visit the same museums for different exhibits.

The subcategories are even more revealing. My top subcategories include 75 nightclubs, 71 Japanese restaurants, 51 neighborhood walkabouts, and 48 hiking trails. It seems that I live for ramen at 7pm and hiking at 7am.

The Emotional Layer

I wrote notes for 910 places — meaning I had something to say about almost every place I visited. When I ran sentiment analysis on those notes:

Only 2.4% negative. I'm either an optimist, or I subconsciously avoid writing about places I didn't like… Unless the place was really bad I try to give the benefit of doubt on my first visit. I have a high bar for great coffee, matcha, sushi, ramen, and cocktails so if something is just okay but not great I would write with less enthusiasm and the complete absence of a review speaks for itself.

More interesting are the mood tags I detected from my own language:

"Foodie" and "inspiration" dominate. When I describe a place positively, I use words like delish, flavourful, creative, beautiful, design. My taste profile, according to my own words: I want places that taste great and look intentional.

How My Exploration Changed Over Time

The year-by-year visit data tells a growth story:

From 1 place in 2016 (I started tracking in 2021) to 287 in 2025. That's a 28,600% increase over 9 years. The inflection point was 2022 — the year the world reopened and I decided to visit everything I'd missed. And the growth hasn't slowed. If anything, saving places has become a habit that feeds itself: the more I discover, the more I want to keep discovering.

The International Chapter

210 places are outside New York — spanning Paris (41), Berlin (29), Barcelona (27), New Orleans (18), San Francisco (12), Toronto (12), Tokyo (10), Mexico City, Naples, and more.

My saved places aren’t exclusive to my local surroundings. In Paris, my notes are the most passionate — a Banh Mi with a French baguette earned a ":ChefKiss:" and the restaurant Bouillon République got a 150-word love letter about snails and steak frites. In Berlin, I'm more observational. In Barcelona, more architectural.

Same person, different cities, different curiosities. That's what travel data shows you that a single trip recap doesn't.

Patterns I Didn't Expect

1. I have companion data point for only 89 places so far. That means I explore mostly solo or with the same people often enough that I don't bother noting who's with me. The companion I tag most frequently is a recurring pattern of dates (majority of which are with my girlfriend).

2. Only 25 favorites out of 1,674 saved. I'm stingy with the favorite badge. It takes more than "good" to earn it. Looking at what did earn a favorite: repeat-visit cafes, a specific ramen shop, a speakeasy with surprising cocktails. The pattern here is a favorite is a place that changed how I think about that category. Thē Soirēe changed how I think about matcha. Nishida Sho-ten changed how I think about ramen. L'Americana changed what I expect from a cocktail bar.

What I'd Tell You to Track

If you started tracking your places today, here's what I've learned matters:

1. Write notes immediately. You think you'll remember. You won't. My best notes are the ones I wrote within an hour of visiting that place.
2. Don't overthink notes and ratings. Notes > numbers.
3. Mark favorites sparingly. If everything is a favorite, nothing is. Let the list stay selective.
4. Save places you haven't visited yet. Your wishlist is important too — it shows what attracts you before you've been influenced by the experience.
5. Track over years, not weeks. The most interesting patterns emerge at the 1-year-plus mark. That's when you can see your taste evolve, your frequented neighborhoods shift, and your habits form.

What 1,674 Places Really Means

It doesn't mean I've been to 1,674 places - I've been to about half. What it means is that I've paid attention. To what I eat, where I walk, why I return, and how I feel.

That attention, compounded over years, becomes something more than a list. It becomes a portrait. One made of matcha lattes, ramen bowls, art galleries, speakeasy cocktails, Parisian hills, and the occasional taxidermy bar.

And honestly? I think everyone has a version of this portrait. Most people just don't write it down and keep track of it.

Maybe you should start.

Data comes from Something To Do - the app for tracking places you love, places you want to try, and the stories in between.