User:ThunderingTyphoons!

Hello, world! I'm ThunderingTyphoons!, or "Jamie", as people in real life tend to call me, when they're being nice. I come from Hampshire in the United Kingdom, with family roots in Liverpool and Cardiff. A graduate of the University of Sheffield, I have been a fully committed francophile for as long as I can remember.

As of 15 January 2024, I have been a Wikivoyager for eleven years and I am a bureaucrat on the administrative team.


 * If you need help with anything at all, please leave a message on my talk page.
 * If there's something you need to discuss in private, email me in strictest confidence.

My work on Wikivoyage


Sandbox

I prefer to work on destination articles related to the United Kingdom and France, though I also patrol recent changes and my watchlist. Many of the weirder Discover facts you read will have been chosen by me. Pages I have created (bold) and / or have contributed extensively to:

Rather annoyingly, my 10,000th edit on Wikivoyage, usually a milestone to celebrate, was undoing vandalism to my own userpage. Ten thousand thundering typhoons!

Thoughts on editing
As an editor, I enjoy:
 * writing in lively style about places I know.
 * finding new facts for Discover all over the world's best travel guide.
 * writing article leads.
 * contributing to history, transport and food-related articles and sections.
 * welcoming new users to Wikivoyage.

I think the following aspects of editing are tedious but necessary:
 * adding images
 * adding listings (seriously)
 * copy-editing
 * dealing with problematic edits
 * anything to do with impossible-to-remember but damn useful templates

Things you won't find me doing:
 * doing "technical" things - my programming skills are nonexistent
 * making a static map - see above
 * working on anything related to the United States - we have a large number of fine American editors who are brilliant at what they do, so a destination article for just about anywhere else in the world is much more in need of my time.

Trips
Visited

Current
Canada


 * Flag of Alberta.svg
 * 5 May 2024: Calgary
 * Flag of British Columbia.svg
 * 13 May 2024: Invermere

Recent



 * January 2024: retour à Paris


 * November 2023: Bracklesham Bay and Chichester long weekend


 * September 2023: Cancale between Saint-Malo and Mont-Saint-Michel


 * May 2023: Return to Edinburgh; first time in North Berwick and Newcastle-upon-Tyne


 * March 2023: Shanklin, IoW long weekend


 * January 2023: Bristol "normal" weekend


 * September-October 2022: The Algarve - postponed since 2020


 * May 2022: Berlin


 * March 2022: Cardiff

Trips made earlier than two years ago are stored in my trips archive. Because I'm thoroughly anal like that.

Travel records
(table shamelessly stolen from Andrewssi2)

Most-memorable travel experiences

 * Teaching kids English for seven months in Tours.
 * Any time I go to Wales, the land of my father(s).
 * Experiencing the spectacular wildlife of the Falkland Islands.
 * My first time in the Channel Tunnel, as a wide-eyed four year-old.
 * Flying to and walking on the source of Fox Glacier on Mount Cook in New Zealand: in shorts and a t-shirt!
 * Anything archaeological, particularly prehistoric art, stone circles, Roman stuff, or proper nice castles.
 * Seeing over 50,000 northern gannets (depleted from 150,000 due to the pandemic), plus puffins, shags and eider ducks on and around the Bass Rock.
 * Being stripped of my European citizenship (acquired at birth) and travelling back in time 50 years.
 * Visiting the remains of Auschwitz-Birkenau, for reflection and mourning.

Countries I have been to
I have been very lucky so far in my life to have done a lot of travelling. I have set foot in 23 countries around the world, mainly in Europe, though I have also visited Asia and Oceania and done my fair share of Atlantic islands:

Ascension Island

Bosnia and Herzegovina / Bosna i Hercegovina

Canada

Croatia / Hrvatska

Falkland Islands

France


 * Flag of Brittany.svg Brittany / Breizh / Bertaèyn / Bretagne
 * Flag of Occitania.svg Occitania / Occitània / Occitanie

Germany / Deutschland

Greece / Ελλάδα (Crete / Κρήτη)

Hungary / Magyarország

Ireland / Éire

Italy / Italia

Monaco / Múnegu

Montenegro / Crna Gora / Цpнa Гopa

New Zealand / Aotearoa

Poland / Polska

Portugal (including Madeira)

Singapore / Singapura / 新加坡 / சிங்கப்பூர்

Spain / España (including the Balearic Islands / Islas Baleares / Illes Balears and the Canary Islands / Islas Canarias)


 * Flag of the Basque Country.svg Basque Country / Euskadi / País Vasco / Pays Basque
 * Flag of Catalonia.svg Catalonia / Catalunya / Cataluña

Switzerland / Schweiz / Suisse / Svizzera

Turkey / Türkiye

United Kingdom


 * Flag of England.svg England / En-ger-land


 * Flag of Cornwall.svg Cornwall / Kernow


 * Flag of Scotland.svg Scotland / Alba


 * Flag of Wales.svg Wales / Cymru

Cities of the world I have been to

 * Flag of the United Kingdom.svg London, Bath, Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Chester, Chichester, Durham, Edinburgh, Kingston-upon-Hull, Leeds, Lichfield, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Oxford, Portsmouth, Salford, Salisbury, Sheffield, Southampton, Southend-on-Sea, St Albans, St Davids, Swansea, Winchester, Wolverhampton, Worcester, Wrexham, York
 * Flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina.svg Mostar
 * Flag of Canada.svg Calgary
 * Flag of Croatia.svg Dubrovnik
 * Flag of the Falkland Islands.svg Stanley
 * Flag of France.svg Paris, Amiens, Angers, Bayeux, Blois, Bordeaux, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Carcassonne, Colmar, Lille, Montpellier, Nice, Nîmes, Orléans, Perpignan, Quimper, Rouen, Saint-Denis, Saint-Malo, Strasbourg, Toulon, Toulouse, Tours, Versailles
 * Flag of Germany.svg Berlin
 * Flag of Greece.svg Chania
 * Flag of Hungary.svg Budapest
 * Flag of Monaco.svg Monaco
 * Flag of Montenegro.svg Cetinje, Herceg Novi, Kotor
 * Flag of New Zealand.svg Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch
 * Flag of Poland.svg Kraków
 * Flag of Portugal.svg Funchal, Silves
 * Flag of Singapore.svg Singapore
 * Flag of Spain.svg Madrid, Arrecife, Barcelona, Girona
 * Flag of Switzerland.svg Basel
 * Flag of Turkey.svg Marmaris

Flag of England.svg English counties I have set foot in
All counties I have set foot in rather than simply passed through, and not nearly as exciting a list as 'how many U.S. states I've set foot in':
 * Berkshire
 * Buckinghamshire
 * Cheshire
 * The City of London
 * Cornwall
 * County Durham
 * Cumbria
 * Derbyshire
 * Devon
 * Dorset
 * Essex
 * Gloucestershire
 * Greater London
 * Greater Manchester
 * Breezeicons-actions-22-go-home.svghire
 * Herefordshire
 * Hertfordshire
 * Isle of Wight
 * Kent
 * Lancashire
 * Merseyside
 * Norfolk
 * Nottinghamshire
 * Oxfordshire
 * Shropshire
 * Somerset
 * Staffordshire
 * Surrey
 * Sussex: East and West
 * Tyne and Wear
 * Warwickshire
 * West Midlands
 * Wiltshire
 * Worcestershire
 * Yorkshire: North, South, East and West

Travel wishlist (no particular order)
es:Usuario:ThunderingTyphoons! fr:Utilisateur:ThunderingTyphoons!
 * New York City
 * Loads more of France, Turkey and my own country.
 * Prague
 * Moscow
 * The Louvre, Paris ✔
 * Canadian Rockies
 * Snowdonia ✔ish
 * Nepal and Tibet
 * St Petersburg
 * United States National Parks
 * The Alhambra (Granada, Spain)
 * Egypt, for the archaeology
 * India
 * Slovakia
 * Mongolia
 * China
 * La Scala, Milan
 * Edinburgh ✔
 * York ✔
 * Mainland Greece - particularly Athens - for the archaeology
 * The interior of Montenegro
 * Steinbeck's California
 * Rome (I would travel back in time to late Republican Rome if I could just to marvel at the spectacle of an ancient metropolis)
 * Istanbul
 * The Carpathian Mountains
 * Yellowstone National Park
 * The top of the Shard, London ✔
 * The Trans-Siberian Railway (Moscow to Vladivostok!)
 * Nîmes ✔
 * Lyon
 * Penetrate deeper into the Black Forest
 * Patagonia, particularly Y Wladfa
 * Kyrgyzstan
 * Monument Valley
 * Louisiana
 * Berlin ✔, ideally with my father ✔
 * Heidelberg
 * Amsterdam by Eurostar
 * Tallinn
 * Quebec
 * The Knepp Estate, West Sussex ✔
 * Glasgow
 * Stirling
 * Northumberland
 * Newcastle-upon-Tyne ✔
 * Cambridge
 * Vienna
 * Mexico - particularly MC, Yucatán, San Miguel de Allende, Sonora...
 * Chicago
 * Boston
 * Corsica
 * Basque Country
 * See the Northern Lights
 * Santiago de Chile
 * Santiago de Compostela!
 * Georgia
 * Iceland
 * Alaska - apparently Denali is accessible by train.
 * Lille → Dunkirk → Kusttram → Bruges → Brussels
 * Uzbekistan: Tashkent, Samarkand