Why aren't we going to New Plymouth?

For those of you on Facebook, you'll be familiar with the "Cities I've visited" function. This is one of my favourite parts of Facebook, as it allows you to map places you've visited all over the world. The other day Tane and I were having a look and discovered that you can see the top 20 places that my Facebook friends have been, as well as the top 20 places all users of Facebook worldwide have been. I know that this is not exactly a great sample group as Facebook users are more likely to be English speaking and under 35 than any other demographic group, but taking that into consideration the top 20 destinations were:

	Where my friends have been	Where Facebook users have been
1	Auckland	London
2	London	Paris
3	Wellington	New York
4	Paris	Orlando
5	Sydney	Amsterdam
6	Christchurch	LA
7	Rotorua	Rome
8	Amsterdam	Las Vegas
9	Melbourne	San Francisco
10	Taupo	Barcelona
11	Florence	Washington DC
12	Rome	Venice
13	LA	Chicago
14	Hamilton	Toronto
15	Napier	Florence
16	Prague	San Diego
17	Singapore	Miami Beach
18	Venice	Boston
19	Vienna	Brussels
20	Barcelona	Berlin

Tane and I have been to 9 of the top places Facebook users have been, and of the list of where my friends have been I have been to 17 of them, and Tane 15.

The thing that struck me the most about these lists was the fact that in the list of places my friends have been so many NZ destinations were much lower in the list than European cities. What's that about? Why have so many Kiwis visited London, Rome, Prague, Vienna, and Amsterdam when they haven't even been to New Plymouth? Not to mention Dunedin, Palmerston North and Nelson. And how on earth did Hamilton get to number 14? Was bribery involved?

Travel around the world is fabulous because you experience so much variety. Travel around NZ, though, is great as well as you see variety within your own country. In many ways small NZ towns like Ruatoria, Murupara and Te Kao have given me more of an insight into a different way of life than Paris, Rome or any other European city that is crawling with tourists. Is it because of cultural cringe that Kiwis travel around Europe but not NZ? Or is it because they think NZ is boring? I have mentioned this list to a few NZers in the last little while, and at least three of them blinked at me before saying "Um ... I've never been to New Plymouth."

How many of the cities on the lists have you been to? Have YOU been to New Plymouth? If not, why not?