By Bob Ecker, correspondent to Bay Area News Group
Whether you’re a full blown globetrotter or someone who just dreams of faraway places, the 20 questions in this travel quiz are sure to challenge and entertain. You’ll find all the answers — and some amusing trivia — at the end.
The Quiz
1. Which country holds the title — and has since 1993 — of most beer consumed per capita?
2. Do you enjoy heights? Or are you afraid of high places? Then you may — or may not — want to stay at the world’s highest altitude hotel. Where might that be?
3. Which country’s current flag is considered the world’s oldest?
A) China
B) Thailand
C) Denmark
D) Egypt
E) France
4. Volcanos never fail to excite us human beings. Which volcano holds the record for the fastest lava flows ever recorded?
5. Can you match each nut with its place of origin?
Peanut Australia
Macadamia nut Peru
Brazil nut The Amazon
Almond Iran
6. Sweden’s Dagen H (or H Day) — also known as Högertrafikomläggningen — commemorates a massive countrywide event that took place on Sept. 3, 1967. What was it?
7. What is the most ethnically diverse area in the United States?
8. The “Big Apple” has had three official “New” names in its history, including New York. What were the other two?
9. If a simple compass were placed on the International Space Station, which way would it point?
A) Toward the sun
B) Toward the Earth’s North Pole
C) Toward the center of the space station itself
D) It would spin wildly.
10. What is the world’s largest religious structure?
A) Angkor Wat, Cambodia
B) Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah
C) Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey
D) St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, Italy
E) Christ Cathedral, formerly known as the Crystal Cathedral, Los Angeles
11. Which U.S. city has a full-scale replica of the Parthenon located within a park? (Hint, this city’s official nickname is the “Athens of the South.”)
12. Match each airport’s official name with its U.S. location.
Daniel K. Inouye International Airport Springfield, Illinois
George Bush Intercontinental Airport Honolulu, Hawaii
Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport. Houston, Texas
Muhammad Ali International Airport. Wichita, Kansas
Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport Louisville, Kentucky
13. Which is the largest U.S. national park outside Alaska?
14. Which of these ports for ocean-going ships is the furthest inland?
A) Hamburg, Germany
B) Duluth, Minnesota
C) Vladivostok, Russia
D) St. Petersburg, Russia
E) Sevastopol, Ukraine
15. Which continent has the highest average elevation?
16. And speaking of elevation, which European country has the highest average?
17. I love a good travel quote. Name the author who said, “Not all who wander are lost.”
A) William Shakespeare
B) Mark Twain
C) Homer
D) Edgar Allen Poe
E) J.R.R. Tolkien
18. What is the only U.S. commercial airport inside a national park?
19. Match the unusual museum with its location:
Museum of Bad Art Austin, Minnesota
Phallological Museum Reykjavik, Iceland
The National Atomic Testing Museum Cappadocia, Turkey
SPAM Museum Paradise, Nevada
Hair Museum of Avanos Boston, Massachusetts
20. Which city boasts the most Michelin-starred restaurants in the world?
ANSWERS:
1. The Czech Republic, according to the most recent study by Kirin Holdings. The Czechs consume an average of 48.6 gallons of beer each — twice as much as Austria, the country in second place. The U.S. comes in at No. 17.
2. The Hotel Tayka del Desierto in Bolivia’s Siloli Desert sits 15,091 feet above sea level. Visitors can see volcanic fields, geysers and the stunning Laguna Verde. The bright green lake gets its color from its high concentrations of lead, sulfur, arsenic and other strong chemicals, making for less-than-ideal swimming conditions.
3. The answer is C. Denmark’s flag, which is known as “Danish Cloth,” has been in use since 1625.
4. Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a unique, steeply sloped stratovolcano. Its lava is very low in silica content, resulting in a very liquid, fast-moving lava flow that can travel as fast as 62 miles per hour or about 90 feet per second.
5. Peanuts originated in Peru. (They’re legumes, by the way, not nuts.) Macadamia nuts are nearly synonymous with Hawaii now, but they came from Australia. Brazil nuts are grown in Brazil, yes, but they’re indigenous to the Amazon region. (And they’re actually a seed, not a nut.) Almonds originated in the Middle East in areas with a Mediterranean climate, most likely in what is now Iran. (And they’re not nuts either, they’re drupes.)
6. It was the day that Sweden made the switch from driving on the left side of the road — British style — to driving on the right. The word Högertrafikomläggningen means right-hand traffic reorganization. More than 350,000 Swedish signs were removed or replaced, road markers were repainted, public transit stops and stoplights were relocated and intersections redesigned. Hundreds of new buses were purchased and thousands fitted with extra doors so passengers could exit on the new sidewalk side.
7. Several cities have laid claim to the title, but the New York City borough of Queens has one of the most convincing arguments — and as a native New Yorker, I’m going with “the world’s borough.” Some 47.2% of the borough’s 2.3 million people are foreign born, according to 2022 U.S. Census data. Queens residents hail from more than 120 countries and speak 138 different languages.
8. In 1624, Dutch colonists landed in what is now lower Manhattan and began building a new town, which they christened New Amsterdam. The moniker lasted until 1664, when the British took over and renamed it to honor the Duke of York. When the Dutch navy came sailing back in 1673, New York became New Orange — until the Brits reclaimed the city in 1674 and the New York name returned.
9. B — The International Space Station orbits only about 250 miles above Earth’s surface, so the compass would still point to Earth’s magnetic North Pole.
10. A — Built in the early 12th century, the 402-acre Buddhist temple complex of Angkor Wat is considered the world’s largest religious structure by area.
11. Built in 1897, a full-scale replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville’s Centennial Park. It’s an impressive sight, inside and out.
12. Named for former U.S. senator Daniel K. Inouye, Inouye airport is in Honolulu. Former president and Texas governor George Bush lends his name to the Houston airport. Former president Dwight D. Eisenhower’s namesake airport is in Wichita, Kansas. Boxer Muhammad Ali was born in Louisville, Kentucky — and his airport is there too. And the Abraham Lincoln airport is in his home town of Springfield.
13. At a whopping 3.4 million acres — or more than 5,325 square miles — Death Valley National Park is the largest national park in the continental U.S. and the fifth largest in the country. It’s well worth a visit, though not in the heat of summer.
14. B — Duluth. This very large and active port is located 2,300 miles away from the Atlantic seaboard via the St. Lawrence Seaway.
15. Antarctica’s average elevation is 7,545 feet above sea level, making it the highest continent on Earth. Australia is the lowest.
16. It’s Andorra, a tiny principality in the Pyrenees between Spain and France. Andorra’s average elevation is 6,550 feet above sea level.
17. E — The line comes from a poem in the first book of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, a travel tale if ever there was one.
18. Jackson Hole Airport was built in 1930 at Grand Teton National Park. It’s a stunning sight flying in.
19. You’ll find the Museum of Bad Art in Boston, the Icelandic Phallological Museum in Reykjavik, the Atomic Testing Museum in Paradise (along with most of the Las Vegas Strip casinos — it’s a tax thing), the SPAM homage in Austin, Minnesota, and the hair museum in Cappadocia, Turkey.
20. Tokyo leads the culinary world with 183 Michelin-starred restaurants as of 2023. New York City tops the U.S. list with 71 Michelin-star restaurants, and the San Francisco Bay Area has 45.
How did you do?
