For most of my life I have collected sound effects records and environmental recordings (also known as "soundscapes" or "phonography"). The vast majority of them could have been recorded anywhere: ocean waves, streams, waterfalls, thunderstorms, birds, insects, wind in the trees, traffic noises, etc. It is the rare soundscape that evokes any sort of unique place... or time.
phonography.org/phonographers/a.htm

This album is a mix of 117 field recordings taken all over the world, over many years (1954-2021). The concept was to take the most EVOCATIVE ones－of time or place, or just distinctive recordings－and string them together geographically, to try to give some real sense of circumnavigating the globe in sound. A "moving soundscape" as it were, or a "soundwalk" of the entire planet.

In compiling this collection I kept getting "off in the weeds" both literally and figuratively. There are a great many wonderful soundscape recordings out there (on CD and LP and DVD and YouTube and Aporee and elsewhere) but—without the visuals—as mentioned, few give much clue to their location. Many fecund environments got edited out simply because they were too universal.

In order to keep things (somewhat) focused, the soundscapes are organized not only by location but also thematically. See if you can determine the commonalities, the ties that bind, as you listen along.

For this BandCamp album, the final mixed morphing environments are first, followed by the individual location portraits (with complete source notes). All of the recordings have been heavily edited for time. You should seek out the originals (using the links provided) for any that interest you.

Commentary: The easy thing would have been to compile location recordings of people speaking or singing their native tongue, or playing their native instruments. But that would have been about cultural differences, not geographic ones (and anyway people can move about), so I tried instead to focus on recordings that identified places not people. More "sonic geology" (in the words of Birdsongs of the Mesozoic) than audio anthropology.

Eighty minutes of course is way too short to do justice to anywhere, much less the entire world. There is an undue emphasis on the West Coast of the United States, because that is where I live and what I know. The rest of the world gets short shrift. The whole rich continent of South America (of which there are MANY excellent soundscapes) had to be entirely bypassed. Africa gets less than four minutes, India gets only one, China was largely inaccessible and Scandinavia (sorry Melissa!) is nowhere to be heard: Rick Steves would be and should be appalled. I apologize for all these oversights; I very quickly ran out of time within my self-imposed limit. ATWI80M turned out to be more of a comic book than an encyclopedia.

On a related note: Someday I'd like to see a network of internet-connected microphones (and cameras) all over the planet, allowing a person to tune in to any distant location and experience it, live in real time. Virtual travel. Sitting at your computer, or on a TV screen behind your desk. Some parts of this exist now, in incomplete form. For instance, check out the multitude of cool (but mostly short) global recordings here:
aporee.org/maps/
And the fun (but largely silent) live camera networks here:
www.earthcam.com
Or the totally silent (& dated) pictures from the ground here:
www.google.com/streetview/

Thinking about, planning for and collecting sounds for this project began in earnest in 1998, about the time I launched my AUSS series. I mentioned working on it in 2002 ("Quiet, Please" interview), almost twenty years before it was finally completed. Longest eighty minutes of my life.
anode1.bandcamp.com/album/quiet-please-interview
auss.bandcamp.com
www.discogs.com/Anode-Around-The-World-in-80-Minutes/release/7441667

Finally, I may be some kind of idiot but I love putting on headphones, closing my eyes, and being carried away by the whirlwinds of diverse environments contained herein. Unlike single-subject soundscapes, here you will find an incredible variety of subtle but delightful, sometimes barely-audible details for the attentive aural world traveler.