Visualizing my moving history in US

Fig 1. US Zip Code Region Map

US zip code is a very interesting information- it grows from 0 to 9 from east to west, north to south. I start to pay attention to it since I’ve moved a lot and every time I moved, I have to change zip code records in my bank accounts. It became so difficult for me to remember my zip codes and I started to realize the geographic rules of those numbers. (Fig 1.)

The past 4 years in US I’ve lived in 4 states in 8 places with 7 total different zip codes. Before my another big move, I decided to visualize my zip codes in a line chart (Fig 2.), which doesn’t really make sense since the zip codes aren’t really numerically meaningful, but it’s interesting to see the east to west, north to south pattern.

*The higher the line, the western / southern the place is. I also shaded the region with the darkness representing the length of my stay on the map.

Fig 2. My moving visualization with year on x-axis, first number of zip code on y-axis