For One Man, It Really Is the End of the World

I've thought about doing this in the past, but decided against it. To pull it off, you have to focus on it so hard that it just becomes work, and you miss out on a lot of the reasons you travel in the first place.<p>Most obsessions are like this, I guess. Find anybody doing a "collect all the X", and you'll likely find a person who long ago stopped really enjoying X. It reminds me of the guys a few years back who were determined to completely max out some airline's "all you can fly in 30 days" ticket. Lots of suffering for suffering's sake [1].<p>Naturally, I can't claim that I've somehow had a better time travelling through my meager 65 countries than the subject of this article did with his 193. But I bet if his goal wasn't "every single one", but rather "as many as it takes", it would have been a lot more fun.<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=782792" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=782792</a>

The real problem with HN is that everyone here is very insecure. Whenever anyone does anything remotely cool or unusual, there's always a boatload of comments crapping on their achievement.<p>193 countries? That's not impressive; he probably didn't enjoy them. He didn't <i>really</i> see each country I he didn't <i>live</i> there (whatever that means).<p>Maybe you're all just jealous?<p>You know what's easy to do? Be the first to post some cynical, contrarian bullshit in the comments.

This would have been interesting if he have LIVED in all 193 countries. Travelling through the countries, like he did, does not seem to add much value to one's life other than some self-centric ego boost. I am not trying to dilute the effort and the resourced he put into this achievement, it is a significant effort, and expensive as well. However, I read the post and thought, meh.<p>I have lived in about 6 countries in my 40yrs and still felt that I have missed something worthwhile in those countries. The culture, landscape, food etc in the various countries are what I travel for. Not for a stamp in my passport.

I've been in about 60 countries. After a while the novelty/new perspective feeling diminishes. I don't really think it's worth the effort to see all countries. What's a country anyway? Mostly borders. People and cultures are a different thing and tend to spread differently over borders.

Ive always had a small problem with what Chris is doing. Ive followed his journey from day 1 and have grown increasingly furstrated by his "travels". Sure he has "visited" every country in the world but its often for 1 day at a time. He floew all the way to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan went on a jog, spent the night and then flew home. IMO that is hardly traveling let along visting every country.<p>As his journey went on it become more about self promotion and the promoting of his products than anything else. AND, he never showed proof that he was actually visiting said countries. All his followers ever saw was a tweet like "PDX - LHR - TBL - DXB - LAX - PDX"<p>Im sure Chris is a great guy and he has obviously built himself a nice little business/brand but I dont agree that he should be praised or really even recognized for something like this.

As someone who actually has lived around the world, I find "counting countries" to be in poor taste. It's not as if you can have a meaningful experience of the people and culture(s) in such a short while. What does it really signify that you have "done" India or Nigeria or Brazil?<p>These lists always remind me of something else that an uncouth young man might brag about - but a gentleman would never.

One has to wonder what counts as a "country," and when you can say you've done them all:<p><pre><code> As for least favorite, well, I was served goat in Somaliland in a situation where it was difficult to decline. </code></pre> As far as I know, Somaliland is a bit of a 'limbo' state, it isn't universally recognised and many see it as just a region of Somalia.<p>If he visits Somaliland and counts that, did he also visit Transnistria? And if so, how low down the list do you go - do you then have to visit every self-declared nation-state all the way down to Sealand?<p>The list that fascinates me is the amateur radio DXCC list of "entities" which count separately. Many of them are dependencies of other countries, a lot are uninhabited (I might book my next holiday on Peter I Island or Scarborough Reef) but there are currently 340 of them: <a href="http://www.arrl.org/country-lists-prefixes" rel="nofollow">http://www.arrl.org/country-lists-prefixes</a><p>It's all really interesting stuff!

I have lived in 8 and pretty much always traveled in the region I lived. I love having the time to emerge yourself and soaking it all in, something I can't do when on a tight travel schedule. And as such you will not see me on any packaged holiday tour soon. But to each, his own.<p>For me the most apparent thing has been that I've lost what was left of my nationalism or "home" feeling. Mostly I feel like a tourist in my own country, enjoy what it has to offer, being fluent in the local language is funny, but I don't belong in it any more than I do where I currently live. I'm not even sure if this is a good or a bad thing per se.

More from Chris: <a href="http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/this-magic-journey/" rel="nofollow">http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/this-magic-journey/</a>

This is something I have dreamed about doing...but how does one financially do this? I'm still in college so sorry my naivety. It just seems that it would be incredibly expensive to embark on such a trip. And I completely believe it's worth the cost but still, how do you determine when you have enough to embark?<p>And beyond just visiting all the countries, I would like to incorporate service into my travels. So for every country that I go to, I would like to do community service there--anything to help the underprivileged but specifically help in making sure people are properly nourished if that is a problem. I know I can't save everyone, but I do want to do some good while having fun.

I'm not really sure what to make of this. Is this supposed to be a record breaking thing or a talk of the kind of obsession that this guy has/had? In either case, 193 countries visited in a year is no mean feat - it requires a good amount of dedication/focus to achieve that. So, the real question is, what did he get out of this worldwide trip? Changed perceptions, ideas and what does he intend to do with it? It's not entirely necessary that he has to share them, but then, he had given an interview - so I think it's a natural question.

Reminds me of my friend saying during our vacation, "you just want to stay on the train one more stop so you can add Switzerland to your list of countries!"

&#62; his journey to Norway, the last country on the list<p>I wonder how Norway feels about that.<p>Seriously though, this seems like a poor way of measuring travel. For instance, I can cross the border to Canada and almost nothing changes, not the landscape, not the people, etc... However, if I fly to New Mexico (from MA), I'm in the same country, but so much has changed.

FWIW, here's the Russian designer who travelled to 180+ countries and took tons of photos during the process: <a href="http://www.tema.ru/travel/" rel="nofollow">http://www.tema.ru/travel/</a><p>I've read he also has a bet with another Russian guy to the tune of $100k on who will visit all the countries first.

Try Graham Hughes <a href="http://www.theodysseyexpedition.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theodysseyexpedition.com/</a> he's been to every sovereign state (201 apparently) in the world without flying. Took three years and he's only recently finished.

You may find <a href="http://mosttraveledpeople.com/" rel="nofollow">http://mosttraveledpeople.com/</a> interesting. A site whose members are determined to visit as much of the world as possible.

Now, who will set the record for being occupying the most area of the world during their lifetime?<p>I suppose this would require a GPS tracker permanently recording your position at all times.

I find it sad, yet indicative of the status quo, that this topic has relatively few points, yet the one about a film 'critic' who died at an advanced age has several hundred points.<p>It seems that more people are interested in fiction than fact.<p>Also, the world appears to be a bit more accessible today than when Nick Danziger completed his overland trek through Eurasia during the mid 1980's.<p><a href="http://www.nickdanziger.com/index/books/danzigers-travels/" rel="nofollow">http://www.nickdanziger.com/index/books/danzigers-travels/</a>

Over 3500 counties/parishes in the United States of America...so little time.