If you know me, you know that one of my foremost hobbies is travel. Many kinds, really. It’s up there with music and having an all-out good time. And if the three happen at the same time, it’s the epitome of grandness for me.
A couple of years back I was dancing the night away in London and I happened to bump into someone whom I didn’t know at the time but we shared the same love for a website that we both were members of. That website is Virtual Tourist, a no-jokes online review site for the serious tourist. We both has an unabashed passion for travel and escapism. At the time, he had just passed his 50-country mark and was very proud of it (currently, he is working on getting to a 100.) We were both the same age and I was very intrigued to reach that number. I used to travel as much as I do, but with not as much fervor to visit new and unexplored places.
So, here I am back in Kuwait after heading back on a 22 hour trip from Brazil. 61 countries in . Still, the world has a little less than 200 countries and that puts me right above the quarter mark. But, it is undeniably a feat when considering that all of this happened in the span of the past 4 years. Now, I have crossed this milestone that I have been waiting to accomplish for a while and feel that this whole travel craziness is not only a hobby of sorts but also my third degree. The experiences I have collected and the things I saw are an education in and by themselves.
My blog posts are usually not that personal, but, this, I had to blog about. Here’s my country list:
- Kuwait
- Saudi Arabia
- Bahrain
- Qatar
- UAE
- Oman
- Jordan
- Syria
- Lebanon
- Turkey
- Cyprus
- Croatia
- Montenegro
- Greece
- Malta
- Italy
- Vatican City
- Spain
- Portugal
- France
- Germany
- Belgium
- Luxembourg
- The Netherlands
- Norway
- Denmark
- Sweden
- Finland
- Poland
- Czech Republic
- Slovakia
- Hungary
- Austria
- Switzerland
- Monaco
- UK
- USA
- Canada
- Egypt
- Tanzania
- South Africa
- Madagascar
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
- Maldives
- India
- Sri Lanka
- Myanmar
- Nepal
- Laos
- Thailand
- Cambodia
- Vietnam
- Malaysia
- Singapore
- Indonesia
- Hong Kong/Macau
- Philippines
- South Korea
- Argentina
- Brazil
I also happened to have transitted in airports in Ethiopia, Japan and Chile but I don’t count transits. At any rate, this doesn’t apply to my US state count (at 32 states). The next destinations that I am eying are Palau, Bangladesh, Iceland (still, haven’t gotten there), Chile, New Zealand, Peru, San Marino and anywhere new in my favorite continent – Africa.
