Where I’ve Traveled

Many have asked, so…

Though I actually think “counting countries” is a bit silly, and I’d surely never dream of checking off an entire country unless I’d spent at least a good bit of time exploring it. Nonetheless for those curious, I totaled them up (as of January 2025) and they spread out across the globe like this:

​Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belize, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brunei​​​, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Ecuador​, Egypt, England, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia (Bali & Sumatra), Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Laos, Lesotho, Malaysia (Borneo), Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, Peru, Panama, Portugal (The Azore Islands), Rwanda, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Swaziland (now Eswatini), Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, United States, Vietnam

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From a “country counting” persperspective – pretty sad actually. Based on the total number of countries recognized by the U.N. (193) – clearly I’m still missing more than *70%* of this Big Blue Dot!

Furthermore, even if that map above was nearly 100% dark blue b/c I’d somehow managed to drop into 100+ countries by (for example) hopping off a cruise ship or twelve, to spend a handful of hours “exploring” little more than the harbor of yet another “new country” amid a carefully choreographed backdrop (designed by the local Tourism Board) especially concocted for tourists. Else (worse) merely stepping across some nebulous land border and thereafter claiming “I’ve been to Xxxx”…

In my mind, I’d honestly fail to see the point.

Nosiree. Good for you if that’s what traveling means to you (i.e. another check-box filled on your “30 by 30 yrs. old” or “70 by 70 yrs. old” personal quest). But for me it’s never been about “numbers”. Rather – for me it’s always about EXPERIENCING the authentic culture of a place, its people, its customs, its food, its peculiar wildlife, etc. Leastwise as much as possible as a foreigner. And for that… it’s all about hanging around for at least a few days – trying my darndest to avoid the worst of the “tourist traps”, and being ever open to miming my way with a local to halfway share a small sense of how their culture and their daily life differs from mine.

Indeed – even after decades – for every bit of dark blue above, I can still vividly recall… Yes, the glory of Uluru towering in the sunset amid the (otherwise g-forsaken) desert in the Australian Outback; the blistering day I finally set my own baby-blues (and TOUCHED!) those legendary Pyramids at Giza; the nostalgia of seeing all those colorful classic ’50’s cars of my youth zooming  along the streets of Havana in Cuba; that incredible “hillock” (Machu Picchu) in Peru, etc.

But honestly – far, faaar more memorable were the times I experienced precious and personal interactions with the local people of a place: the trio of dear Japanese lasses (of likewise “a certain age”) that guided me to the Osaka Mint where we gleefully (sans a single word of common language) snapped selfies and gazed at the splendor of a full mile of glorious “sakura” blossoms along the river.

Precious memories of being invited into the private seclusion of a  pre-wedding party in Morocco. All females of course, and the bride-to-be welcomed me warmly – again, without a single word of English/Arabic needed for us to experience a reciprocal moment of shared festive humanity.

Sharing a pot of mint tea (no, not in a rug-seller’s showroom) but rather – in a family’s humble hovel far from the tourist trail in Turkey. Having new loops of bitty beads strung through my earlobes in a stifling hot hut by a gaggle of lasses of the Hamer tribe in the Omo Valley of southern Ethiopia; milking a yak with the mistress of a yurt early one morning in the wilds of western Mongolia. Need I go on?

Point is… we all travel for different reasons, and most certainly in many different styles. For me –  it will never be about checking-off countries. I stopped keeping track at my 50th (and most favorite to date: Japan). And (save for updating the map above for those who wonder) I honestly don’t know, much less care how many I’ve added since. All I really know is…