The Travel Journey To 100 Countries Picks Up Again Post-Pandemic

For a family that loves to travel, the COVID-19 pandemic was challenging. A few years of a staycation has now been replaced with adventure once again!

We were able to get away to Cancun and the Bahamas in 2022.  A personal milestone was made in Mexico when we visited Chichen Itza - completing my tour of the 7 wonders of the world. The other 6 were the Taj Mahal (2013), the Colosseum (2009), Machu Picchu (2017), Christ the Redeemer (2010), Petra (2019), and the Great Wall of China (2009).

"At the brim of the well where the Wise Men of the Water Live. This is what Chichen Itza means in Maya. Chichen Itza was one of the most important city-states in pre-Hispanic America and is one of the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico today. The Chichen Itza Pyramid or El Castillo is the most astonishing Mayan Ruin or building inside the Archaeological Site."

Antarctica Voyage

We finished the year in epic fashion with an adventure to Antarctica - our 7th continent!

The backstory is that we were going to go in 2013 when Michelle was pregnant with Brooklyn. There is only a 3-4 week window of the year (Christmas time) that you can sail to the South Pole and, at the time, the only way we could do it was on a Russian frigate. Definitely not consumer friendly. As fate would have it, we decided against the trip and that specific ship got stuck in the ice. Brooklyn could have been born in Antarctica under a Russian flag!

Fast forward a number of years and we booked the trip to depart in 2020. A couple of Covid-cancellations later we reconfirmed a December 2022 date and prepared for departure.

We booked three days to explore Santiago, Chile on the front end of the 16-night cruise and then three days in Buenos Aires, Argentina on the tail end.

The weather created some challenges on the voyage with a couple of missed ports and some itinerary changes, but Captain McBain (yes, no joke, from Calgary, Canada as well just like me!) navigated us safely through treacherous waters. He reminded us that weeks prior someone was killed on a large cruise ship through the Drake Passage by a rogue wave. 

Every day in Antarctica was a new adventure. Everywhere you looked was like a postcard. I have seen many glaciers growing up in Canada, but nothing like this!

This was more than a bucket list check - it was life changing. The Russian frigate trip was $10k per person. This new option of luxury cruises (we took Princess) was closer to $2k per person and we could sit in the hot tub and eat steak and lobster every night.

We were all smiles as we went from 85 degree summer weather in Chile and swimming in the pool to having a snowball fight on the same deck a few days later!

Strongly recommended for everyone looking for an epic adventure! 

Now, we are in the 90+ country range and looking forward to trips through Central America and Alaska later in 2023.

The journey continues...

With these challenges:

My Travel Story - How to be a world traveler while raising a family and working full-time

One of my most popular blogs ever was from 2010, titled "100 Country Rollerblades and Red Bull Tour". It is the story of visiting every corner of the planet, fast & cheap, and the building a retirement plan around re-visiting favorite places for longer periods.

I talked about the Bucket List movie from 2007 with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman and the concept of waiting to retirement to really start living. Life tends to get in the way of living sometimes and families and careers take over most of our focus.

“We live, we die, and the wheels on the bus go round and round.”

Since the movie, and the corresponding epiphany, I have been able to visit 93 countries on every continent - many of those with Michelle and the kids in tow! 

Here is a current map...

The goal of hitting 100 countries is what drives this crazy adventure.

There are no lack of challenges:

1. TIME - being a married father of 4 beautiful girls aged 26, 23, 9, and 7, as well as a busy industry analyst for Forrester, doesn't leave much time to be a world traveller.

2. MONEY - You could spend a fortune on flights, hotels, visas, food and tourism - especially living in North America where every trip is a major transcontinental journey. Grouping countries into themed trips has been the answer.

3. ENERGY - Travel can be very stressful and draining, dealing with airports, ground transportation, logistics, foreign languages, currencies and tight itineraries.

4. THINGS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL - A quick read of the morning newspaper will show that the world is always in a state of change. For example, one of our honeymoon stops was Egypt to see the pyramids, the Nile & Luxor where King Tut's tomb is. The day we got married the protests turned deadly, and on our day of arrival, 54 people were killed in the main town square.

It turns out that attaining 100 countries is more difficult than first planned. The number itself wasn't anything more than a round number that was challenging and remarkable at the time.

After some research, I found a Travelers' Century Club, or TCC, that was founded in 1954 in California and has about 2,000 members. To be a member, you must have travelled to 100 or more of countries and territories in their Directory. The Club recognizes a much wider array of countries and Territories (324) than does the United Nations (193).

In terms of "sovereign" states, there are 206 listed in Wikipedia. Somewhere between this number and the United Nations number is where I fall - adding important places such as Taiwan, Kosovo and Vatican City.

It also makes for a nice round number - travel to 50% of the planet!

That's where it gets a bit more complicated. I downloaded all 200 countries and sorted them by land mass and population. In terms of targeting where to go next, I tend to look at size and global importance of the destination:

85	44%	74.49%	66.65%
# of Countries	of world visited	Population	Land Mass
	World (land only, excl. Antarctica)	6,936,289,500	134,940,000
P	China	1,345,610,000	9,640,821
P	India	1,210,193,422	3,287,240
P	United States	311,950,000	9,826,675
P	Indonesia	237,556,363	1,904,569
P	Brazil	195,112,055	8,514,877
P	Russia	141,927,297	17,098,242
P	Japan	127,387,000	377,873
P	Mexico	107,550,697	1,958,201
P	Philippines	92,226,600	300,076
P	Vietnam	85,789,573	331,689
P	Germany	81,757,600	357,022
P	Egypt	80,143,443	1,001,449
P	Turkey	77,804,122	783,562
P	Thailand	64,232,760	513,115
P	France (Metropolitan)	62,793,432	551,500
P	United Kingdom	62,041,708	243,610
P	Italy	60,200,060	301,318
P	South Africa	50,586,757	1,221,037
P	South Korea	48,456,369	99,538
P	Ukraine	46,936,000	603,700
P	Spain	46,087,170	506,030
P	Colombia	46,083,384	1,138,914
P	Argentina	40,091,359	2,780,400
P	Poland	38,163,895	312,685
P	Canada	33,740,000	9,984,670
P	Morocco	32,223,787	446,550
P	Peru	29,461,933	1,285,216
P	Nepal	29,331,000	147,181
P	Malaysia	28,306,700	329,847
P	Taiwan	23,069,345	35,980
P	Mozambique	22,894,000	801,590
P	Australia	22,828,648	7,682,300
P	Sri Lanka	20,238,000	65,610
P	Netherlands	16,690,000	41,526
P	Cambodia	14,805,000	181,035
P	Zimbabwe	13,009,530	390,757
P	Greece	11,306,183	131,957
P	Cuba	11,306,183	109,886
P	Belgium	10,827,519	30,528
P	Portugal	10,636,888	92,391
P	Czech Republic	10,532,770	78,866
P	Haiti	10,033,000	27,750
P	Hungary	10,013,628	93,032
P	Belarus	9,755,106	207,600
P	Sweden	9,366,092	449,964
P	Austria	8,372,930	83,858
P	Switzerland	7,761,800	41,284
P	Israel	7,697,600	20,770
P	Hong Kong (China)	7,003,700	1,104
P	Jordan	6,316,000	89,342
P	Denmark	5,532,531	43,094
P	Slovakia	5,424,057	49,033
P	Finland	5,389,683	338,145
P	Singapore	5,076,700	710.2
P	Norway	4,936,900	385,155
P	Ireland	4,581,269	70,273
P	Costa Rica	4,579,000	51,100
P	Croatia	4,443,000	56,538
P	New Zealand	4,315,800	270,534
P	Palestinian territories	4,100,000	6,020
P	Puerto Rico (US)	3,982,000	8,875
P	Bosnia and Herzegovina	3,843,126	51,129
P	Uruguay	3,463,197	175,016
P	Panama	3,454,000	75,517
P	Albania	3,195,000	28,748
P	Lithuania	3,053,800	65,300
P	Jamaica	2,719,000	10,991
P	Latvia	2,248,961	64,600
P	Namibia	2,171,000	824,292
P	Slovenia	2,079,344	20,256
P	Lesotho	2,067,000	30,355
P	Botswana	1,950,000	581,730
P	Estonia	1,340,021	45,100
P	Swaziland	1,185,000	17,364
P	Fiji	849,000	18,274
P	Montenegro	630,548	14,026
P	Macau (China)	541,200	29.2
P	Luxembourg	502,207	2,586
P	The Bahamas	342,000	13,878
P	Iceland	318,452	103,000
P	Vanuatu	240,000	12,189
P	Aruba (Netherlands)	107,000	193
P	Cayman Islands (UK)	56,000	264
P	Monaco	33,000	1.95
P	Vatican City	826	0.44

As you can see, targeting places like China, India and Indonesia help achieve the population numbers, while places like Russia, Australia and Argentina drive the land mass values.

So, while 93/200 countries traveled to almost 1/2 of the world, in terms of population I am at 78% and land mass 69%!

The most difficult part of getting to 100 countries is the perpetual state of war (civil or otherwise) and the geographic spread of small islands around the globe. At any one time, there is only about 100 safe, accessible and economically viable countries to travel to.

Today, the entire mideast is out of the question as well as the majority of Africa. The Northern shore of South America and most of Central America is also risky at the best of times.

So here it is, how I have traveled the world and going to hit 100 countries economically and with only a few weeks of vacation time per year:

(Assuming you live in North America which is harder than Europe)

1. North America (1972-80) - living in Canada and the United States, and travelling several times to Mexico allowed me to complete the continent (and a ton of land mass) early in life.

2. UK & France (1996)

3. Portugal & Spain driving tour (2002)

4. Bahamas, Cuba via vacations (2003-04)

Sub-total: 9 countries over my first 35 years.  

Queue the Bucket List...

Now, strap in...

5. Greece (2008) - including Athens, Mykonos and Santorini.

6. Driving tour across Europe starting in Germany, then circling through Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Poland & Czech Republic (2008)

7. China (2009) - including Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong & Macau.

8. Italy (2009) - trip with my mom.

9. South America tour - Argentina, Uruguay & Brazil - both Rio and Sao Paulo (2010)

10. Caribbean cruise - Haiti, Jamaica, Cayman Islands, Cozumel (2010)

11. South Africa driving tour - Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique & Swaziland (2010)

12. Scandinavian tour with Michelle - Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway & Finland (2011)

13. SE Asia tour with Michelle - Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Philippines & Singapore (2011)

14. ex-USSR tour with Michelle - Russia (both Moscow & St. Petersburg), Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania (2012)

15. Down-under driving tour with Michelle - Australia & New Zealand (2012)

16. Honeymoon of a lifetime with Michelle! - Morocco, Egypt (Cairo & Luxor), Sri Lanka, India & Nepal (2013)

17. Asia tour with Michelle and Brooklyn on Mount Fuji for her first birthday - including Japan, Taiwan, South Korea (2015)

18. A very long drive through the entire countries of Ireland, England, Scotland with Michelle, Brooklyn, and Cali, tracing my family roots back to Nottinghamshire, England and Inverness, Scotland. (2016)

19. A beautiful tour down under to Australia and to the South Pacific to Thailand, Indonesia, Vanuatu, and Fiji with Michelle, Brooklyn, and Cali. (2017)

20. A panoramic cruise to the Panama Canal with stops in Aruba, Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica with Michelle, Brooklyn, and Cali. (2017)

21. As part of Michelle's MBA from Manhattan College we visited multiple parts of Peru including Machu Picchu and the Amazon rainforest with Brooklyn, and Cali. (2018)

22. An epic 15 country journey on the way to Australia for a speech, including new country visits to Monaco, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Palestine. (2019)

23. Covid stalled our travel for a couple of years but we picked up again by hitting my 7th wonder of the world - Chichen Itza in Mexico (2022). The other 6 were the Taj Mahal (2013), the Colosseum (2009), Machu Picchu (2017), Christ the Redeemer (2010), Petra (2019), and the Great Wall of China (2009).

24. We also hit the Bahamas (Atlantis) in 2022 and then finished the year in epic fashion with an adventure to Antarctica - our 7th continent! We saw Chile and landed in Argentina after the cruise to a newly minted World Cup in soccer. Messi was the world champion and months later would soon land in Miami to play!

25. We hit the ground running in 2023 with a spring break cruise through the Caribbean - hitting new countries of Honduras and Belize. During summer break we also took an epic cruise to the North Pole (kinda) - Alaska!

Now the question is, how to go get those last 7 countries - safely and economically?

Trip plans & ideas:

- Eastern Caribbean cruise - Dominican Republic, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St Lucia, Barbados, St Vincent, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago & Aruba.

- Eastern Africa safari tour - Uganda, Kenya & Tanzania

- Second SE Asia tour - Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar & Laos

Even though the Middle East and Africa have been in a constant state of turmoil for centuries, I do hope in my lifetime to see these countries.

The five most important tools I have found in planning these trips are:

1. Kayak.com
2. Hotels.com
3. Google Maps
4. Tripit
5. Microsoft Excel

I also enjoy getting DK Eyewitness Travel Guides, especially the Top 10 ones. With a good mix of pictures, backstory, organization and itinerary help, they have turned out to be invaluable.

The plan to sail later on will afford the opportunity to see new countries by water and check out new parts of these countries from port.

So, yes, it is possible to see the world while working full-time and raising a family. It is also possible to do without hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash laying around.