Hey y'all. Ever since a little boy I've had the privilege and yearning to explore our tiny yet vast planet. I've always travelled a lot and it wasn't until I reached my 20's that I decided to count down all the countries I've had the pleasure to visit. The number summed up to 40. It was then I decided to reach the golden milestone of 50; and gave myself the deadline of doing it before my 25th birthday. The numbers are divisible, and 2 countries a year sounds more pleasing than a point decimal number. Of course the reality is that my later years I've travelled a lot more than my earlier years, where most trips seems to consist of going to Disney. Any other place resulted in whining from me and my siblings. When I was in 8th grade I had the pleasure of visiting Russia with my dad, an amateur historian and world traveller. The trip was an incredible opportunity to visit magnificent sites with a private guided tour for 2 weeks. Embarrassing to admit, but we cried the whole time begging our parents to take us to Disney.
Those days of being an ignorant brat are far behind me. I would kill to visit Russia again in the same setting, but my father has a very "been there, done that" attitude so I would have to plan the trip solo. But Russia is not on my next set of countries to visit as I need to go to 7, maybe 8, new countries to reach my goal of 50 by my birthday on October 28th. The reason it could be 8, is because I do not know if the Vatican counts as a country. Like, please, its not really a country and if it is its my least favorite. I hate touristy traps, and the Vatican is 100% all tourists, crowded, and scary for a gay boy who feared priests who would condemn him to hell every time he admitted to watching gay porn during confessionals. So the real goal is 8. I also have technicality issues when considering Scotland, Puerto Rico, Hong Kong and Taiwan their own countries as there are people and governments who don't recognize them as being their own thing. But for the sake of reaching my goal I will count them as individual countries. Having been to all recently, I can definitely testify that culturally and socially they are very distinguishable as a country. Below I will list all the countries I have been to.
Europe
Austria
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Croatia
Denmark
England
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Monaco
Norway
Portugal
Russia
Scotland
Spain
The Netherlands
The Vatican
Asia
China
Hong Kong
Japan
Jordan
Lebanon
Macau
Singapore
Taiwan
Thailand
United Arab Emirates
Vietnam
North America
Canada
Costa Rica
Dominican Republic
Mexico
Puerto Rico
Saint Barthélemy
The Bahamas
United States of America
South America
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Africa
Morocco
Here is what my current "Been" World map looks like.
Can't wait to make that whole map Orange. Follow this blog to keep updated on my future travels.