Originally Posted by hauteboy

All my travel is self-funded. I don't have my own website. All my travel has been on vacation time, I've been at the same job since 1993. Cost wise, well that's up to your travel style. I definitely could have bought a house or three for what I've spent over the years. I tend to be middle-range (flashpacker) style with occasional splurges (cruises). Most of my flights are in econ. I'll stay at Hilton, Sheraton, etc, but usually on points. Otherwise, I tend to go for cheaper hotels/pensions. Getting a bit old for top-bunk in hostels and there aren't any in the countries I've traveled to lately anyway.

Took me ~18 years to go from 10 countries (age 26) to 197 (before 45th birthday).

It helps to pick logical regions of countries and use open-jaw tickets to different cities. Central Asia, Caucasus, Guianas, West Africa, etc.

Originally Posted by Tychian

My style is quite similar to Haute's; ditto timing. Took me close to 20 years, but that's partly because I didn't initially plan to go to every nation, it sort of evolved as I traveled (I've always liked seeing new places).

Once I realized I did want to visit every nation, I set a goal of 10 new nations a year; I wouldn't always hit it, but one year would be, say, 8-9, another 11 or 12. It worked well.

Clustering regionally (as Haute suggests) is super useful in terms of time-efficiency. I also very strongly prefer to travel overland between nations when I can - you see so much more that way, but it sometimes comes at a cost in terms of time-on-the-road and comfort (in rural Africa, for example). But the payoff is seeing more, and interacting much more deeply with local folks. Some of my most interesting experiences have been taking local transport overland in Africa or Asia.

West Africa clusters pretty well, by the way: you would have some options from Senegal, and the idea of doing an open jaw from ACC is very sound. Given time constraints and other factors (such as the difficulty of traversing western Cote d'Ivoire) you'd have to fly some in between, but ASKY and Royal Air Maroc have some flights that could let you do that fairly affordably. You might consider something like Senegal/Gambia then Ghana/Togo/Benin - those are all fairly easy places (as Africa goes) and at least as of this moment, fairly stable. I think. And they offer a lot to see - Senegal and Togo (voodoo country, notably) are especially fascinating places.
Alone is not so bad - I've traveled solo for much of my own journey, but that's partly due to the fast pace I set and partly due to the costs involved - I may have a free ticket, but my friends usually do not. I'm also very comfortable solo, many are not. You also tend to meet more people solo, and engage differently.

Overall I had two major issues in terms of reaching my goal:
1) Initially, money was a big problem. I don't get any revenue from my travel, so it's all expenditure. I do travel some for work, and so over time I amassed miles and hotel points, which helped a lot. I also traveled cheaply, usually eating 1 meal a day after a free breakfast wherever I was staying.
Over time, as I got older and made more money (and had more points), this became easier. I could never have afforded the insane Pacific island ticket prices in my 20s/early 30s, but later on, it was manageable. Ditto Africa, which tends to be expensive to reach and the cities, expensive to stay in. So I went to places where I could reach and stay more affordably - much of Europe, Latin America, parts of Asia.

2) Time. I'm an American, and while I get a lot of vacation for an American (4 weeks plus a few holidays; I'd always travel to maximize those holidays), that's not much when you consider it could take 2 days to reach somewhere flying, and then take time traveling to/from the 'cluster' of nations I plan for that trip. So, I've often had to rush trips, and spend less time than I wanted, though I tried to compensate by immersing as much as I could when somewhere and not spending much time in the hotel, sleeping, etc. But I consoled myself by saying that I would go back to the places I loved, and that some experience in a place, was better than none. Now that I've met my goal, I've been doing those promised returns, and loving it.

Finally, someone else mentioned the sacrifices this kind of travel demands. There are plenty: the last 5-6 years of my goal, I mostly only went where I had not been so I could drive harder to my goal (I accelerated after Syria descended into Hell - I was worried that other places would follow, as indeed they have), and many of those places were difficult places - rewarding in many ways, but not necc. comfortable. The grand champion of the discomfort sweepstakes was probably the time spent dodging Ebola - I had just arrived in Liberia when Guinea announced their outbreak and I traveled overland on public transport from there onward into and then through Sierra Leone - but I also got very sick of roasting in humid jungles.
And then there is always the 'you must work for the CIA, why else would you go to Afghanistan' from my friends, or my mom freaking every time I'd go somewhere, or the heat I'd take for not doing any vacation trips with my SO (since I'd used my vaca time on these trips).

This passion to see the world that so many of us share is wonderful - we have seen and done so much, learned so much - but it comes at a cost that is not just financial.

Originally Posted by PVDtoDEL

I'm in the process of planning a weeklong trip to URC/KHG/ASB/MYP in March/April. If anyone's interested in being my travel buddy, please shoot me a PM. When my Turkmen visa was denied this year, the agent advised that multiple people traveling together typically have better luck..