rankourabu

I will be at 80 visited by this August. (70 now)
I agree it is getting increasingly more and more difficult to add more to the list.

I am only 28 so I guess lots of time for the rest

DJ Bitterbarn

Yikes, No wonder you gave it up! It's like the time we tried to bring back a coconut from Queensland, but heavier. Or snow-globes.

Now there's quite the collection, though. Not to mention conversation piece.

deepbluesky

DJ Bitterbarn– Very true on both counts.

rankourabu – Hey, we are almost exactly the same age and country count. Good luck with increasing your travels this year.

***

I finished up the India trip – posts are here:

Getting To India
India Travel Journal Part I (such a boring title; I should be ashamed)
Three Amazing Days in Calcutta
Leaving Hong Kong

I’m in L.A. now for the weekend, and will be at LAX Sunday night for a couple hours if anyone’s around. From there I head to SJO (Costa Rica) for a few days, back to L.A., a short domestic trip to Nashville, then back to Sea-Tac on a combination of AA and Southwest.

In addition to making it difficult, the whole overland segment restrictions on OW now make it more expensive for me as well. In this case, it’s a long story, but I had to buy a SW ticket from Chicago Midway because of it. Now I fly to ORD, shuffle over to Midway, hop down to BNA, and reverse the process a couple of days later. There were several other ways I would have preferred to do this side trip, but they all involved flying out of a different airport than I arrived in, and I had no segments to spare.

Anyway, such is life in the OW family these days. After a two-week break in Seattle, I’ll head back out on the RTW ticket. First stop is Easter Island, then of course Argentina and Uruguay, over to Jordan and a few days of overland travel (Lebanon and Syria, as long as the visa situation works out okay), then a flight to Tunis for a week in North Africa.

I’ll keep you posted.

deepbluesky

Hey everyone, greetings from Vienna. My apologies for the lack of updates here on this thread, and thanks to all of you who are following over on the Art of Nonconformity site.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been traveling through the Baltics, Russia, Moldova, Romania, and a bonus stop in Erbil, Kurdistan-- which is technically Northern Iraq.

I'll have a full trip report with photos from Erbil on the site Friday morning. For now, here are links to a few other things:

Getting to Moldova - the journey from AMS to Latvia, overnight bus to Tallinn, ferry to Helsinki, train to St. Petersburg, Air Moldova flight to Chisinau, train to Bucharest, OS flight to VIE where I holed up in a hostel for a couple of days.

A Brief Guide to World Domination - my 29-page manifesto with the two most important questions in the universe, etc. It doesn't have a lot to do with travel or FT issues, but it does include a couple of stories from SQ LAX-NRT and a trip in Mumbai.

Easter Island to Beirut and The Road to Damascus - travels from last month, when I used my OneWorld RTW ticket to go ORD-SCL-IPC-SCL-EZE-ORD-AMM and beyond, with a few overland trips in between.

Alright, I think I'm caught up. Check out the writing and let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. I appreciate everything I learn from this great community.

spartacus

So when are you hitting the West Bank and Gaza? Seriously.

I used to have a staff member from Beirut when I worked in SFO in the 80's. That was a tumultuous time there and it was rumored this guy was somehow tied into the underground 'militant' community (for lack of a better term). He had a knack of describing the beauty so well and there is no doubt that it was once the jewel of the entire Med region. It is a shame what happened there but it is nice to see that the supposed location of the Garden of Eden is on the rebound. I have always wanted to visit Beirut.

Syria sounds cool but I'm always leery of their reported ties to terrorism. I thought Syria was on the State Dept. restricted list, but so is Cuba and Americans still go there.

Looking forward to hearing about your future travels.

deepbluesky

West Bank and Gaza - unfortunately the situation was not so good when I was in Jerusalem, so I had to take a miss at the time. I'll have to go back.

Syria - was totally fine, very safe and one of my favorite stops. If anything, I wish I had more time there.

I just finished the trip report for Kurdistan - it should be posted in a few hours, live from FRA. In short, Erbil is also a cool place, with very little in common with the Iraq that it is technically a part of. I showed up without a plan or any accommodation, which I was initially concerned about, but it ended up being completely fine. Free entry is now available to all USA/EU passport holders; no visa is needed unless you stay more than 10 days.

Alright, heading to the Sofia airport, where I go on to FRA and then across the way to ICN.

Kiwi Flyer

Congrats on reaching the milestone of 100 real countries. I plan to reach that mark myself in a few months' time.

deepbluesky

Hey, thanks! Yes, Sri Lanka was my 100th country and it did feel somewhat monumental.

And that reminds me that I need to update this thread for those who are following along this way. I'll do so soon - for now, I'm in NYC after flying in from HKG last night, and headed back to home in SEA later today.

At least I hope so -- I read this in the Seattle Times just now:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...eflight22.html

That's my flight, going the other way. But perhaps this means they have a different aircraft now. I'll see in a few hours...

deepbluesky

Hi all,

A quick update from Vientiane, Laos for those who are following this thread.

I took a few months off from travel, but now I'm back out on the road. The total country count is now 103, and I have a number of other trips planned throughout 2009.

In other travel news, I recently conducted an experiment to see how many FF miles I could earn through credit card applications. I ended up with about 300,000.

All the details are on the site, including a video, spreadsheet, and a challenge to help other people earn at least 50k miles:

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/the-5...mile-challenge

Some of that info will be old hat to active FT users, but if any of it is useful to you, please let me know so I can include your miles with the total.

All the best from Laos! See you later.

Kiwi Flyer

Chris - I'm on 103 on the list I use and not quite 100 (will be soon) on your list. For a number of reasons I don't expect to visit many new countries this year.

Good luck with your travels and ventures. Hopefully we will meet up somewhere.

rankourabu

My goal was 100 before the age of 30, but that wont happen.
Will be at around 92/93 by that landmark birthday.

Sadly, travel will be cut down this year because of a chunky house downpayment coming up.

But it is getting harder and harder too
I figure I have about 30 "easy" ones left

I love this line on your blog
"I also like to mix things up a little – sometimes I fly First Class before checking into a $9 a night hostel in Southeast Asia"

thats so me!!! I'll never forget the look on the Emirates chauffer driver when he was dropping me off at the backpackers in Auckland last year

dcmike

What? No Armenia?!?!

If you braved Air Moldova you can surely handle Armavia!

deepbluesky

Yep, we are almost at exactly the same point! I could be wrong, but I believe you have more SWP countries and I have more African countries - otherwise, there's probably a great deal of overlap. I have no doubt we'll meet up, probably a few times.

Apparently there are several of us like that - a couple of other people have written in saying the same thing. We could have a meetup at the hostel and then head to the LH First Terminal!

I just haven't made it there yet. When I get there I'll remember that you've recommended Armavia.

dcmike

LOL - I wouldn't say it's a recommendation, but if you braved Air Moldova, you'll survive Armavia. I lived in Chisinau for two years, so I can compare the two.

Actually, since you like *Alliance round the world tickets, you could get in here without much trouble, since BD, LH and OS fly to EVN. My first RTW trip I went from KIV to EVN on OS (via VIE). No OneWorld carriers, though, but if you ever decide to go with Skyteam, EVN has AF, Czech, and Aeroflot.

hauteboy

I've been following this guy for awhile, he just finished up a three week trip through West Africa.. including going from Sierra Leone to Liberia overland. Sounded like Nigeria was the worst place of all. He's working on being the youngest to visit all TCC 'countries'.

http://www.leeabbamonte.com

I'm at 91/193 now.. should hit the halfway point this year.

I highly recommend Armenia btw.