Tychian

Happy birthday!

I'm envious of his trip - definitely more interesting than our Tunisian grilling/border wall/worrisome-comments-about-Daesh-from-Libyans-with-poor-English experience!

ironmanjt

It's all about timing!

Tychian

it sure is! I actually had a ticket there - from Rome - in 2013.
Ah, the good old days when routing to Libya was convenient - Turkish even flow to Sabha for a time, down in Fezzan.
Anyway, like a fool, I changed it in favor of Chad because I thought Libya was stabilizing - and that Chad wasn't. How wrong I was.

Nice TRs. I ought to try to do one sometime...but yours, haute's, Daniel's, of high, journalistesque quality, put me to shame.

DanielW

I 'missed out' on Libya by a mere month before it hit the fan.

I 'missed out' on Syria too before the war, but glad I visited when I did though.

maastrichtmouse

Happy birthday, and congratulations on reaching your target!

henriktravel

Thank you for sharing, Daniel! For tips on travelling to every country in the world, Chasing 193 Vol. II is available free of charge on Kindle until midnight https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-193-V...ing+193#navbar

hauteboy

Thanks Henrik! And congrats on finishing every country as well! Definitely a small club.

Do you have the Libya contact info? (you can send private msg)

DanielW

I had the pleasure to attend ironmanjt's Iceland do, and see abit of ice on the way too.

Just came back from a trip to South Africa and did a road trip to Swaziland and Lesotho too, and are now officially half-way (98 out of 196 countries visited).

miamiflyer8

Only visited 22 countries, got another 176 to go!

ironmanjt

Daniel spoiled the surprised, but 196 and done here! So happy and thankful to all of you that have shared in the journey along the way.

ChiefNWA

I'm new to this thread but have been lurking for a little while.



Some background... both parents work for Delta, so for the past three years I've been doing some intermittent travel. I'm currently 23 years old and just about out of college with my BA. Anyways, here is my history:

Around 2006 – First new country, Canada; drove with family through Ontario, exact year is unknown but I’ve revisited Canada several times since then.
2008 – China and Japan.
2012 – Peru
Today - I'm sitting at 36 visited, 39-41 by EOY

As you can see, things really picked up right about mid-2012 when I entered college. The only thing I regret is that I focused almost evenly on visiting a bunch of new cities and states in the US in addition to the international travel. However, I was only working off of 2 weeks of paid vacation until half way through '14 so I suppose the feat isn't too unimpressive. I also spent a lot of time revisiting places that were easy to get to such as Japan, Singapore, The Netherlands and the UK.

Time wise: I have about four weeks of paid vacation to deal with at the present time. I know it’s not the most and probably pales in comparison to some of you up thread based in Europe, but it is what it is. I’ve been a hobbyist photographer for quite a few years now and have been eyeing getting into that as a side job to help raise funds for my travels. Maybe if that takes off I can focus on that and allocate more time to travel, but we’re talking 10-15 years so who knows what will change in terms of available vacation time.

What’s next? By the end of year I’ll hopefully have crossed off two more European countries from the list. I also have a cruise coming up that I’ll, technically, be able to cross Haiti, Jamaica and Mexico off, although I plan to revisit at some point for a proper and longer stay.

2017? This is what is up for questioning right now. I’ve neglected planning anything for next year so far simply because I was still debating whether to follow through with this. I know many FTers hate nonrevs but right now I’m trying to use it to my advantage as much as I can. As you can see, Africa is a huge blank spot on the map, so I feel tempted to try to knock out some countries there while the TATL flights are still free. I’m thinking of flying into DKR on DL, doing a mix of overland/air travel and eventually flying back via ACC on DL, so ~2 weeks in and out. Just not sure what I can cover in that time and alone at that… Speaking of that, other than Lonely Planet, do you guys use any other sites to find travel buddies or have most of your travels to developing countries been solo? I know West Africa is tough so I’m still debating if I should do it solo or wait until someone can tag along, maybe I can make a friend in France at some point and bring them along to help with the language lol.

I have some work friends based in Mumbai that constantly invite me over so I may take them up on that offer next year. That trip is in its infancy, but I figure at a minimum I can get Sri Lanka (or save it for the future since I know CMB is known for cheap flights so I’m sure I’ll pass through at some point), Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. Maybe I’m crazy, but throw Pakistan in there!
I’m also fully planning on completing Cuba in January. I just haven’t booked yet as Southwest hasn’t released their schedule for HAV from TPA but I’m anticipating getting that done early next year.

I'm not sure visiting every country, for me at least, is going to be possible but 125-150 isn't out of the question. Maybe that'll change in the future but for now I can't justify allocating a ton of money to places that I would really only go to to say "I've been there." I certainly respect those that do, I just don't think that's for me.

So the question is… how much is this going to cost and how long is it going take (rhetorical simply because it’s almost impossible to calculate.) My estimate time wise is somewhere between 10-15 years… man, that’s a long time. Maybe I can shoot to have my house paid off and have visited all these countries by age 40? Anyways, any tips? Do you all depend on first hand contacts for the lesser known countries, Lonely Planet, etc? What about hotels/hostels? I assume most of you run a website to track your travels, which likely bring in some sort of revenue as well I’m guessing. Do you ever book tours; I know I haven’t since 2012 for Peru. Any recommended agencies for the visas? Just looking for some tips to get the ball rolling. Thanks all!

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.

daKav

I am at 37. But I mostly started hauling in the last 2 years after college and grad school.

I am doing Peru (with a 4 day inca trial hike) and Bolivia over Thanksgiving. Yeah, no turkey for me this year, lol.

I need to be in India next spring. While I am there I am contemplating doing either Bhutan, Afghanistan, Myanmar or something in central Asia. I still need to decide on that.

Next summer I have almost 3 weeks trip to JNB. I am planning to cover SA, lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique (or somehow swing in Vic Falls and check off Zambia and/or Zimbabwe).

To the most part I am solo backpacking (unless I am traveling for work, which in most cases in US domestic) and stay in backpacking hostels. I am 25 and I like the vibe in hostels.

I am also planning a 4-5 day trip to Alaska around Christmas and have a tough time convincing myself to do that over an international trip (stupid, I know).

FWIW, it helps that I work in tech and can be remote from time to time (airport shuttle, airport, flights with wifi).

mpkz

I'm probably a lot closer to you lifestyle-wise than most people in this thread, being 27 (for a whole week now!) though my financial situation is probably a bit different from yours (I get paid a fixed amount every year and take as much vacation as I want, provided that I just do my work when I'm in the office). I also had a head start with the exploring (lived in 5 countries, visited 6 continents before turning 18), but that's not relevant. I'm somewhere just under 90 countries visited now, adding maybe about 10 per year, though I probably spend the bulk of my travel time revisiting countries these days. For me, visiting every country by 40 is sort of realistic, but I'm guessing it will depend on just how much I want to visit some obscure Pacific island instead of revisiting some much more interesting country. Funnily enough, my mortgage on my apartment should be paid off just as I turn 40 as well

If you choose to make a travel blog, you should do it because you like it, not because you expect to make any money. Compared to working a few extra hours, even doing something super low yield like Amazon MTurks, the return expectation is low. Photography could work I guess, though I don't know anything about the business.

Moneywise, I've always found travel to be pretty cheap. I live in Finland and eat out almost every meal, meaning that during most of my trips, I'm actually spending less money than I would back home. A lot of it has to do with my preferences when I travel (more on those below), but yeah, travel doesn't have to be expensive at all. 90% of the world is much poorer than the US, with much lower prices.

In terms of accommodation: Staying with locals is always the best option if you want to get to know a place. Get set up on CouchSurfing. Sometimes it's too high effort though (it takes time to look for hosts), which is when I rely on hostels/cheap hotels.

Traveling alone is great because ironically, when you're alone, you're never really alone as you meet people along the way. Meeting people is so much easier. And I'm not just talking about meeting fellow travelers at the hostel which is what I did before, but meeting locals through CS/Tinder/meetup.com/on the street. I also try to avoid tours (for some countries, they are unavoidable) for a related reason: you do not get genuine interactions with locals if you're on a tour.

Guides: It's region dependent. Lonely Planet is a constant, but there are different alternative sources for different regions. Caravanistan is a great example for Central Asia. Bradt has much better East Africa coverage than Lonely Planet. And so on.

Anyway, if I had to say something general from the point of view of someone who was in a similar situation to you not too long ago:
Forget the mortgage and paying off a house. I know it sounds hypocritical when I'm paying for mine, but really I'm in a great situation where I can do that. If you want to travel the world, you need to be willing to make sacrifices. Yeah you can tick every country off and still have a family and a house but if you want to "travel" travel and spend some time in countries (as it appears from your post that you do), you need to either make a lot of money fast or adjust your expectations about your lifestyle. I'm under no illusion that I could maintain my current 3 months per year of traveling if I had a family or a real job (I'm a grad student, so no one really cares when I do my work). And try to focus on meeting people and talking to them because for me at least those are the things that I've enjoyed most during my travels.

With regards to your planned Africa trip: Definitely go, but my recommendation (not having been to West Africa yet) would be to not be too ambitious about your schedule, just go there, chill out a bit, visit 2/3 countries overland allocating time based on what you enjoy.

What hauteboy said about open-jaw tickets and logical combinations of countries is good advice as well:Overland travel where you just know the start and end point is a great way to go because you can divide your time up so that you stay in the places you like longer and so on. No fixed routes, schedules or any of that stuff.

edit: I should add, another "sacrifice" is losing some normal travel. I often find myself choosing between for example a music festival, visiting a friend abroad, visiting my parents or visiting a new place. I try to keep these things balanced, but then again, I have a ....load of time that many people don't.

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.