A comforting thought

I take great comfort in the fact that if I visit one new country every year for my entire life, I will only have visited 50% of the world's countries.

How many people here have visited more countries than their age?

not even close. im 20 and ive visited 9 countries. thats less than 1 country every 2 yrs. how sad.

Good Christ Nic. you are TWENTY! you're only just getting started as a person of age, and you have NINE countries under your belt!

Cripes! Kids these days!

D

What we you doing before twenty that allowed you that amount of travel? Modelling? International Junior Super Sleuth?

D

+4

+3.25 if you count from my inception in the womb.

I've read about many more...and have the guidebooks to prove it. Intentions...

In my early twenties I could say 4 countries total, which included a day trip to Tijuana - which of course, isn't "really Mexico." More like a NAFTA Mexico. Not that I've explored much more since - La Paz and Cabo area - At least there was a one way bus ride and one way drive on that trip. A couple of other border towns too.

Then I went backpacking in Europe for a few weeks and started to catch up with my age. I'm working hard to keep ahead of this simple stat now.

I have yet to visit the Caribbean and many countries in Europe, and North Africa/Arabia are still left, so there is a lot of low hanging fruit left. (Another stat might be if you have visited more UN World Heritage sites than your age. I'm +20 in that department happily)

The inspiration for this question...didn't perhaps come from my tagline did it?

I'm 24 and sitting on 6 (or 8 if I'm allowed to count England/Wales/Scotland as different countries) which puts me on 1 country every 4 years.
That seems a pretty low score compared to some boots'n'allers, but I'm about to whack another 4-5 countries on in the coming months, so then I'll be on one every 2.18 yrs, but then I'll turn 25 and it'll be back down to 2.2 and I'll have to go travelling again to improve my score again!( how terrible!)

I'm close. Age 22, and I've visited 21 countries. That means last year I was even, since I haven't gone anywhere since my birthday.

Next year's trip should put me at +6, if everything goes according to plan. +7 if flight prices don't change, and the cheapest place to catch up on jet lag before continuing on to Cairo remains Malta.

In fairness though, that includes countries like Monaco and Vatican City, where I spent maybe a day, and many were at my parent's expense when I was much younger. The cheapest, though, is counting Mexico after the afternoon I spent in Tijuana when I was five.

The sad thing for me is, this means I was ahead of the game from the time I was 12 until I was 20. I figure it's not so much what your ratio is, just ensuring that it doesn't drop.

Let's see, I'm 23, and I have been to 10 countries.

I think this is pretty good considering I first left the U.S. when I was 19.

But, my future holds so much more. I'm lucky in that I've been living in Spain for the last year, and will be here until June 2006. This means easy access to Portugal, Morocco, and virtually all of Western and Eastern Europe.

On the home front, there's Canada, as well as somewhat easy access to South America, Central America, and the Carribean.

I'm 23 and have been to 17 countries so far, 18 if you include Slovakia which I went through on a train but didn't actually stay there. I'm not going to count it.

Hopefully I'll be able to hit some places in the Caribbean over the next few years, as well as South America and Southeast Asia, keep my number going up.

I'm 27, and have been to 20 countries (including Belgium). But only in 15 of those I spent a week or more, the others don't really count I think. I've been adding at least one new country since 2000.

I've been to 22 countries, including my own. 20 of those have been in Europe. Most of those I have spent several days, or seen a few different cities. I lucked out because I spent 3 months living in Germany, and 6 living in London during college. They are easy places to travel from. I should let you know that I am 24, I had seen all of those places before I hit 23. I have been home for over a year now. I have managed to see a bit more of my own country but I am dying to see something new. I just can't wait to really start accruing those vacation days!

Aww..you guys in Europe have it easy.

I've been in 33 states here in the U.S., and have been to two countries overseas. My first trip out of this country was at age 25, and I took another trip this year (I'm 26 now..soon to be 27..eek). So, at this pace, *maybe* I could do one country a year? I'd be quite satisfied with that, actually.

Okay, let´s see.
I´m 27 and I´ve visited...1, 2, 3...um, 15 countries. (I think). Not bad I´d say...
BUT, in the next few months I´ll be adding around 10-12 more. So that makes 27!
After New Year´s 2006 I may or may not be making it to South America...which would give me 4-6 more. Which means I´d officially be ahead of my age...
We´ll see I guess...
Never thought of it this way before...

Any ground rules for what couts as visiting a country? i.e. ...

- England, Scotland, Wales = 3 countries or 1 country?
- Tibet = separate country?
- Riding a train across a country, but stopping for only a few hours = count it or not?
- Airport stopover = count it or not?

OK, rules aside, at age 29 I have a minimum of 30 countries (counting conservatively) and a max of 40 if you count more freely. Counting by my rules (airport stopovers count, drive-throughs and train-throughs do) I have 37.

It's never enough. I'm shooting for 2 countries for every year, and I'm falling behind!

Gosh, I'm 33 and visited 24 countries so far... and this year the plans are to go to Vietnam and Kenya, first time for both. Too bad we can't count repeat visits to a country... otherwise I'd have 38!