For One Man, It Really Is the End of the World | Hacker News Reader

For One Man, It Really Is the End of the World

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I've thought about doing this in the past, but decided against it. To pull it off, you have to focus on it so hard that it just becomes work, and you miss out on a lot of the reasons you travel in the first place.

Most obsessions are like this, I guess. Find anybody doing a "collect all the X", and you'll likely find a person who long ago stopped really enjoying X. It reminds me of the guys a few years back who were determined to completely max out some airline's "all you can fly in 30 days" ticket. Lots of suffering for suffering's sake [1].

Naturally, I can't claim that I've somehow had a better time travelling through my meager 65 countries than the subject of this article did with his 193. But I bet if his goal wasn't "every single one", but rather "as many as it takes", it would have been a lot more fun.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=782792

* To pull it off, you have to focus on it so hard that it just becomes work, and you miss out on a lot of the reasons you travel in the first place.*

I think the thing is to relax - you've got 60+ years to go see them all, so there's no time pressure, really. Sure, countries come and go, so you might miss some. But the cultures typically last beyond the containing country anyway.

60+ is potentially an overstatement depending on when you start.

More importantly, 193 countries in 60 years is less than four months per country. I'm not sure how much traveling you've done, but travel arrangements take planning; so does lodging, depending on where you're going (less-populated or less tourism-friendly countries can be an issue regarding where to stay if you haven't figured it out beforehand). Also, visa requirements can be very complex, and obtaining one can be both time-consuming and expensive, depending on how many fees or bribes (yes, in eastern Europe and some other places, this can be anywhere between helpful and necessary) are involved.

While you're right that relaxing would be the only way to handle this without going totally insane, that definitely won't make it a nice, leisurely trip. There is work involved, and a lot of it, much of it intellectually taxing.

Four months per country would be the average, but the distribution wouldn't be equal like that, especially because I doubt anyone trying to do this would plan a separate trip for each country. If you wanted to, you could fairly easily fly into somewhere in the Schengen zone, get a rail pass, and do all 26 countries in the zone in a couple of months' time, without any visas, and staying in hostels you booked along the way. The only planning you'd need to do would be to book airfare, and that would give you a fair bit more wiggle room for the rest of the world.

Also, planning & travel can go on concurrently, given cellphone coverage in an area.

So if you were a schoolteacher with summers off, you could spend 2-3 months traveling in closely-connected countries. Leaving you 9 months to de-stress with a room full of 14 year olds. :)

Yeah. I spent a month in Spain a couple of years ago, and met a backpacker who was visiting 25 European cities by himself in 2 months, or something like that. He was already about 40 days through it, and was complaining to me how he was completely exhausted, how it was more work than work -- his friends back home were so envious, but he was actually longing to be back in a cubicle! But it was a pride thing, he said -- all his friends thought it was so awesome of him, so he had to stick with it. I felt kind of bad for him, really.

> To pull it off, you have to focus on it so hard that it just becomes work, and you miss out on a lot of the reasons you travel in the first place.

Most obsessions are like this, I guess. Find anybody doing a "collect all the X", and you'll likely find a person who long ago stopped really enjoying X.

I think you have a good point, but at the same time, I think it's possible that for some combination of person and hobby, you really can avoid it becoming "work".

For instance, my primary hobby right now is cycling. The thing is, I train pretty hard and sprint up hills every day, and suffer through various aches and pains (the latest being a blister on my right palm of all things).

Many of my friends ask me, "Why are you making yourself suffer during your `hobby time`?" I get their point, and I even think that in a vacuum, they have a good point. But I genuinely enjoy the process of getting better at something like this, and even the suffering becomes part of the whole package that makes the pursuit rewarding and enjoyable for me.

So while it is true that "something that seems like play can become work if taken too far", the converse(?) is also true that something that seems like work can actually be play for some people :).

The real problem with HN is that everyone here is very insecure. Whenever anyone does anything remotely cool or unusual, there's always a boatload of comments crapping on their achievement.

193 countries? That's not impressive; he probably didn't enjoy them. He didn't really see each country I he didn't live there (whatever that means).

Maybe you're all just jealous?

You know what's easy to do? Be the first to post some cynical, contrarian bullshit in the comments.

This isn't a problem only found on HN but all of society in general, across the world.

Thankfully, for all there is, HN has less than the average news site, and it's why I continue to frequent this place. When HN becomes the next Reddit, Digg, or mainstream news portal, I'll jump ship.

This would have been interesting if he have LIVED in all 193 countries. Travelling through the countries, like he did, does not seem to add much value to one's life other than some self-centric ego boost. I am not trying to dilute the effort and the resourced he put into this achievement, it is a significant effort, and expensive as well. However, I read the post and thought, meh.

I have lived in about 6 countries in my 40yrs and still felt that I have missed something worthwhile in those countries. The culture, landscape, food etc in the various countries are what I travel for. Not for a stamp in my passport.

There is still something extremely valuable to be found in visiting all of these places. Indeed, the more time he spent in each place, the more he would learn--but there is a limited amount of time and the world is huge. You could equally argue that he should have visited and/or lived in every town, since every town has its own unique experience.

By your standards, what does "living" somewhere even consist of? Staying there for a month? A year? 10 years? I've been places for a year and don't feel like I "live" there, and I don't see how arguing that he should have "lived" in 193 places is a valid criticism. Nor is asserting that he's only traveling for the stamp--he refers often to what he's learned about people and the human condition, and the stamp is simply a proxy for measuring his progress in this journey, since you really can't measure "how much have I learned while traveling?" until way after, as he says.

While it's not strictly necessary to visit every single country, I think what he's down is incredibly valuable and that people should travel even more for better cultural understanding.

The one thing that this shows is that the world is indeed getting smaller. Travelling to all countries in a life time is something that is not possible, or extremely difficult to do without plenty of money and resources.

Hopefully, within my kid's lifetime, the amount countries that he can travel to, quickly, is achievable. Imagine travelling to between Berlin and Singapore in a couple of hours.

I think the point is that when trips are too short they are not really adding anything to your "cultural understanding".

I see it like reading the wikipedia page for 193 different programming languages Vs. actually learning how to program in a few of them.

I always feel that the Commodore 64 and Apple ][ pages fail to capture the actual essence of those machines.

> value to one's life other than some self-centric ego boost.

You just discovered the key to happiness, my friend. Everyone gets to make up the rules to the game they play.

The beauty of it is that, if I am happy because I am better than a loser like you, and you are happy because you are better than a loser like me, we both win.

The only real losers are the fools (usually hyper-intelligente ones, on traditional IQ scales) over-analyzing and looking for deeper meaning where there is none.

Well fair enough, but that doesn't mean anyone else has to consider the accomplishment "great". Perhaps my rules of achievement are how many supposedly "great achievements" I can deconstruct...

You're making it sound like he did nothing but visit airports and train stations.

I've been in about 60 countries. After a while the novelty/new perspective feeling diminishes. I don't really think it's worth the effort to see all countries. What's a country anyway? Mostly borders. People and cultures are a different thing and tend to spread differently over borders.

I came to post the exact same sentiment - why all the obsession with countries and not, say every climatic zone, or every major language group or every integer latitude, or whatever.

Probably because that's the most obvious thing.

Someone walked every street in NYC, and then had an apprentice who started the same effort.

I'm sure there are people who do all the things you mentioned.

Example: http://reocities.com/nodotus/hbglass.html

I agree. For example take Mexico: one country with many cultures. You can't spend a weekend or even a year in Puerto Vallarta and say you've been to "Mexico".

Having also travelled extensively, people ask where 'home' is. While 'home' might be where the majority of my family is, I can honestly say "earth". Maybe that's an uninteresting answer but it's really true as I have no interest whatsoever in space travel.

I agree. But I think countries can be a useful proxy if they aren't all, say, Western European, or Carribean.

The big culture zones IMHO are Americas: North, Central, South and Carribbean; Africa: Southern, Western, Eastern, Northern; Europe: Western, Mediterranean, Eastern; Asia: Middle East, India, South-East, China, Central, Japan/Korea; Pacific: Islands.

Obviously personal perspective will divide or agglomerate those, but its a rough guide.

Ive always had a small problem with what Chris is doing. Ive followed his journey from day 1 and have grown increasingly furstrated by his "travels". Sure he has "visited" every country in the world but its often for 1 day at a time. He floew all the way to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan went on a jog, spent the night and then flew home. IMO that is hardly traveling let along visting every country.

As his journey went on it become more about self promotion and the promoting of his products than anything else. AND, he never showed proof that he was actually visiting said countries. All his followers ever saw was a tweet like "PDX - LHR - TBL - DXB - LAX - PDX"

Im sure Chris is a great guy and he has obviously built himself a nice little business/brand but I dont agree that he should be praised or really even recognized for something like this.

As someone who actually has lived around the world, I find "counting countries" to be in poor taste. It's not as if you can have a meaningful experience of the people and culture(s) in such a short while. What does it really signify that you have "done" India or Nigeria or Brazil?

These lists always remind me of something else that an uncouth young man might brag about - but a gentleman would never.

At the risk you thinking less of me, I think you've missed the point entirely about "counting countries." I mean, clearly this guy did it for the achievement (and hell, that's tough to do--kudos to him), but I think saying how many countries you've been to is entirely acceptable and gentlemanly--it's communicating about your general experiences.

It's a way to communicate how much of the world you've seen--it's a starting point for a conversation. I've never seen it come up in context of, "I've been to 73 countries!" and then that ended the conversation. Even here, the fact that he's finishing up this remarkable achievement is used as a launching point to discuss some of the neat aspects of his journey.

This place is getting more curmudgeonly every day.

One has to wonder what counts as a "country," and when you can say you've done them all:

  As for least favorite, well, I was served goat in Somaliland
  in a situation where it was difficult to decline.

As far as I know, Somaliland is a bit of a 'limbo' state, it isn't universally recognised and many see it as just a region of Somalia.

If he visits Somaliland and counts that, did he also visit Transnistria? And if so, how low down the list do you go - do you then have to visit every self-declared nation-state all the way down to Sealand?

The list that fascinates me is the amateur radio DXCC list of "entities" which count separately. Many of them are dependencies of other countries, a lot are uninhabited (I might book my next holiday on Peter I Island or Scarborough Reef) but there are currently 340 of them: http://www.arrl.org/country-lists-prefixes

It's all really interesting stuff!

He states in the article that he visited all countries officially recognised by the UN.

From the article: "How did you define “country?” for this trip?

I used the U.N. standard. There were 192 countries when I started, and one was added (more on that in a moment). I've also been to plenty of regions, islands, and culturally distinct places that don't technically count as member countries: Taiwan, Kosovo, Kurdistan, etc."

Big gray area in this one. During his visit to Eritrea he was denied entry at the airport and never made it past security. However, because he "talked" to people from Eritrea on the plane and disembarked from the plane he considers it a visit even though he was DENIED ENTRY into the country.

My neighbor is from Iran and I was once denied entry into Iran because I have an Israeli stamp in my passport yet I've never claimed to have visited Iran. Chris however, would probably disagree ;)

Not only is the status of Somaliland questionable, so is his bad mouthing goat. It is delicious.

I have lived in 8 and pretty much always traveled in the region I lived. I love having the time to emerge yourself and soaking it all in, something I can't do when on a tight travel schedule. And as such you will not see me on any packaged holiday tour soon. But to each, his own.

For me the most apparent thing has been that I've lost what was left of my nationalism or "home" feeling. Mostly I feel like a tourist in my own country, enjoy what it has to offer, being fluent in the local language is funny, but I don't belong in it any more than I do where I currently live. I'm not even sure if this is a good or a bad thing per se.

My guess is that feeling like a tourist everywhere is not a good thing. Someone above mentioned that he felt like a citizen of the world, so feeling at home on earth is enough, you don't need to be a nationalist.

But how do you feel at home? I think I feel I'm home when I see the faces of people I love, and do the things that I like (work and hobbies) everyday.

This is something I have dreamed about doing...but how does one financially do this? I'm still in college so sorry my naivety. It just seems that it would be incredibly expensive to embark on such a trip. And I completely believe it's worth the cost but still, how do you determine when you have enough to embark?

And beyond just visiting all the countries, I would like to incorporate service into my travels. So for every country that I go to, I would like to do community service there--anything to help the underprivileged but specifically help in making sure people are properly nourished if that is a problem. I know I can't save everyone, but I do want to do some good while having fun.

The easiest way to afford it would be to work online during the trip. Then I would guess you travel by bus/train which is a lot cheaper than flights in many places. Travelling at night would cut down on the amount you would have to spend on accommodation.

I'm not really sure what to make of this. Is this supposed to be a record breaking thing or a talk of the kind of obsession that this guy has/had? In either case, 193 countries visited in a year is no mean feat - it requires a good amount of dedication/focus to achieve that. So, the real question is, what did he get out of this worldwide trip? Changed perceptions, ideas and what does he intend to do with it? It's not entirely necessary that he has to share them, but then, he had given an interview - so I think it's a natural question.

Reminds me of my friend saying during our vacation, "you just want to stay on the train one more stop so you can add Switzerland to your list of countries!"

> his journey to Norway, the last country on the list

I wonder how Norway feels about that.

Seriously though, this seems like a poor way of measuring travel. For instance, I can cross the border to Canada and almost nothing changes, not the landscape, not the people, etc... However, if I fly to New Mexico (from MA), I'm in the same country, but so much has changed.

FWIW, here's the Russian designer who travelled to 180+ countries and took tons of photos during the process: http://www.tema.ru/travel/

I've read he also has a bet with another Russian guy to the tune of $100k on who will visit all the countries first.

Try Graham Hughes http://www.theodysseyexpedition.com/ he's been to every sovereign state (201 apparently) in the world without flying. Took three years and he's only recently finished.

You may find http://mosttraveledpeople.com/ interesting. A site whose members are determined to visit as much of the world as possible.

Now, who will set the record for being occupying the most area of the world during their lifetime?

I suppose this would require a GPS tracker permanently recording your position at all times.

I find it sad, yet indicative of the status quo, that this topic has relatively few points, yet the one about a film 'critic' who died at an advanced age has several hundred points.

It seems that more people are interested in fiction than fact.

Also, the world appears to be a bit more accessible today than when Nick Danziger completed his overland trek through Eurasia during the mid 1980's.

http://www.nickdanziger.com/index/books/danzigers-travels/

Because it's a mediocre interview. Wow, he ate goat. Tantalizing.

Haha! Good point, but I'm still far more interested in a story about visiting 193 countries than I am about a media shill who finally succumbed to cancer.

I'm more interested in a story about someone who watched 193 movies each year, than I am about a travel shill who finally collected all the stamps in his passport.

It takes all kinds to make a world, friend.

Over 3500 counties/parishes in the United States of America...so little time.

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