The Quest Has Begun – To See Every Country in the World by Age 50

I started my global travel back in 2001 when I first visited Paris, France.  I realized I could travel with my profession by getting good at what I do, and in speaking at conferences.

Since that time I made a number of personal travel goals.  It started with a personal Goal in 2002. To travel to a new country every year – ongoing

You can read about my travels at http://travelingepic.com

Goals

• Travel to a new country every year – ongoing
• Visit the 7 Wonders of the World – complete
• Qualify for the Travelers Century Club (75 TCC countries) – complete
• Visit 100 TCC Countries according to TCC rules – 100 TCC countries – complete
• Visit 100 UN Countries – complete
• Visit all the states in the US 48/50, Australia 6/8, and Canada 8/14 and island nations around the UK and in the Med
• Visit all of the UN Countries – Making progress, over 100 More than half way!

After reading Chris Guillebeau and his quest to visit all of the countries in the world and seeing his cool infographic, I decided I needed to make my new goal official… before I was saying things like… I want to visit all of the countries in the world before I die.

New Goal

I will visit every Country* in the world by my 50th birthday

*Country as defined by the UN by my 50th birthday. 105/193

Yes, I’m a dad, and my family is my first priority. I won’t let that get in the way of my family life, kids school, college, missions, marriages and so on.

Speaking of which, I was doing a friend comparison on the “Where I’ve been” app on facebook.  Of the 392 friends I have that use this app, my 13 year old son Jared is #9 on my the list (of most traveled friends).  

How will work handle this?  My travel schedule is already baked into the agreement I have with my fantastic employer Salient6.  They support me in my global evangelism and I can take 4 “big trips” a year.  In Chris’s world these would be similar to his round the world trips.  For me, I pick a region that I’m going to be speaking near, and work with awesome sponsors who sponsor my friends and I in building communities which bring education, connections, networking, which provide a pipeline of work and industry into their part of the world.  We continue to evolve the community building, and education part of what we do.  I hope to be making some announcements in this area for our upcoming travel to Equatorial Africa in the Fall.