We have been traveling full-time since retiring two and a half years ago. We employ a slow travel philosophy – for us, this means that we typically try and stay in one country for as long as we can get a tourist visa for. This can be anywhere from 30 to 90 days at a time.
One of the most common questions we get about our lifestyle is, “How many countries have you been to?” Our goal is to travel to and experience as much of the world as we can before we get too old to travel. We really haven’t focused on the number of countries, but I have started to keep track simply to be able to answer this frequent question. For the record, since January 2016 we have visited 20 countries and 2 territories (US Virgin Islands and Hong Kong). In the years before we retired we had visited an additional eight countries together, bringing the total to 28 countries. In addition, I have been to six other counties, mostly for work, so I have personally been to 34 countries.
One of the travel blogs I follow, Atlas and Boots, asked the question, “What qualifies as traveling the world?” Good question! Many people have a goal to travel the world. Other people describe themselves or are described as world travelers. We are currently traveling the world, but will we reach a point where we can say that, “We have traveled the world?” There are about 195 countries in the world. How many countries do you have to visit to be considered a world traveler? Surely all of them would be a little tough. On the other hand, you could hardly consider yourself a world traveler simply because you spent five days in Cancun on vacation once.
One of the perspectives that interested me was put forth by Jay Wacker, former Stanford University professor, and world traveler. He suggested that perhaps by traveling to half of the 42 territories represented by the board game Risk, you could say you had traveled the world. This makes a lot of sense to me. Counting countries alone might not really be considered traveling the world. For example, if you visited all 50 European countries, have you really traveled the world given that you haven’t seen North or South America, Asia, or Africa?
For those of you unfamiliar with the board game Risk, it is a strategy game where players attack competitors by rolling dice all in an effort to eliminate their opponents and attain global domination. I played Risk with my brothers and friends many times as a teen and still play a bit online today.
I found a map of the Risk board online and starred all the regions I have been to. Some of it involves a little guesswork since the Risk game generalizes territories and the territories can cross county borders. Some Risk territories divide a country into many territories, for example, the actual country of the USA is made up of three Risk territories, while the Risk territory of North Africa is comprised of about 15 actual countries.
Using the Risk map territory method, I am almost a world traveler. I have visited 20 of the 42 territories, one more to go! I have not counted places where I have simply had a layover at the airport, for example, I haven’t counted layovers at Heathrow, or Buenos Aries as having visited Great Britain or Argentina.
What do you think of this approach? What would your definition of being a world traveler be?
Map of our travels based on the Risk board game territories. I have visited 20 of the 42 Risk territories.
Hello. I am moving to Anren, China to teach English. I’ve never been outside of the U.S. How do you keep your phones connected to American websites in China? I worry that I won’t be able to contact with family or pay my bills back home while I’m gone. I’ve heard of VPNs and plan to subscribe to one. How did you deal with this while in China? Were there other issues that came up that you weren’t expecting?
Congratulations on your teaching job in China. Great questions. I should probably write a blog post on this. Not all websites are blocked in China, however, anything to do with Google (gmail, Google Maps, Youtube, etc.) and anything to do with Facebook (Facebook, Snapchat, etc.) is blocked. Here are some things to do before you go over there: 1. Bring an unlocked phone and buy a SIM card in China. I used China Unicom, but there are two others. Internet and phone service is definitely cheaper there. You can do lots of stuff with just the internet through your phone – no real need for calling or even text messaging. 2. If you have a gmail account, set it up to automatically forward emails to a non-gmail account. In my case, I forward them to my Yahoo mail account. 3. Paying bills should not be an issue. It is unlikely that anyplace you want to pay bills will have a blocked website. 4. Get a VPN. I recommend Express VPN. The Great Firewall of China can be tricky, but I have tried a couple of VPNs and Express VPN has worked the best for me. The other nice thing is that their tech support is excellent and you can chat with them. China is cracking down on VPNs, but focusing more on foreign companies in China that use an enterprise-wide VPN. I was last in China in October 2017 and Express VPN worked fine. 5. Get a WeChat account. This is the most popular social media in China. I would get close friends and family to also get WeChat to communicate with you. With a VPN, you should still be able to use Facebook or whatever social media you prefer, but WeChat will always work – never blocked. Long answer, I know, but that should get you started. One issue that I was not expecting when we started traveling full-time was that sometimes banks, credit card companies, Paypal, Amazon, etc. want you to verify that it is really you when you log in. They will send a text to your phone. However, we got rid of our USA numbers when we started traveling abroad. How I finally figured out how to manage this was to get a Google Voice phone number. It is free to do this. I changed my phone number with banks, credit cards, etc. to the Google voice number. When the bank (or whatever) sends a text it goes to my Google voice app, and a copy goes to my email. I can then verify that it is me. Good luck and have fun!
Thank you for such a quick reply. I teach international students, and the ones from China got me on WeChat about 6 months ago. I’m bringing the same cell that I use here in the U.S., so what do you mean by an unlocked phone? The credit card verifications is a good tip. How did you deal with it in the moment before you started using Google voice? Was the transaction denied? I’ve notified all of my credit cards and my bank that I would be there for a year.
Was Express VPN free or have a fee? One Chinese student went home for the summer and used Shadowsocks, so he could still access all of his American social media sites. Shadowsocks has a monthly fee. I don’t have any social media. I’m just concerned about paying student loans, etc. I know I can send wire transfers to my US bank account from the university payroll account. I’m debating whether to set up bill pay at my bank or just wing it and hope I can still access my apps to pay bills online. I’m leaving Friday morning, and I’m stressing.
If you got your phone through your cell phone service provider (ATT, Verizon, etc.) your phone is most likely locked – i.e. you can’t use another provider until it is unlocked. If you have had your phone for a while, you can simply request to have it unlocked. If you recently signed a contract or upgraded your phone, you will likely have to buy out the rest of your contract to unlock your phone. For example, when we left the USA, we were 9 months into a 2 year contract with ATT on my wife’s iPhone. We had to pay a couple hundred dollars to buy out the rest of the contract. It will vary by the type of phone you have, how long left on the contract, etc.
Many of the credit card companies, banks, etc. have a couple of ways to verify – some will give you the choice of text or email, others make you call.
You should let your bank (where you would have an ATM card you want to use in China), and any credit card companies know you will be in China and for how long and they will set an alert on your account so they won’t automatically block the transaction. Sometimes your transactions get flagged as unusual if you make purchases out of the country – especially if you never do that.
Express VPN has a fee. You may be able to find a free VPN that works for you. I wasn’t able to and Express VPN was the third fee based VPN I tried before getting something to work in China. Some VPNs work in some areas in China and not others. For example, I used the Tunnel Bear VPN in Shanghai with no issues, in Beijing, it wouldn’t work.
Chances are your apps to pay bills will still work even without a VPN, but you won’t know for sure till you get there.
Take a deep breath. Have fun. Don’t stress. Approach it like an adventure. You will run into things you didn’t expect, but there is no way to prepare for everything. I am sure you will have a great time. We have been traveling for over 2 years now and love it.
Thanks for all the advice. I don’t have a phone contract with any large carrier. I pay month-to-month, so I guess I’ll see what happens. Safe travels.
FYI…my phone is through Straight Talk, and because I had not used their refill card service for 1 full year, they will not unlock my phone. I’ll have to buy a phone and plan once I get to Chengdu. I’ve been assured by my Chinese students that phones and plans are very economical, except iPhones. Thanks again. I’ll be watching for your next destination.
I would still beat you at Risk Carey! Hope all is well. Been a while since I’ve checked in.
Thanks for checking in, Rick. I accept your challenge. We will have to play Risk the next time I see you! Hahaha
Carey based on your post dated September 3, 2018 How many countries do you need to visit to be considered a “World traveler?”
I also have wondered about this question. Being a Wandering Traveler I was interested in this, How many Americans have traveled to 7 continents? How many World citizens have traveled to 7 continents? What percentage this would be?
It appears the vast population will never leave their country. And the travelers see 10 or more. But I did stumble on the Traveler’s Century Club https://travelerscenturyclub.org/ and they have been around since 1954.
This exclusive travel club’s Official List of Approved Countries & Territories today is 325, grouped in 12 regions. TCC acknowledges that some of the 325 places are not actually countries in their own right, but they have been included because they are removed from parent countries, geographically, politically or for other reasons as outlined in the club’s rules.
To become a member, it is an honor system for the first 100 qualifying places but then members must complete an up-to-date destination list to be approved for the next level and to be recognized in The Centurion. Then they are honored when they reach different levels: 150 (Silver), 200 (Gold), 250 (Platinum) and 300 (Diamond).
So having met many travelers in my 4 years of wandering this big blue marble I have yet to met anyone that has reached a 100. Many are well traveled so I agree with TCC 100 would be a world traveler whether it’s based on TCC guidelines or 100 based on 195 Sovereign States plus the 4 unrecognised countries of the former Soviet Union that have fought for their freedom.
Thanks for info on Traveler’s Century Club. I will have to check it out. Yes, 100 countries are a lot. Maybe we will get to that many eventually. I don’t think we have met anyone that has visited 100 in our travels either.