Here's a newly updated list of the countries I've visited over the course of my life, arranged by the date of my first visit to the country. I don't count my home country, Canada. Of course, exactly what constitutes a country is a bit slippery. My well-travelled friend Natalya Marquand holds that the only objective list is the 193 permanent members of the UN. Others hold that these countries, plus the non-UN-member Vatican City, make up the 194 canonical countries of the world. I think the reality is a bit slippier. When I visited Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia, despite the fact that these countries aren’t universally recognized, I had to get a visa to visit them and cross at a border post manned by people in uniform who stamped my passport. Somaliland not only has its own consulates and border guards, it even has its own currency. And, to take an extreme example, anyone who claims that Taiwan isn’t effectively an independent country isn’t really recognizing what’s been de facto the case since 1949.
So my list of independent countries is a bit bigger than 194. It’s about 204 countries; the number may fluctuate a bit, and it doesn’t include three countries (Western Sahara, Palestine and Tibet) with pretty legitimate cases but without their own border guards. One of the many lists of countries on Wikipedia lists 206 entries that either are recognized by at least one other state as being independent, or effectively control a permanently populated territory, but they include Western Sahara and Palestine which are at the moment illusory pipe dreams, to the distress of the people who inhabit them. If I'm not counting Canada, that would make 193 or 203 possible destinations.
Anyway, without further preamble, here’s my list of the countries I have visited, arranged according to the date I first visited them. The non-UN/Vatican members of the list are coloured red; there are eight of them, so if you’re counting by the UN+Vatican list, it’s 117 (out of 193). I would make it 125 out of 203. Whichever way you count it, I’m now well over half-way to my goal of visiting them all, and my to-visit list is now down into double digits.
1969
1. US
1977
2. France
3. Switzerland
4. Liechtenstein
5. Germany
6. Netherlands
1981
7. Tanzania
1982
8. Norway
9. Italy
1988
10. UK
11. Vatican
12. Greece
13. Hungary
14. Austria
15. Czech Republic (Prague, then part of the now-defunct Czechoslovakia)
1990
16. Belgium
17. Monaco
18. Poland
1991
19. Australia
20. New Zealand
21. Fiji
22. Cook Islands
1994
23. Egypt
24. Turkey
1995
25. Spain
26. Kenya
27. Uganda
28. Democratic Republic of Congo
29. Japan
30. Singapore
31. Indonesia
1996
32. Philippines
33. Malaysia
34. Thailand
35. Cambodia
36. Nepal
1997
37. India
38. Sri Lanka
39. Pakistan
40. Luxembourg
41. San Marino
42. Andorra
1998
43. China
44. Portugal
45. Morocco
46. Tunisia
47. Jordan
1999
48. Israel
49. Syria
50. Lebanon
51. Chile
52. Argentina
53. Peru
2000
54. Bolivia
55. South Korea
2001
56. Mexico
57. Brunei
58. Laos
59. Taiwan
2004
60. Kazakhstan
61. Kyrgyzstan
62. Tajikistan
63. Uzbekistan
64. Turkmenistan
65. Iran
66. Bahrain
2006
67. Vietnam
68. Burma
2007
69. Mongolia
70. Palau
71. Bangladesh
2008
72. Bhutan
73. Cyprus
74. Northern Cyprus
2009
75. Kuwait
76. Azerbaijan
77. Georgia
78. Armenia
79. Nagorno-Karabakh
80. Iraq
81. Bulgaria
82. Serbia
83. Kosovo
84. Macedonia
85. Albania
86. Montenegro
87. Bosnia-Hercegovina
88. Croatia
89. Libya
90. Malta
2010
91. Ethiopia
92. Somaliland
93. Djibouti
2011
94. Denmark
95. Abkhazia
96. Russia
97. Ukraine
98. Trans-Dniestria
99. Moldova
100. Romania
101. Slovakia
102. Belarus
103. Lithuania
104. Latvia
105. Estonia
106. United Arab Emirates
107. Oman
108. Qatar
2012
109. Slovenia
110. Togo
111. Benin
2013
112. Maldives
113, Iceland
114. Ireland
2014
115. East Timor
116. Solomon Islands
117. Papua New Guinea
2015
118. Finland
119. Sweden
2016
120. Paraguay
121. Brazil
122. Uruguay
123. Zambia
124. Botswana
125. South Africa
126. Mozambique
127. Zimbabwe
128. Malawi
129. Madagascar
Over the rest of 2016 I should add Swaziland and Lesotho, with Namibia, Rwanda and maybe Burundi, South Sudan, Sudan and Eritrea joining the list in early 2017 (those last 4 are all dubious but possible). So by mid-2017 I should be at about 135 countries visited. The 70 or so countries left will then be concentrated in west and central Africa (around 25), Central America and the Caribbean (another 25 or so), with outliers in the Indian and Pacific Oceans and a few in Africa. Stanley's Travels II could account for a lot of the remaining African countries, while a sailboat trip or two might be called for when it comes to the oceanic islands and the Caribbean. We will see.
I turned 48 in September. I think I still have 20 good years of travel left in me, which would mean averaging 3.5 new countries a year over that period of time if I want to end up visiting all the countries in the world. I think I can do that fairly comfortably.
2016
120. Paraguay
121. Brazil
122. Uruguay
123. Zambia
124. Botswana
125. South Africa
126. Mozambique
127. Zimbabwe
128. Malawi
129. Madagascar
Over the rest of 2016 I should add Swaziland and Lesotho, with Namibia, Rwanda and maybe Burundi, South Sudan, Sudan and Eritrea joining the list in early 2017 (those last 4 are all dubious but possible). So by mid-2017 I should be at about 135 countries visited. The 70 or so countries left will then be concentrated in west and central Africa (around 25), Central America and the Caribbean (another 25 or so), with outliers in the Indian and Pacific Oceans and a few in Africa. Stanley's Travels II could account for a lot of the remaining African countries, while a sailboat trip or two might be called for when it comes to the oceanic islands and the Caribbean. We will see.
I turned 48 in September. I think I still have 20 good years of travel left in me, which would mean averaging 3.5 new countries a year over that period of time if I want to end up visiting all the countries in the world. I think I can do that fairly comfortably.
