They Go Where Few People Have - Everywhere

Only a few hundred people have been to every country in the world. I met two who are well on their way.

Ted Nims (left) and Ric Gazarian (right) have been to almost all 195* countries in the world

There’s a whimsical old Johnny Cash song that I like called I’ve Been Everywhere. It has this refrain:

I’ve been everywhere, man
Crossed the deserts bare, man
I’ve breathed the mountain air, man

Of travel I’ve had my share, man 
I’ve been everywhere

When I heard it the first time, it made me wonder: How many people really have been everywhere? In the song, Cash rattles off a list of mostly domestic destinations (I’ve been to Louisville, Nashville, Knoxville, Ombabika, Schefferville, Jacksonville, Waterville, Costa Rica). But when I think of everywhere, I think globally. I wondered just how many people really have been to  every country in the world. 

That, of course, raises an obvious first question: how many countries are there? The very unofficial consensus seems to be: 195.* It's calculated by toting up the 193 United Nations members, plus adding the Vatican and Palestine, which have U.N. observer status. (This list, however, omits Taiwan and Kosovo because they’re not U.N. member states). 

How many people have visited all 195 countries? No one really knows with certainty, but Google searching led me to a number of entries that say it's fewer than 300. To put that in perspective, there are an estimated 7.8 billion people in the world, which means an infinitesimally tiny percent of all living human beings has been to every country. That’s a pretty exclusive group! Some of them even have a nickname for those who have accomplished this rare feat. They call themselves 193ers (sorry, Vatican and Palestine). 

Jessica Nabongo completed her journeys to every country in 2019

According to one 193er’s social media post I came across, the membership skews “older, white male from North America and Western Europe.” In 2019, Jessica Nabongo of the U.S. became what’s believed to be the first Black woman to crash the club.

In truth, traveling - even in the comfort of luxury, or with the orderliness of a package tour - can be daunting, disorienting and sometimes pretty scary. You are leaving behind your geographic, linguistic and cultural comfort zone for the unknown.

My 2019 visit to Kathmandu, Nepal where I volunteered teaching English to children at a monastery

When I was just a child, the thought of venturing out into that unknown didn't bother me. I felt like it beckoned me. Maybe it was because my father did a fair amount of international traveling. His stories and photos of places like Kenya and Europe intrigued me. I would open the fat, heavy atlas that was in our family library and gaze for hours at the maps of foreign countries shaded in pastels. The cities and rivers had strange, entrancing names and I would wonder what it was like there. What did the people look like? How did  they dress? What did they eat? How did they live? What kinds of animals were there? What did the land look like? I was especially mesmerized by the empty expanses of mountains and deserts.  

Thanks in large part to my career as a correspondent for ABC News, I was able to travel extensively for many years for work. I also did quite a bit of traveling on my own - after I retired in 2018, I fulfilled a dream of traveling around the world and then did it again the next year - but I’ve still only been to a little more than a third of the 195.

Ted Nims in Papua New Guinea

Ric Gazarian in Lahore, Pakistan

It was entirely by chance that I recently met Ric Gazarian and Ted Nims at a convention in Joliet, Illinois of the leaders of several dozen micro nations (tiny self-proclaimed “countries” that are most definitely not recognized by the U.N. or, for that matter, any country except one another. I’ll be writing about that in the coming weeks.

 

Each of them has only a few more countries to go to reach 195. They know each other from when Ted was a guest on a podcast Ric hosts called Counting Countries. I caught up with them recently before they were heading out on their next journeys.

Here’s a condensed and edited version of our conversation. 

RC: Where did you guys get the travel bug?

Ric: I was working in financial services in '08. I got laid off during the financial crisis. I wasn't very happy with the job, so there was this silver lining. I said I will now take the next 12 months off and travel around the world. So, basically all of '09 I was traveling overseas and I also said to myself I'm going to visit new countries. I kind of said to myself, I will visit every country in the world. I really don't know how I came up with that. I wasn't smart enough to Google how many countries there are in the world or had anybody visited every country. I simply came up with it. I started in South Korea and went west and was only visiting new countries.

RC: How did you decide which countries? Randomly or based on your interests or was just being a new country enough?

Ric: I can't remember how I chose South Korea as my starting point. I just started making my way west and taking countries I had not visited yet. A lot of them were mainstream but I also visited Yemen and Syria on that trip. 

Ted in Laos

RC: Ted, why did you want to do this?

Ted: I also worked in finance, working in banking. I did a lot of travel for work. Some of it was international. Most of it was domestic. I ended up going to all 50 states for work. In 2009, I took a one-year sabbatical and did an RV trip to the four corners of America with a buddy of mine. After that, I was on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, going to a bunch of islands and I got his idea: what about going to every country? So, I started to tick off the list.

RC: As of today, how many countries have you been to?

Ric: U.N. member states, 166.

Ted: I'm at 158 out of 193.

RC: How many people have been to every country in the world? 

Ted: What we know is that about 300 people have been to every country. Six hundred have been to outer space.

RC: Pretty rare.

Ted: Yep. You could say that. (laughs)

Ric on Easter Island

RC: Do you love doing this? Do you like doing it? Or is it like an assignment at this point?

Ric: I love it. But there is also some truth to what you just said. I've spent a fair amount of time in Africa the last two years. Not to generalize, but a lot of those countries can be challenging. Now and then, I do second guess myself about what I am doing and why. But, overall, I love it. This is an amazing opportunity, what I've been able to do and see and experience.

RC: Ted, what about you? Love? Like? Duty?

Ted: I love it. I kind of love the process of doing it and the actual experiences. The most exciting part often is when you're getting on the plane, embarking on the international trip. I also like coming home, I got married five years ago. I need to go to the Central African Republic and have not been there,  I have literally never heard anyone say anything good about traveling there. It's basically run by the (Russian mercenary) Wagner Group. So I feel like I need to get there sooner rather than later. I feel like it's something I have to do. It's not something I'm excited to do.

RC: Have you been there, Ric?

Ric: I was just there in March of this year.

RC: Fun time?

Ric: Not really. This is something that is pretty commonsensical. Your whole trip can be decided in 15 minutes. Meaning, the immigration officer is a jerk. The taxi driver rips you off and brings you to the wrong place and it's raining. It (gives) a negative veneer to the country. Whether it's fair or not, it's your personal experience. It was like 40 degrees Celsius and I didn't have my luggage for three days. I'm wearing the same clothes and I'm sweating and smelly and the guide I had cancelled my second day on me. So, yeah, it was not one of my favorites.

RC: Do you travel alone or with a companion? Or a mixture of the two?

Ric: For me, it's a great mix.

Ted: Sometimes solo. Some of the places we go you're required by rule to go on a group tour because the country will only allow tours in general [for example, North Korea when Ric went. It is now closed to Americans] or specifically American tourists to go with an organized group. Sometimes I travel with my wife on a trip and continue on if it's somewhere she's not interested in.

RC: In my own experience, traveling with someone vs. alone is very different. When you're with someone, you can fall into being in your own little bubble of the two of you. When you're alone, you're forced - happily, often - to talk to other people and meet people.

Ric in Cambodia

Ted: I agree. I enjoy traveling alone. I often stay in hostels not just to save money. It's a great way to meet fellow travelers and people you wouldn't otherwise come across. 

Ric: I like all different iterations because it has different pros and cons. So, yes, I like traveling by myself. I like traveling with my wife. I like traveling with friends. I like traveling with a group where I don't know people. All of them are good.

RC: WHat do you like to do when you're in a foreign country?

Ric: I don't have a specific to-do list for each country. It's sort of tailored to the country.If I'm in Kenya, I'm going to be going on a safari. If I'm in Egypt, I want to see the pyramids and tombs. So, I craft it on level to what the highlights are of that country.

Ted: One of things I always do is buy a magnet. That's why I have a refrigerator that's nearly out of space. If I'm with my wife, we always buy a Christmas ornament for a tree, which has led to some interesting experiences in predominantly Muslim countries. The search for an ornament takes ona life of its own. I also try to go to the world's top restaurants and the top 100 golf courses in the world.

RC: Any dangerous situations that you've been in?

Ted: I have not been anywhere I've genuinely felt in fear for my life, but I've had a couple of run-ins on two separate trips to Ethiopia. I took a train from Djibouti to Addis (Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia). It drops you at the final destination which was actually an hour outside the city. I just assumed there would be cars there, but there weren't. I ended up negotiating with a guy to give me a ride and shortly after we pulled away from the station we were stopped by a bandit. He reached into the back seat and took my handbag which had my passport and money. So I grabbed it and my driver ended up negotiating with the guy to let us go and let me keep my bag. 

Ric: I never had anything crazy but I spent a couple of weeks in Nigeria and there were just so many checkpoints. Some above board. Most not. I was with a driver and guide and there were a bunch of guys waving down our car, We stopped. There were about 20 guys. No one was wearing any uniform. It was just 20 guys. Two of the guys slid boards with nails under both sets of tires. I'm like, this is not a great situation. The guy at my window said, "Give me money." My guys are getting quite irate. Both of them get out of the car and are screaming and yelling for about 15 minutes at the guys. It was simple math. There's 20 guys on their side who are basically bandits versus the three of us. This could go very negative very quickly. But my guy basically bullshitted these bandits. They called some phone number, said, "This is my uncle. He's a policeman." They got him on speakerphone and the bandits just melted away, grabbed their pieces of wood and ran away.

RC: Good. A happy ending.

Ric: It could've been a lot worse. It was probably over five dollars.

RC: Have either of you ever been - literally - to Timbuktu (Mali)? 

Ted: I went a couple of years back,

Ric: I've got a trip planned for January.

RC: What's your favorite country?

Ric: Thailand. I'm technically living there now. It's incredibly diverse, mountains, world-class islands, famous cuisine, great infrastructure, great people. Really just incredible things to see and do.

Ted in Antarctica (which actually doesn’t count)

Ted: Costa Rica. I like it so much I bought a place on the beach there. I love the pura vida lifestyle. That's the motto there. Pure life. People are great. Wildlife. Predictable weather. A great place to decompress.

RC: With all the travel you've done, are places like Sweden or France or Canada kind of vanilla to you?

Ric: The short answer is yes. It's kind of similar.

RC: Once you have visited 195 countries, what next?

Ric: I've got a couple of different buckets. One is going to some unique places, such as the Falkland Islands or Pitcairn Island and going to interesting or cool events or festivals around the world. The third bucket is my wife wants to do some trips with our dog.

Ted: For me, I have this ever-increasing list. Ric and I have so many friends in this (193er) community that they're regularly exposing us to things we hadn't been aware of before. So if something seems interesting, add it to my list and it's a reason to go back.

RC: Any one top tip for travelers? I've heard more than once veteran travelers who say never check a bag.

Ted: I always travel with a small portable fan. Some of the places we go require one or two nights of camping. Often it is quite hot and if you have trouble sleeping the fan helps me with white noise. 

Ric: I'd guess more general (advice). Just do it. The average person will say, "I've been dreaming of going to Italy for ten years." But  each year they come up with a different excuse. Stop making excuses. Go do it.

RC: I always tell people, if you are going to a country where you don't speak any of the language and it's a place where you're not likely to run into many English speakers, learn at minimum how to say hello, please and thank you in the local language.

So, where to next, gentlemen?

Ric: French Guiana, Guyana and Suriname.

Ted: My next international trip is in September. My wife and I are going to Morocco for 10 or 11 days. We're going to travel around by train. She's going to go home from there and I'll continue on to Turkmenistan.