Hi, I’m Carolyn! I’m a travel addict & aspiring writer and photographer from New Zealand with a background in the bespoke travel industry. I’m the force behind Kiwi Globetrotteuse (you can read more about my blog here.) I’m also someone who likes to set pretty crazy goals for myself, such as visiting allllll the countries in the world!
Yep you heard that right – I’m on a mission to travel to all 193 UN member states in my lifetime (plus a few UN observer states, and dependencies & overseas territories along the way). As of November 2024 I’ve made it to 45 countries and counting!
Technically I’ve only travelled to 40 nation states because the 45 countries on my list include New Caledonia (a french territory), and the four countries within the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.) However these are culturally distinct entities and travel destinations in their own right so I’d hate to leave them out of my travel diaries.
Where have I been so far?
You can see the countries I have travelled to in the map below (the darker shaded ones are countries that I’ve visited more recently.)
I’ve also listed the countries that I’ve travelled to below in chronological order and there’s a photo of me in every country where I have one (though sadly there are a few places where I don’t have photos of myself… yet.) All of the countries that are underlined are countries I’ve written about on my blog (so far) – you can click on any of them to read more about them.
1. New Zealand
2. France
3. Spain
4. Monaco
5. New Caledonia*
6. Australia
7. China
8. Germany
9. Luxembourg
10. Denmark
11. Sweden
12. Switzerland
13. USA
14. Canada
15. Iceland
16. Netherlands
17. Czechia
18. Austria
19. Slovakia
20. Hungary
21. Romania
22. Bulgaria
23. North Macedonia
24. Kosovo*
(I’ve only passed through Kosovo on a bus at this stage, we did stop briefly but encountering some not so clean toilets doesn’t quite meet my ‘meaningful experience’ requirement so I will definitely be heading back to Kosovo to rectify that as soon as I can!)
25. Albania
(I’ve also only passed through Albania on a bus and while the coastline seemed very beautiful I still don’t think seeing it from a window meets my ‘meaningful experience’ requirement. As such I’m looking forward to heading back to Albania sometime soon.)
26. Montenegro
27. Croatia
28. Bosnia & Herzegovina
(In Bosnia & Herzegovina I’ve only briefly stopped in the small coastal area around Neum so I’m also planning to go back to see more of BIH sometime soon.)
29. Slovenia
30. Italy
31. England*
32. Norway
33. Ireland
34. Scotland*
35. Greece
36. Portugal
37. Belgium
38. Vatican City*
39. Wales*
40. Poland
41. Finland
42. Estonia
43. Northern Ireland*
44. Qatar
*NB: the countries with an asterix are either not UN member states, or not UN member states in their own right. They don’t directly count towards my 193 total goal. However I wouldn’t want to leave them off this list as they all still have their own fascinating history, culture & people, that make them unique and still very worthwhile visiting (and in my opinion worth blogging about too!)
45. Samoa
Why is my official goal to go to only the UN member states?
When you set yourself the goal of visiting most of the world you have to set some parameters on what you are setting out to visit exactly. For example there are currently 205 sovereign states in the world, however some of these ‘countries’ are unrecognised by most of the rest of the world and are simply disputed territories within another state. In addition if you set out to visit all the dependencies & territories in the world you’d be adding another 58 or so often small islands (some of them completely uninhabited) to the already long list of countries. The short of it is that very few people have the time or resources to make it to 250+ places in their lifetime so counting the 193 UN member states only is a good way to delimit it somehow. Many people choose to travel to the UN member states plus the two observer states (i.e. Palestine & the Vatican City) and some people add Taiwan too (which used to be a UN member state but which has been ousted in favour of The People’s Republic of China.) That would make a total of 196 countries, and while I’m hoping to make it to them all the 193 UN member states seem like an ambitious enough goal for now!
Is it just about ticking countries off the list as fast as possible?
For a small group of people who have set out to reach this goal that may be the case. However most of the people I’ve heard about who have conquered this enormous challenge are adventurers who are truly fascinated by the world and all the diversity that exists between countries and their peoples. Along the way they’ve discovered all the common things that bind us as well. Travelling to every country in the world used to be something only wealthy older westerners could afford, but these days with the cost of travelling long haul dropping so much , there are many younger people that have managed to do it as well like this 28 year old or this 21 year old! Sometimes this has been with the support of sponsors, or businesses that they have partnered with along the way like the first woman to have conquered the challenge. Either way I think the fact that it is becoming more accessible to travel to every country is a really positive thing.
What counts as ‘visiting’ a country?
For me it’s not a race, I like to take my time and have the chance to soak up a little of each place I visit. I’ll never be able to see every region of every country but it’s about at least having a meaningful experience in each country – having a story to tell, trying a local meal, having an encounter with someone local. I want to understand a minimum about the history of the place and what makes each country and it’s people tick! In the first 10 years since I first travelled outside of New Zealand I visited 35 UN member states in total but in just 5 years I’ve seen around 70% of those. So if I continue at roughly the same rate I estimate that it will take me another 25 to 30 years before I see them all. I’m okay with that. All going well I’ll just be a very well traveled (and hopefully not completely bankrupt) retiree .
Will I only go to a country once?
It depends really – there are some countries that I will probably only see once, mainly because I have to prioritise my time & money and depending on where I’m based some countries are harder to get to. So far I’ve lived longer term in New Zealand, France & the UK and on top of that there are some countries I’ve been lucky enough to get back to several times already like Spain, Italy, Germany & the USA. There are particular countries I feel like I will always go back to no matter what – simply because I love them long time!