Why I No Longer Count Countries — And How It Changed My Perspective on Travel

I recently reached a significant milestone: visiting my 100th country. I know it’s my 100th because I’ve been counting them for years. It’s been a fun ride, though not without moments of indecision and inner conflict.

I have a great deal of respect for those who have traveled to every country. They have overcome the obstacles to accomplish this exciting goal and stuck with their criteria to validate their achievement. And I’m happy to have finally reached my personal goal of visiting 100 countries.

But I’m even more relieved to let go of counting countries altogether. While it was an enjoyable endeavor, the process ultimately affected my travel decisions. Here’s a look at my journey and why I ultimately decided to stop keeping count.

How To Count Countries You’ve Visited

I quickly learned that counting countries is not as simple as grabbing a list and checking off boxes, although that’s how I started. However, establishing the criteria I’d follow during the process was also important. I wanted to add credibility to the achievement, if only for personal satisfaction.

I printed a list and checked off the countries as I visited them. Occasionally, however, I played with some available apps and tools that helped visualize the goal:

• Google Maps Timeline
• Places Been
• Visited Places
• Visited

I also had to establish rules for what constituted a visit. Fortunately, counting countries is a personal pursuit based on one’s own criteria.

I decided that any overnight visit would count but airport visits or connections through an airport would not. In some cases, I counted stays of a few hours. For example, I counted Vatican City and Monaco but didn’t stay overnight at either destination.

Establish Rules for Counting Countries

To get started, I counted countries and territories with the Traveler’s Century Club list. The idea was to visit 75 destinations, join the club, and then strive for 100 to qualify for full membership.

This membership is designed for those travelers who have visited at least 75 countries and territories, granting provisional membership, with full membership reserved for those who have visited 100 or more. Joining the club requires an initial fee along with annual dues. However, the Century Club list, which includes both countries and territories, is accessible to nonmembers as a tool to track their travel milestones.

I chose not to join the club when I reached 75 countries and instead continued counting, eventually surpassing 100 countries and territories. Later, I decided to shift to the United Nations Countries list, which excludes territories. This change brought my total down to well below 100 visited countries.

A list of 193 member nations, the UN Country List does not recognize 9 nonmember entities, some of which include Taiwan, Palestine, Vatican City, and Kosovo. Fortunately, using the United Nations list, I narrowed the destinations down to a few easier-to-reach countries and finished my goal of visiting 100.

Why I Stopped Counting Countries

I quit counting countries primarily as the goal distracted me from destinations I loved to visit that didn’t add to the count.

For example, I would find a good airfare deal to Scotland, but since it’s part of the U.K., it wouldn’t count as a new country on my list. Greenland, a territory of Denmark, and islands in the Caribbean owned by France or the Netherlands met the same fate.

The closer I got to 100, destination decisions became based primarily on whether the country would count toward my goal. Sad, but true.

Having reached the milestone of visiting 100 countries, I no longer feel the need to pursue the goal of visiting every country. In the future, I might be inspired to explore every country in Europe or South America, or even complete my journey to all 50 U.S. states (I have 5 more to go). But for now, I’ve decided to stop counting.

Fortunately, I had great experiences visiting new countries even if they were selected primarily to add to the list.

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Final Thoughts

Counting countries is a personal process. It’s a list built with the criteria I selected. No one can say I can only count countries where I’ve spent the night or that I can only count United Nations members. When I count countries, I own the process and the outcome. That’s quite exciting.

Would I do it again? I sure would.

Oh, you may be wondering which country I chose for my 100th: It was Luxembourg.