{"id":500,"date":"2020-02-15T10:42:15","date_gmt":"2020-02-15T10:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2022\/?page_id=500"},"modified":"2022-07-17T09:47:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-17T09:47:53","slug":"intro","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2022\/intro\/","title":{"rendered":"Charting my course"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Part 1: The Caribbean (March – May 2022)<\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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I don’t know if I’ll manage to get to all these places, but I’ll try. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ten years ago while lingering over a few beers in Havana, I made up my mind to visit every country in the world — plus a lot of other places that seem like countries even though they aren’t. Starting with a list of the 193 members of the United Nations<\/a>, I added about 100 other places distinctly different from the sovereign states that own them, including about a dozen Caribbean Islands. At that time, sitting in a caf\u00e9 in Cuba, Caribbean islands seemed trivially easy to visit. So, I put off visiting them. I naively assumed that the world would always be a peaceful and healthy place, and that international travel would only get easier. Ha!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, with Covid travel restrictions, international travel is no longer trivial. As I start this Caribbean adventure, I’ve already found that getting to Turks & Caicos involves as much paperwork now as visiting Iran used to require. And who knows when I’ll get to Ukraine … another country I’d hoped to have visited by now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But travel I must. For now, I’ve given myself the assignment of visiting the following places. In the list below, only Belize, El Salvador, Saint Kitts & Nevis and Dominica are actual countries. Covid restrictions are starting to relax. Maybe I’ll get to all of them. Hopefully, I’ll get to most of them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n