{"id":500,"date":"2020-02-15T10:42:15","date_gmt":"2020-02-15T10:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2024\/?page_id=500"},"modified":"2024-03-16T00:34:19","modified_gmt":"2024-03-16T00:34:19","slug":"intro","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2024\/intro\/","title":{"rendered":"Charting my course"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2013 while lingering over a few beers in Havana, I set myself the goal of visiting every country in the world. While I was at it, I planned to visit a lot of other places that seem like countries although they aren’t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started with a list of the 193 members of the United Nations<\/a>. To this list, I added more than 100 islands, territories, enclaves and autonomous regions that are distinctly different from the sovereign states that own them. While I looked forward to adventures in faraway places with strange-sounding names, I knew I had a long journey ahead of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I start 2024, my globe trotting is almost done. There are only five countries I haven’t visited: Belarus, Libya, Iran, Yemen and the Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n\n\n

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I’ve postponed visiting these countries hoping that their visa requirements would be relaxed — but they haven’t been. So, in the coming months, I’ll need to arrange guides and tours, submit my passport to consulates, and (hopefully) be approved by immigration officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please follow this blog and wish me luck for my adventures. Meanwhile, I’ll maintain a world map of\u00a0the 180+ countries I’ve visited so far<\/a>. As always, feel free to share this travel blog with your friends and family. Send suggestions or questions by\u00a0email<\/a>\u00a0or post something in the comment section below each chapter. <\/p>\n\n\n

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In 2013 while lingering over a few beers in Havana, I set myself the goal of visiting every country in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-500","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","comments-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/500"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":60,"href":"https:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4681,"href":"https:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/500\/revisions\/4681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}