Reaching 50 Countries Taught Me the Number Never Mattered

The obsession started in adolescence. As a teenager, the writer's first Amazon purchase was a set of 50 mini flags, studied one by one. Quiz websites like Sporcle became a way to memorize country capitals and populations instead of completing school math. By age 14, a first major travel goal had already taken shape: visit every country in Europe. A trip to Greece, Italy, and France that same year confirmed the appeal.

Seven years passed before Europe came back into the picture. At 21 and in college, trips to Paris, Amsterdam, and Barcelona revived the earlier fixation. From then on, every school break became an opportunity to travel, with tightly packed itineraries designed to cover as much ground as possible in one or two weeks.

Racing Through Countries, Collecting Stamps

A June 2019 trip still stands out for its intensity: Greece, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, and Germany in 10 days with a friend. There was not enough time to visit the Acropolis in Athens. Each destination received fewer than 48 hours, with more time spent in Split's airport than in the city itself. At one point, a two-hour layover in Keflavik was briefly considered a visit to Iceland. Capital cities, main attractions, and the next flight — that was the rhythm.

Social media reinforced this approach. Seeing country counts listed in people's bios strengthened the urge to keep score and use a rising number as evidence of being well-traveled. Practical constraints also played a role: as a college student and later a full-time employee, available time was simply limited.

A Longer Trip, A Different Pace

That changed at the end of 2023, when a layoff prompted a decision to spend most of 2024 traveling across Asia and Australia. With those time constraints gone, slow travel became possible. Over eight months, the usual approach was to stay around three weeks in each place, sometimes more. The longer the stay, the more it felt like genuine travel — learning local history and customs, exploring lesser-known areas, and observing everyday life rather than ticking off landmarks.

In Malaysian Borneo, three days on the Kinabatangan River offered sightings of orangutans, crocodiles, and native birds deep in the jungle. A sailing trip through the Komodo Islands in eastern Indonesia followed, along with earning an advanced diving certification on Gili Air, a small tropical island near Lombok. Two months across Indonesia revealed how much a single country could vary — from Java to Flores, each island had its own dialect, religious traditions, crafts, and local food.

Returns Matter as Much as New Arrivals

That experience shifted how already-visited countries were seen — no longer as places that had been "done." The destinations known best are the ones returned to repeatedly, and each visit still yields something new. Italy, first visited at 14, became a temporary home a decade later. A trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the summer of 2025 led to establishing Sarajevo as a current home base. Neither of those returns added to the country count, but both brought meaningful relationships, new perspectives, language skills, and a deeper connection to each place.

Trips are now planned to begin or end in a familiar location. The goal to visit every country in Europe remains, with 12 still on the list. Adding a new country to the Been app still brings satisfaction, and milestones still feel worthwhile. The difference is that the number has become something to track rather than something to chase.