{"id":500,"date":"2020-02-15T10:42:15","date_gmt":"2020-02-15T10:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zoa.com\/2025\/?page_id=500"},"modified":"2025-03-23T10:30:14","modified_gmt":"2025-03-23T10:30:14","slug":"intro","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/zoa.com\/2025\/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<\/em> journey ahead of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although my globe trotting is almost done, I’m slowing down. In 2024, I visited only three new UN countries: The Republic of Congo<\/a>, Libya<\/a> and Yemen<\/a>. Now, there are only two countries I haven’t visited: Belarus and Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n

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I’ve postponed visiting these countries because of wars and politics. I’m not sure that 2025 is the best year for an American to visit Belarus or Iran. When situations in the Middle East and Ukraine improve, I will submit my passport to consulates to arrange my visas, 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 191 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:\/\/zoa.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoa.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoa.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoa.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zoa.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":66,"href":"https:\/\/zoa.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5667,"href":"https:\/\/zoa.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/500\/revisions\/5667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zoa.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}