Greetings! We are George and Sarie Beckett. We started our travels together in 2003 with a trip to Ireland and took a few other trips along the way until 2018 when we set a goal to see 100 different countries together. Do not ask us how we settled on 100, I think it just seemed like a good round number! There being 193 total countries at that moment, I think we just wanted to be able to say we had seen at least half the world before we pass on to our heavenly home. We were both 62 years old at the time and had visited 16-17 countries by then, so it seemed it was still within reach.
At 62 we were not young people with plenty of runway ahead of us. Sarie battles Multiple Sclerosis on daily basis and because of that we also knew that perhaps our runway might be even shorter than other couples so we planned out our world travels to do it all by the time we were 70 -daunting task! We knew we were not going to be able to take our time and spend weeks and weeks on the road, not to mention the cost. Still we wanted to see as much of the earth as we could and get a taste for as many of the various cultures across the globe as possible.
To make our goal, we will need to visit more than 10 countries each year. Since I am still working it means taking two fairly large trips a year, at least one of them needs to be a cruise as long travel days by car and foot are not possible for us anymore. Luckily, my job has allowed us to pick up air miles, hotel nights, and rental car days on a regular basis so that has helped tremendously with the costs along the way. We also leverage our credit card purchases for points which together with my domestic travel has allowed us to off set much of our travel expenses.
So how are we doing it all? The USA, Canada and Mexico are pretty easy. There are actually an additional 13 island countries in the Caribbean you can visit on cruises from the State of Florida, counting the 7 Central American countries (We are taking a Panama Canal cruise to hit many of these) you are up to 23 pretty quickly without going too far from home. The Caribbean also holds another 12 overseas territories of other nations which are also all fun to visit. Finally, with a Eurail Pass and a couple of cruises you can cover a lot of countries in Europe pretty quick and many of micro-state countries (Andorra, Luxembourg, San Marino, Monaco, Vatican City, Liechtenstein) you can visit in a single afternoon! Adding another 30 countries in Europe gets you over half-way there and you have only been to two continents!
Many countries in the world are not safe and have advisories which warn against travel to them. Others are just plain very expensive just to get to such as all the south pacific island countries. In the end, we did have some challenge finalizing our list of 100 out of 193 sovereign nations we plan to visit but are pretty satisfied with what we have come up with. Some countries we have spent a lot of time in, others were just a day’s excursion off a cruise boat. Still, already we have managed to see some fantastic sites all across the globe, have made friends everywhere we went and managed to explore cultures, food, and life as we have never could have imagined.
We are now up to 32 countries and still have a long way to go but both agree we want to encourage our friends, neighbors and family to plan now, take baby steps along the way but plan to see the world! Don’t wait until you are in your 60’s to start… life is too short and too unpredictable. Covid-19 stole almost a year from us and other priorities have slowed us down at times. If we had to do it over, we would have started much earlier in life!
Best Wishes,
George and Sarie Beckett