Actually, we just built this website for ourselves so we could keep track of all our travel photos. Enough people have asked about it that we decided to share some of our adventures. We started our travels together in 2003 with a trip to Ireland and took a few other trips along the way until 2019 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 passed 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 sort of 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 … a 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. We settled on a low bar – we needed to either spend the night or have a meal in a country to be able to count it on our list- and airport layovers did not count! Still, we wanted to see as much of the earth as we could and at least get a taste for as many of the various cultures there are around the world as possible.
Luckily, my job had allowed us to pick up lots of air miles, hotel nights, and rental car days over the years so that has helped tremendously with the costs along the way. We also leverage our credit card purchases for points which together with my working life travel perks has allowed us to offset much of our travel expenses.
So how are we going about this? The USA, Canada and Mexico are easy first targets. There are an additional 13 island countries in the Caribbean you can visit on cruises from the U.S. and counting the 7 Central American countries, you are up to 23 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 train pass and a couple of cruises you can cover a lot of countries in Europe quickly and many of micro-state countries (Andorra, Luxembourg, San Marino, Monaco, Vatican City, Liechtenstein) you can visit in a single afternoon! Adding another 40+ countries in Europe gets you well over half-way there and you have only been to two continents! One tip we can pass along is when you make it to a faraway corner of the world, be sure to make it a point to visit ALL the countries in that region- don’t think one day you will return and see that one country you missed!
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 many of the south pacific island countries. In the end, it was a bit of a challenge but we did finalizing our list of 100 out of 193 sovereign nations we plan to visit and are 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 in places that that we could never have imagined.
We are now up to 67 countries and 17 overseas territories. We have just turned 70 so we are behind schedule and truthfully are slowing down with age. We still have a way to go but both agree we want to encourage our family, friends, and neighbors to plan now, take baby steps along the way, but do 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 2 years from us and other priorities have also slowed us down at times. We missed cruise ports due to weather, had sprained ankles and sciatica nerve issues along the way. You never know what might happen. We even lost all the digital pictures we had taken on a grand European trip in 2004! If we had to do it over, we would have started much earlier in life! So start early but go for it! Stop by our web site often and track our progress!
Best Wishes,
George and Sarie Beckett