Monday, April 20, 2009

Frequent Flier - A Plan to See Every Country on Earth by the Age of 35 -

I HAD my first international travel experience when I was 6 years old. My mom took me to the Philippines, and I wound up living there for two years.
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Marius Prinsloo

Chris Guillebeau, founder of artofnonconformity.com, a social media Web site, has made it his mission to visit every country in the world by the time he is 35. But it’s getting harder.
Related
Q. & A. with Chris Guillebeau (April 21, 2009)

Then, when I was 22, I went to Africa as an aid worker for an international charity group. I was traveling a lot between Africa and Europe. I remember being on a train and having this mad thought that I should visit 100 countries before I was 30 years old.

I did the math. And according to my calculations, it would cost about the same as buying a new sport utility vehicle, about $30,000. A lot of my friends were buying S.U.V.’s, but it just didn’t appeal to me. I wanted to spend my money learning about new cultures in places like Burma, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Lesotho and the Balkans, places I never thought I would see.

I began my 100-country countdown in 2006, and finished it in 2008.

But a strange thing happened. At about country No. 50, I had another eureka moment: “Why stop at 100?” I’m 30 years old now, and my new goal is to visit each country on this planet before I’m 35 years old. Some of my friends think I’m nuts.

One of the problems is that I am running out of places with easy access. It’s not like every country is an Italy or a Mexico. Soon, I’m going to have to start making arrangements to get to Chad, the South Pacific and central Asia.

I used to earn 200,000 bonus miles a year because of my business spending, but since I’ve become self-employed, those days are over.

I recently was approved for 13 credit cards, all of which offered mileage bonuses of at least 20,000 miles. So that’s going to be a big help. I keep waiting for an airline alliance to call, but until then I have no sponsors and pay for all my own expenses. The money comes from products I sell on my Web site and some limited business consulting. I recently received an advance from the publisher for my first book. I also have half a million frequent-flier miles from before, which I’m steadily going through.

I’m a good traveler, but things do go wrong.

Last summer, I was camped out in Hong Kong and decided to make a quick trip to Karachi. I didn’t have the paperwork ready, but I figured I would go for it. I put on the only nice shirt I had, and talked my way onto the plane.

In Karachi, the immigration officials were concerned that I didn’t have a visa or an invitation. I spent more than an hour in the office of a Pakistani supervisor, who told me he was arranging to send me back on the same Cathay Pacific plane I had arrived on.

So I did what any traveler would do: I begged and paid $150 for what the official called a United States visa-on-arrival paper. Supposedly, it was the first one they had given out to someone without a business sponsor in the last 28 years. I guess I believe them.

When I was in Mongolia, some other foreigner with more money than me got my guesthouse room. Unfortunately, I was already in it. Apparently, this guy flashed a lot of cash and the manager decided to throw me out on the street in the dead of night.

When I first started traveling, I always believed flying first class was the way to go. Now that I’m upgraded to first class on most domestic flights, I’ve become a little jaded. First class isn’t that great on domestic hauls.

So before I fly domestic, I sometimes offer to trade boarding passes with someone at the gate who is in coach. People are usually ecstatic to sit up front, and I know I’m not missing out on anything too exciting.

There’s no way I would trade my upgrade on a long-haul international flight, though. I may be a former aid worker, but I’m not a saint.

By Chris Guillebeau, as told to Joan Raymond. E-mail:
joan.raymond@nytimes.com

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