100 COUNTRIES BEFORE I DIE....

I've set myself a ridiculous mission. If you live in corporate land, you might say it's a "stretch goal."

There are 196 countries in the world. I'm trying to get to 100 countries before I kick the bucket.  If I make 50 or 60, that's fine too.

I love travelling. I work to save money to travel. If I don't travel, I feel like I die a little bit. And turn to carbs. There's one rule - I had to have been outside of the airport and experienced the place.

One of the big draw cards for living in London (besides my British boyfriend and awesome job), was because of it's proximity to other places in Europe and the rest of the world. London is a handy little springboard to other destinations.

Hopefully my travel stories can inspire you to put on a backpack and shoot the breeze around other areas of the world.

My posts in each place are below (Those without links/stories means I travelled there before I started writing a blog).

 
   
             

• Create your own travel map.
 

1) South Africa (I come from South Africa, so these posts are strictly with travelling shoes on)

• My first trip back to SA after 18 months of living in the UK - Capey holiday
• Stepping back into Johannesburg - wide eyed and warm
• The ultimate Lydenberg survival kit - here.
• Mampoer festival as an undercover Brit - here.
• Deceptively named places not to travel to in South Africa. Ever.

2) Swaziland
3) Lesotho
4) Mozambique

• December 2005/6 - a two week camping pilgrimage - here!
• Choppered to Benguerra Island - here!

5) Tanzania

• 30 things about Zanzibar - here!
• Zanzi beach - here!
  

6) Kenya

• Headbutted by a giraffe called Daisy in Nairobi - here!
• When I got stuck in a lift in a ten story building  - here!

7) Seychelles

• Family reunion in paradise - here!
• Creole and honeymooning neighbours - here!

8) Tunisia

• Navigating Tunisia after the Arab Spring - here.
• The world's fourth holiest place - here!

9) Austria

• Austrian Christmas markets and stuff - here!
• Then, when we got stuck in Vienna. Snowed in the airport.

10) Spain

• Madrid - Spain's authentic and graceful capital in a long weekend - here!
• Skiing in the Pyrenees and Catalonia
• Mallorca - island paradise here!

11) Portugal 

•  Peri peri prawns on the Algarve, here!
• Cityscaping with a baby in Lisbon, here!

12) Andorra

• Buyer's regret in Andorra. Wear sunglasses before you open this page.
  

13) France

•  My gap yah. I lived in a tiny village, looked after a clutch of children. Here!
• Meant-to-be-Romantic Paris (but not). My first...no my 'first'. In Paris.
• Banterous Paris and TGVing across the country, here!
• Romantic Paris, here!
• Fuck ups in the French Riviera, here!
• Skiing with strangers in the Alps - here!

14) Ireland

•  Northern Ireland, The Troubles and Belfast
• Roadtrip across Ireland (Dublin, Galway, County Kerry) - here!
• Dublin...with Irish people (relevant) - here!
• Cockles and mussels..with more Irish people - here!
• Get Stuffed. Here.

15) United Kingdom (I live here, but still discovering...)

• Like when I had to go to Staines. And Scunthorpe.
• Or when I went to find Jack The Ripper in East London 
• My first year in London
• Cream teas & yellow stone in the Cotswolds
• Where my Brit is from - The New Forest, Hampshire
• Crazy girls holiday in Guernsey - Good Lord.
• The thing about pub carpets.
• South Africans in London - howzit.
• Tropical viruses in North Devon - here!
• Wales & The Welsh (best accent evah) - here!
• Camping in Somerset - the angst.

16) Belgium

• Paedophiles, lace & chocolate, here!
• Belgian pilgrimage  - here!
• In Bruges - not the movie - here!

17) Netherlands 

•  When I was 10, then when I was 24, 28 and 31.  Each with same outcome.

18) Luxembourg
19) Switzerland 

• On time, every time: Geneva and Zurich.

20) Italy

• My British boyfriend and I rendez-vous in Rome, while in a long-distance relationship.
• Carbs find me in Venice. Here!

21) Monaco
22) Vatican City

• Rome & The Vatican revisited, here! 
  

23) Germany

• Cologne in Cologne, here!
• Berlin with my best mate - Hasselhof, food, walls and boot-shaped beer glasses.
• Hamburg and bullet train journeys - here!
  

24) Poland

• Krakow, Nowa Huta & Auschwitz...With a bit of Hungary, Slovakia thrown in - here.

25) Denmark

• Copenhagen wonderfulness - here!

26) Norway

• Moose heads, ski jumps & the most expensive city in Europe: Oslo.

27) Sweden

• Ice bars and blond people called Sven - Stockholm!

28) Czech Republic

• When I drove around the eastern Bloc states with my mother in a Skoda - here!

29) Slovakia

• the first time I went to Slovakia (Bratislava) - here!
• And here too.
• Roadtrip through rural Slovakia - here!
  

30) Hungary

• Budapest and some random town called Vacs..with Poland thrown in.

31) Estonia 

•  Cathedrals and Communism, here!
• Karaoke in fake Helsinki & Soviet bars - here!

32) Latvia 

• Wild nights out and I heart Latvia t-shirts, here! And here!

33) Lithuania 

• Human didgeridoos and folklore, here!
• Separatist state of Uzipis - here!
• Raving in Lithuania - here!
• Mystical city of Vilnius - here!

34) Greece

• Corfu craziness
• Parthenons and ouzo in Athens!
• Rhodes - here! & here!

35) Turkey 

• Terraces and mosques in Istanbul - here!
• Too much Raki on the Bosphorus - here!
  

36) Israel

• Bomb detectors and wailing walls, here!
• Israelite party - here!
• The trip from hell. Right here.

37) Thailand

• Banging one's Kok, here!
• Paradise & beaches on Phi Phi, Koh Samui, Koh Phangan, Koh Tai.

38) Malaysia

• Kuala Lumpur
• Borneo - our honeymoon - the rainforest - here! 
• Borneo - our honeymoon - Gaya Island - here!

39) Vietnam

• Eating a dogburger in Hanoi  - here!
• Sweating in Saigon- here!
• Joining a hippie colony in the jungle - here!
• Crazy boat parties in Halong Bay (we didn't sink, but it was close)

40) New Zealand
41) Canada
42) United States

• When I worked in a supermarket in Colorado - for realz
• My first taste of San Francisco, here!
• Cookie cutter California - San Diego, here!
• Silicon Valley on the day Steve iJobs died.
• Alcatraz - Al Capone's home for a while
• Big Gay Weekend in Castro, San Francisco - here!
• LA and Santa Monica - here!

43) Mexico

• From Mexico City to Cancun to Tulum - all here!

44) Argentina

•  Travelling to Argentina...with my eccentric father, here!
• More Buenos Aires. Here! 
• Sharing dorms, here!

45) Brazil (Rio is one of my favourite cities evah)

• A dude got lost in a slum, and lived to tell the tale. 
• Arriving and surviving in one of the world's most dangerous cities - here!
• Tijuca Forest & The Corcovado - here

 46) Japan (Where I was made an honest woman of!)

• Sushi and all things edible - here!
• Neon jungle of Tokyo - here! [In my top cities list as of 2012]
• Zen, gardens and temples in Kyoto - here!
• Shinkansen: the world's coolest bullet train - here!
• And just for fun: proposed to in Kyoto, the story and setting.

47) Malta

• "The most Mediterranean place on Earth" - true story - here!

48) Singapore

49) Finland

• The most terrifying country I've visited - Helsinki here!

50) Romania

• A long weekend navigating the achingly cool and the Ceasescu - here!

Additional travel posts:

• My top cities - as of 2010 - here.

• "Why I am here again?" - Places not in the Lonely Planet.

• There's an Irish pub in every city. Trust me.

• Fifteen countries in one year  - photos here!

• Worst airports in the world - here!

• That old chestnut - The Schengen Visa and Saffa passports.... 

• Extreme tourism - Atomic Safaris 

• How to deal with areoplanes and airports - here!

Keen traveller, or travelling and trying to be keen?

Drop me a line, I would love to hear from you. Also happy to hand out [free!] advice on any of the destinations above.