Boldly Go Solo

I thought I was well traveled because I’ve been to four continents. Then I heard about Lynn Stephenson, 81. She has visited 515 places.

I say "places" because according to MostTraveledPeople.com,
to have been everywhere in the world, you have to have visited 673
countries, territories, autonomous regions, enclaves, geographically
separated island groups, and major states and provinces.

For instance, you can’t just have visited Angola. You have to have visited Cabinda Province as well. And, not just Spain, but also Ceuta and Melilla. The top guy on the site, Charles A Veley,
has 43 countries, territories, etc., left to go. He’s been to 630, many
of them thanks to his job as a software executive and his work on expanding the business into
new countries.

I think I may have visited 25 countries total. No
"autonomous regions" or "enclaves" that I know of. Pathetic. But only
relatively. Because I feel like I’ve been to a lot of places. Including
47 of the 50 U.S. states. Still, I’ve got my work cut out for me. Not
that visiting all the world is a goal at the moment.

Stephenson
started traveling at 22 and is ranked sixth of the people on the
most-traveled Web site. She travels by herself most of the time. After
all, how many people are you going to get to go with you to say,
Djibouti or Bouvet? (Bouvet is a remote island in the South Atlantic almost
totally covered by glaciers.) A lot of Americans still haven’t made it
to Canada. 

She says her destinations often are determined by
her curiosity. To see the Mounted Police in Canada, for instance. Or the
mountain gorillas of Central Africa.

Of course, travel is
about curiosity for most of us. I often travel on a whim. To Iceland after seeing a
magazine ad. To an Arizona ranch after reading a travel story. To
Thailand because friends talked about it. To Venezuela because a
boyfriend found cheap flights.

I’ve probably set out alone on more than half of my
trips and only felt lonely on a handful. And, some of those were when I
was with someone else.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Christian Fischer