Earlier this year, as I set foot in country number 50, I expected the milestone to feel significant. Instead, I realized how little the number actually meant.
As a teenager, I became obsessed with seeing the world. My first purchase on Amazon was a set of 50 mini flags to study each day. I turned to quiz websites like Sporcle to learn country capitals and populations when I should have been solving math equations for school.
At 14, I’d already developed my first major travel goal: visit every country in Europe. Later that year, after a trip to Greece, Italy, and France, I was every bit as enamored with Europe as I’d imagined I’d be.
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t visit again for seven whole years. By then, I was 21, in college, and finally had the freedom to start traveling on my own. Visiting Paris, Amsterdam, and Barcelona reignited the obsession I’d developed years earlier.
I began traveling during every school break
These trips were far from relaxing. I planned jam-packed itineraries to see as much as I could within a one- or two-week window. There was one trip in particular that still makes me anxious to think about. In June of 2019, my friend and I crammed Greece, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, and Germany into 10 days. We didn’t have time to visit the Acropolis in Athens.
We spent less than 48 hours in each place and were constantly rushing to catch the next flight. After checking off the main attractions, there was little time to experience the culture and history of each place. I remember spending more time in Split’s airport than I did exploring the city.
It went like this for my first year of traveling. At most, I would spend three days in each country, sticking mostly to capital cities. At one point, I tried to justify a two-hour layover in Keflavik as a trip to Iceland.
Social media made travel feel like a competition
Seeing people list the number of countries they’d visited in their bios reinforced my own urge to keep score. Looking back, I was using my number in much the same way: as proof that I was well-traveled.
At the same time, part of my rushed travel style stemmed from necessity. Between being a busy college student and later a full-time employee, I only had so much time to travel.
But when I was laid off at the end of 2023 and decided to spend most of 2024 traveling in Asia and Australia, those time parameters became obsolete.
I was able to prioritize slow travel instead of seeing how many countries I could squeeze into a week or two. On that eight-month trip, I generally spent three weeks in each place, sometimes longer.
The longer I stayed, the more I felt like I was actually traveling. Instead of only crossing off must-see attractions, I actually had the time to learn local history and customs, visit lesser-known areas, and experience everyday life. In the end, I felt a deeper appreciation for the countries I traveled through slowly than the ones I raced through.
Staying longer made room for experiences that would have never fit into my early itineraries. In Malaysian Borneo, I spent three days exploring the Kinabatangan River deep in the jungle, observing orangutans, crocodiles, and native birds along the way.
I took a sailing trip through the Komodo Islands in eastern Indonesia and earned my advanced diving certification on Gili Air, a small tropical island near Lombok. Those two months I spent traveling across Indonesia showed me how culturally and geographically diverse a single country could be. From Java to Flores, each island I visited had its own dialect, religious traditions, crafts, and local delicacies.
It’s not just about the numbers
I stopped viewing the countries I had already visited as places I’d “done.”
The destinations I know best are the ones I’ve returned to over and over again, and I still discover something new with each visit. I first traveled to Italy at 14 and returned to live there 10 years later. A trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the summer of 2025 led me to establish Sarajevo as my current home base.
Those returns didn’t increase my country count. Still, they have given me things that a number could never reflect — meaningful relationships, new perspectives, language skills, and a genuine connection to each place.
Nowadays, I like planning my trips so I begin or end in a familiar location. I’m always just as excited to return to the places I love as I am to visit somewhere new. There’s always comfort in being back in a place where I know my way around, have friends and favorite spots, and can pick up where I left off.
I haven’t completely stopped counting.
My goal to visit every country in Europe is still alive and well — there are 12 left on my bucket list. Admittedly, I still get satisfaction from adding a new country to my Been app, and every milestone is still exciting. The biggest difference is that the number is now something I track instead of something I chase.
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