The other day I read a story about a United Airline employee who recently completed his goal of visiting every country in the world, and he isn’t a flight attendant, he’s a ground crew member.

He started his quest to visit every country in the world seven years ago after he had already visited 100 countries by the age of 41. That said, he still managed to visit the remaining 95 countries in the past seven years. That’s more than 13 countries a year during a period when the pandemic made travel nearly impossible for two of those seven years. Oh, and he also recently visited Antarctica which means he’s also visited every continent in the world.

Depending on which source you believe anywhere between 250 and 300 people have been to all 193 UN recognized countries in the world along with the two observer states – Vatican City and Palestine.

The youngest person in the world to travel to all 195 countries is American Lexi Alford, who accomplished the feat before her 22 birthday.

James Asquith, 24 from Britain is credited for being the youngest person to explore every country in the world, meaning he spent more than 48 hours in each country.

He completed the journey over a period of five years and spent a whopping $200,000 to achieve his dream.

Now, I love to travel, especially since I got my Aeroplan card, but to visit all 195 countries in the world would take a minimum of 25-30 years, assuming you could visit an average of six to eight countries a year.

I will turn 62 this year and I’ve only been to 10 countries so far – the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Bosnia, the U.S., Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala and, of course, Canada, which means I still have 185 countries to go in order to join the “Every Country in the World Club”.

Even if I managed to visit 10 countries a year, it would still take me 18 years to complete the list, not to mention a few million Aeroplan points.

The idea of visiting every country in the world is mindboggling. For many countries, you really need to make an effort like Andorra, which is a tiny country in the middle of the Pyrenees, and Lichtenstein, which is in the middle of nowhere.

Then again, you can probably visit every country in Europe in a camper van in a couple of months. Africa is a little more problematic, especially with countries like Eritrea, where you apparently need to be invited by a local resident, and Libya, which is in a never-ending state of chaos.

A number of other African countries are in a state of conflict with extremists fighting within their borders.

Central and South America wouldn’t be too difficult, nor would the Caribbean if you took a few cruises around the island.

The Middle East is a different story. I’m not sure there are too many travel agencies with itineraries that include Yemen, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Finally, you would need to win the lottery to visit tiny island countries in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific like the Seychelles, the Maldives, Nauru, Samoa, Vanuatu and Tahiti. You have to really make an effort to visit Nauru, which is located halfway between the Marshall Islands and the Soloman Islands. It’s also the third smallest country in the world at just 8.1 square miles. Only Vatican City and Monaco are smaller.

And I haven’t even mentioned tiny land-locked countries like Bhutan, or severely isolated countries like Mongolia, Myanmar, North Korea and French Guinea.

For now I will stick to my own little bucket list which continues to grow with each country I visit.

I absolutely have to visit Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. I’ve been invited to visit friends in Argentina and Chile. I also want to see at least five of the seven Wonders of the World which will require trips to India, Egypt, Jordan and Peru.

I would love to rent a camper van and drive around Europe for a summer or two. I want to circumnavigate the Mediterranean from Spain all the way around and back to Portugal and visit New Zealand and Australia, where a friend says she will rent me her camper van there. That’s a quite a bucket list. I may not get to all of them before my age catches up to me, but I plan to get to as many as I possible can.

(If you wish to comment on this or any other View Point column please write to Fred Sherwin at fsherwin@orleansstar.ca)