I've decided to let the Englishman my husband Matthew take over the blog again today!
He had so much fun last time and really loved all of your responses.
I almost had him convinced to start his own travel blog,
but with a job change and finishing his next novel he just doesn't have the time.
I hope you don't mind if he tries out his writing chops here every so often.
Thanks for all your kind comments to my last guest post. They inspired me to write another!
I mentioned I’d been to 104 countries, as defined by the Travellers Century Club. I also said that the club had a rather liberal view on the definition of a country, which it defines as a place that is geographically or culturally distinct. So Alaska and Hawaii count separately from the USA (which brings me down to 102 countries…). Crete counts as well as Greece (101…). The Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands are distinct from Spain (99…). Sicily is distinct from Italy (98…). Prince Edward Island is distinct from Canada (which is fairly silly, considering Newfoundland isn’t. 97…)
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| I'm not in Kansas anymore. This is Alaska. |
These liberal rules are designed to make it easier for people to qualify for the club, which is something the TCC openly admits on their website. But the club is onto something. Some countries bring together very diverse regions under one flag. Russia is one country, but Vladivostok is very distinct from Moscow (as well as being 5,684 miles away!).
So I lose more “countries”, even though they are interesting and distinct places in their own right. The 7 emirates in the United Arab Emirates count separately, so having been to Abu Dhabi and Dubai I lose another one (96…). Bali counts separately from Indonesia (95…). The Asian and European parts of Turkey count separately (94…) Sabah is distinct from Malaysia (93…).
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| One of Sabah's residents. |
You might think that the United Nations membership list is a better, more definitive list. There are 193 members of the United Nations, of which I’ve visited 78. Not bad… But did you know that the United Nations excludes “countries” like Taiwan, Vatican City, the Cook Islands and the Cayman Islands, all of which are surely distinct enough to count as countries? Which would bring me up to 82.
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| The Cayman Islands were quite nice. Felt like a country to me! |
The United Nations also excludes territories which are self-governing, but aren’t fully independent. Territories such as Gibraltar, Jersey, Hong Kong, Macau, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Aruba and Curacao. Which would bring me up to 91.
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| Did you know Puerto Rico recently voted to pursue Statehood? They'll have to squeeze another star on the Stars & Stripes! |
And how about the Island I live on? Should you count just the United Kingdom (as the UN does), or should I count England, Scotland and Wales as separate countries? I do, which brings me back to 93!
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| Wales? Or Scotland? Or New Zealand? |
I wouldn’t want you to feel that I was overanalysing this whole country count thing! I am an accountant, after all, and I do have a spread sheet which tracks this all. It also tells me that I’ve taken 532 flights in my life, covering 972,650 miles. But I’ll save that for another post!
Have I mentioned that I'm married to a mathematical savant?
You can imagine how much fun shopping is with the human calculator. ::sarcasm face::
Thanks for the guest post, Darling!!
Do you have spreadsheets, too?
If you do, will you admit it?
