Howdy all. Welcome to this Monday, a Monday where clearly I was struggling to think of what I would share with you, dear reader, and so I decided that I might as well do it, finally. I am sharing the list of the places that I have, thus far in my life (and touch wood but you never know, this might be the final list. Who knows if we will ever be let out of Australia again!)

I am not big on counting countries. I swear! But you know it’s been a long time for me without international travel, and I wanted to share something today and I have always thought about writing a list, and so here it is.

My first ever overseas trip was in 1978. Yep. That’s right. A long time ago indeed. I don’t count it though – it was when I was three years old, and perhaps unsurprisingly, I don’t recall a single thing from it. Then came 1986, another family trip, I was 11 years old. All the countries I visited on this trip I have since revisited. Which is great because even for this one I again have poor memories. Better than 1978, obviously, but it’s all mostly a blur.

1999 was my first solo trip. Then 2000-01 I took a shorter trip. 2002 a University trip to Bangladesh. 2004 was 9 months on the road around the world including land from Bangladesh to Europe. 2006 West Africa. 2007 a mixture of the Baltics, UK and West Africa again, 2009 Ethiopia, Dubai and Jordan, 2011 was my last big trip ‘around the world’ as it were, the best part of a year. Since then there’s been a smattering of trips to different places. And so that’s how I have organised the list for you – according to the year and trip I first visited a place – barring 1978. I guess I am laying out my credentials. The story, in very very brief terms of my travel. 84 countries. Many I have returned to more than once – for example Japan more than half a dozen, India four times, Russia three for starters. Anyways. No competition. It’s nice to do but it’s not the be all and end all. Plenty out there have visited far more and some claim to have visited ‘every country in the world’.

*I think of Wales, England, Scotland & Northern Ireland (the last of which I haven’t visited) as separate countries, which according to many they are not (ie they are the United Kingdom). They all have separate national Football and Rugby teams, and Scotland has its own international cricket team. So I count them separately.

	Country	Year First Visited
1	Australia
2	Hong Kong	1986
3	Switzerland	1986
4	Germany	1986
5	Austria	1986
6	Italy	1986
7	France	1986
8	China	1986
9	Thailand	1999
10	India	1999
11	Denmark	1999
12	Russia	1999
13	Egypt	1999
14	Vatican City	1999
15	Belgium	1999
16	The Netherlands	1999
17	Czech Republic	1999
18	England	1999
19	Republic of Ireland	1999
20	Scotland	1999
21	Sweden	1999
22	Norway	1999
23	Iceland	1999
24	USA	1999
25	Canada	1999
26	Cambodia	2000
27	Wales	2000
28	Bangladesh	2002
29	Malaysia	2004
30	Singapore	2004
31	Pakistan	2004
32	Iran	2004
33	Turkey	2004
34	Bulgaria	2004
35	Romania	2004
36	Serbia	2004
37	Montenegro	2004
38	Croatia	2004
39	Bosnia-Herzegovina	2004
40	Slovenia	2004
41	Slovakia	2004
42	Poland	2004
43	Hungary	2004
44	Fiji	2004
45	Ghana	2006
46	Togo	2006
47	Benin	2006
48	Niger	2006
49	Burkina Faso	2006
50	Lithuania	2007
51	Latvia	2007
52	Estonia	2007
53	Finland	2007
54	Mali	2007
55	Senegal	2007
56	Morocco	2007
57	Jordan	2009
58	UAE	2009
59	Ethiopia	2009
60	Vietnam	2011
61	Laos	2011
62	Japan	2011
63	Kazakhstan	2011
64	Kyrgyzstan	2011
65	Uzbekistan	2011
66	Cameroon	2011
67	Georgia	2011
68	Indonesia	2012
71	Sri Lanka	2013
72	Myanmar	2015
73	New Zealand	2015
74	Ecuador	2016
75	Peru	2016
76	Bolivia	2016
76	Argentina	2016
77	Brazil	2016
78	Mongolia	2017
79	Tajikistan	2019
80	Turkmenistan	2019
81	Israel	2019
82	Belarus	2019
83	Spain	2019
84	Portugal	2019

Thanks for popping by today. May the Journey Never End!