I am a passionate traveler, hiker and runner!
I have visited every country in the world (defined as the 193 UN member nations plus Taiwan, Kosovo, Palestine and the Vatican = 197)! I am not sure how many people have visited every country in the world (Nomadmania probably had the best estimate*), but I suspect I am the first kiwi woman to do so, and possibly the first Maori.
Why?
I made my first overseas trip from my native New Zealand when I was 14, visiting neighbouring Australia to play football. I loved it!
At the earliest opportunity I spent my available university student loan funds on travelling around Europe. I drank my body weight in cheap liquor, stayed in some truly dodgy hostels and made lots of friends. The backpacking was addictive and I met my hubby on a bus in Peru when I was travelling overland from NZ to Chicago to start my MBA. In my twenties and thirties, as a management consultant, I was lucky enough to live and work all over the world – working with retailers in France, the UK, Denmark, Czech, Australia, Argentina and China, and consumer goods companies in South Africa, Colombia, the Netherlands and the US.
My ambition really ramped up in 2010 when I started working for myself and realised I had already visited 35% of the world, so why not really go for it. Since then, I have been extremely opportunistic at finding opportunities to visit new countries while working, so it might be a side trip to Uruguay when I am in Sao Paolo on business, or an indirect flight back to London from Miami via Jamaica. I also took the long way home every time I went to NZ, and am an expert at finding unusual flight connections (my favourite so far was constructing a London to Auckland itinerary via Brunei, East Timor, Nauru, Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati and Tonga!).
My lovely hubby comes on nice trips to visit places we are both excited about – eating in Japan or hiking in the US National parks. Very occasionally I am blessed with a friend joining me on a voyage (thanks Tamara for meeting me in Ethiopia, Rob for coming to Uzbekistan and Lena to North Korea) but mostly I am happy travelling solo. .