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On the Road Again: Next Stop, Republic of Congo

Greetings, friends and readers. For the past few months I've been confined to a short leash. I visited twenty cities in North America for the first leg of The $100 Startup tour, and I managed to hop over to London for the U.K. launch as well. Last week, I also went on a post-WDS vacation to Alaska. Aside from those trips, however, I've been homebound and my passport has been sorely underused. I'm now heading back out to see the world, with only eight countries remaining ...

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How to Go Everywhere

“I haven't been everywhere yet, but it's on my list.” - Susan Sontag

Over the past seven years, I've been traveling to everywhere: all 193 countries, and plenty of other places along the way. The journey has been even more amazing than I expected. Over the next couple of months I'll be on book tour in the U.S. and Canada, and I'm actually glad to be taking a break from seeing the world ... because I'm not ready for it to end.

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Getting to Ashgabat

I often think in airport codes, and I know at least a couple hundred of them by memory. Name an airport, even a fairly obscure one, and there's a good chance I know its shorthand.

But even I was stumped when it came to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Until a few years ago when I had racked up my first hundred countries, I wasn't even sure where Turkmenistan was.

Answers: Turkmenistan is in Central Asia, bordered by Iran, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and the Caspian Sea. The airport code is ASB, for the two people out there who are curious.

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Runway Running

When I boarded the flight to Nauru, I felt like I was going into exile. The airline that flies to Nauru is called “Our Airline,” which could go down as the most comical airline name I've ever heard. (Runner up: "Jubbah Airways" in Somalia.) I had previously been informed by my visa service that no visa is required to visit Nauru. Unfortunately, that fact turned out to be untrue—pretty much everyone going to Nauru needs a visa. After an earlier failure, I regrouped and made another attempt last week. This time, the visit was successful.

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Range of Motion: Getting to Tajikistan

After a product launch and a few frantic days copyediting a book manuscript, I got on a plane and left to see the world. It began with a 4:30am alarm and a taxi to the airport. I hopped the early Alaska Air flight down to LAX, took an afternoon American Airlines departure to Kennedy, and another late-night AA flight to Barcelona. Non-stop travel with a lot of stops. In BCN I wandered the empty concourse at 5:45am. Boarding to Madrid was an hour later, but I had to switch to the Euro zone flight area, which means going through immigration and getting an entry stamp.

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Adventures in Somaliland

On my last trip, I made it to a country I'd been wondering about ever since beginning my quest more than five years ago: Somalia. Technically, I went to Somaliland, also known as the safe part of Somalia. Somalia itself is a mess, arguably the world's most dangerous country, and with hardly a functioning government of any kind. (One of its recent prime ministers now works at the New York State Department of Transportation.)

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The Havana Half-Marathon: Adventures on a Small Island

Last weekend, I finally made it to Cuba! It was a significant trip for me, since Cuba was my final country in all of the Americas. I now have only 19 total countries remaining, and this was an especially fun one. During my time on the island, I ran a half-marathon with a friend, spent another couple days walking around Havana, and made sure to sample mojitos from as many restaurants as possible. Keep reading for the full report ...

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Strange Places

I went to Ethiopia and was driven around on an afternoon city tour. “The streets are so bad here,” my guide said. “And the traffic in Addis is terrible!”

I looked out the window. Sure, it wasn't Scandinavia, but I'd seen far worse. “You should visit Liberia,” I said. “This looks pretty good to me.”

Over two weeks of travel, I flew a series of random airlines: Royal Air Maroc, Ethiopian, and Aeroflot. It was my first time on Aeroflot, and I'd heard plenty of horror stories. “You're flying Aeroflop?” someone asked. “The safety card in the seat pocket has a warning about not bringing goats on board.”

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The Sense of Loss in a Big Adventure

An unexpected thing happened on the streets of Seoul, Korea. I’ve been to Seoul several times, and don’t really feel anything special about it. It’s not a bad place in any way, and perhaps I’d like it more if I spent more time there. I just don’t think of Seoul in a special way, as…

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Detour to Australia

It was all going so well. I had made it to three island countries in the Pacific: Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau. All of them were interesting in their own way, if a bit small. OK, small isn’t the word: they were tiny. There is literally one road in Majuru, the capital of the Marshall…

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The Feeling of Landing on a Remote Airstrip

You appreciate the big cities. Tokyo, Hong Kong, London—all of these you visit often and love well. But sometimes, your adventures take you further afield. You fly to a big city, then to a smaller city, and eventually on to an airstrip that could be anywhere. Stepping off the rickety commuter-jet stairs into the void, you're tempted to shout in expectation of an echo.

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