After 23 years of travel I've got 51 countries with my name on them, and I've decided that number doesn't matter to me anymore. Here's what I'm chasing instead.
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CHAPTERS 00:00 Forget every country 01:14 Chasing every state instead 03:07 Why the scoreboard lies 03:53 Every state of Brazil 05:14 Depth instead of ticks 06:19 Do you need to be rich? 06:48 USA, South Korea & Indonesia 07:37 Mexico, state by state 08:14 Why I'm doing this now 08:58 What's next
For most of those 23 years I measured travel the way everyone does, by the number of countries. Then I caught myself visiting tiny, easy places just to push the number up, and scratching huge land masses off a map because I'd seen one city. So I'm done counting.
The new plan is far bigger and far slower: every state, province and region in the world. Roughly 3,000 of them. I'll never finish, and that's the point, since it's motivating me for a much deeper and authentic style of travel. This is the story of why depth beats the scoreboard, with receipts. Every state of Brazil reached overland, the whole contiguous US, all provinces of South Korea, all major western islands of Indonesia, and Mexico state by state right now.
It also kicks off a new series on how I actually live this way after 23 years on the road: packing my whole life into one bag, finding real friends fast in a brand-new city, and the honest, unglamorous side nobody films. Subscribe if that's your kind of travel.
Find me between my Youtube video uploads: Travel: https://www.instagram.com/irishpolyglot/ Language learning: https://www.instagram.com/languagehacking/ Spanish: https://www.instagram.com/irlandesastre/ Portuguese: https://www.instagram.com/brasirlandes/ Irish: https://www.instagram.com/ilteangach/ Italian: https://www.instagram.com/irlandesiano/ (and there are a bunch more)