Would you risk it all to get ‘every passport stamp’?

Honestly, I consider myself a bit of a “Billy Big Baws” when it comes to being well travelled. I’ve racked up 65 countries – yes, pathetically, I have been counting – living in many of them. Over a pint I can offer good recommendations for a bookshop in Istanbul, the juiciest bahn mi in Hanoi or the best herbal sauna in Vientiane.

So, when I discovered there was a Facebook group called, ‘Every Passport Stamp’, I thought I'd enjoy the cyber-equivalent of sharing tall tales over a beer in the hostel kitchen. Except, members of this group, who aim to visit every country in the world - no matter how inaccessible, ill advised or dangerous - make my 65 countries look like a two week all-inclusive in Tenerife. Among those travellers, I am the most basic of (travel) bitches.

The collecting of countries like porcelain figurines is believed to have started with The Travelers’ Century Club in 1958. Then, you needed to have travelled to over 100 sovereign countries; but since then travel has become easier, overall less expensive, the Internet has exploded allowing travelers to share information, and borders and sovereignty have been defined and then redefined again.

Although these days there are many disputes about what constitutes the accomplishment of ‘every passport stamp’, the majority of travelers seem to choose to go by the official list of 193 UN recognised countries thus making you a ‘UN Master’.

I’ve watched a few skirmishes unfold online about what constitutes a visit to a country. If simply setting foot in a place counts, my own total magically rises to 67 since I once slept the night in Bhutan airport and had a fever-dream 24 hours layover in Dubai. As you would imagine with an undertaking that is about passion, but also an investment of money and time, strong opinions and community policing of what is the ‘right’ way to do things abounds.

Perhaps that’s because some countries are so hard won.

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For instance, most travel insurance is exempt if you visit a country the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) deems unsafe to travel to, which is a large proportion of those 193 countries. There is the difference between finding an experienced local guide who can ‘fix’ things and reliable security escorts. Then there are erratic border and visa policies, sometimes shifting not even week to week but day to day. Add in an ever-more volatile geopolitical landscape, or simply having a passport stamp from one country that means you can’t enter another, and it starts to feel far from a holiday.

This, in fact, is what I find most interesting about this endeavor, because there is no prize. It is done purely for the bragging rights and the thrill. And though the communities that I am part of are full of stories of hospitality and kindness and epiphanies found on the least travelled roads, there are just as many reports of people being robbed, assaulted, detained or ending up in similarly hairy situations.

So why put yourself through it? Travel website, NomadMania recently did some analysis of UN Masters. They discovered that as of this year, and allowing for 30% of travellers they might not be aware of, the number of people who have accomplished this is around 600 people. Meaning that even at conservative estimates, only 1 in 13.3 million people hold UN Master status, which, I think we can agree, is a pretty cool thing to achieve.

It’s undeniable though, that like most travel, this achievement is inherently based on privilege. There is always a certain amount of affluence required to travel, but the amount of cash that is required to explore far flung places with little tourism infrastructure, with local guides, security, visas and ‘unofficial payments’ for official services quickly racks up to far more than a luxury holiday in the Bahamas. You also, of course, need a ‘strong passport’, one that is either visa exempt or visa friendly in many countries. And this is why, largely UN Masters come from the US or Europe.

Of course, there is the gender issue, NomadMania’s research showed that there were only 75 women UN Masters compared to 387 men. I understand why, as a woman who's travelled in some pretty intense places and in a world where even walking home from the local pub is a calculated risk, I don't want to put myself deliberately in the way of harm. Overall, the research also found that of the known UN Masters, ‘62% are white, male and above the age of 50; 91% are white and male.’ No surprises about who gets a seat at the table there.

So is it worth it? Personally, I don't think so. Travelling is my life’s passion, and I admit that I find it harder to get that hit of adrenaline and newness as the world becomes ever more ‘airbnb-ified’ and globalization spawns homogenisation in perpetuity.

I do admire the passion and focus of UN Masters and I believe in graft. But if I'm going to put my life, my money and future on the line, I need a purpose that isn’t simply giving myself a metaphorical big gold star. Let me build something and change something for the better. Likewise, I would never want my anomalous presence as a white Scottish woman in certain places of conflict or local complexity to put others at risk by protecting me.

So I'll keep building up my country list one by one, and I'll pass my love of travel down to my son like a hard-earned inheritance. At five years old he’s already visited 25 countries, a quarter way to Travelers’ Century Club membership, he’ll probably get there before me.

Kerry Hudson is an award-winning novelist and memoirist. You can find her on Instagram and on Threads @ThatKerryHudson. Her latest book is Newborn: Running Away, Breaking with the Past, Building a New Family