Luis Santos
AboutWorkWritingJournalPressSpeakingAwardsSubscribe
The Journal

Nearly every country.
The point was the perspective.

Visiting almost every country on Earth is a personal goal, and an ongoing one. But the value was never the number. It was a decade of learning how business, risk, and trust actually work in places that play by different rules. This is the map, and what the road taught me.

164/197countries visited

Every UN member state plus Taiwan, Kosovo, Palestine, and the Vatican. No transits, no airport counts. Most of the recent ones routed around business travel.

United Arab Emirates Afghanistan Albania Armenia Angola Argentina Austria Australia Azerbaijan Bosnia and Herz. Bangladesh Belgium Burkina Faso Bulgaria Burundi Benin Brunei Bolivia Brazil Bahamas Bhutan Botswana Belarus Belize Canada Dem. Rep. Congo Central African Rep. Congo Switzerland Côte d'Ivoire Chile Cameroon China Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Cyprus Czech Rep. Germany Djibouti Denmark Dominican Rep. Algeria Ecuador Estonia Egypt W. Sahara Eritrea Spain Ethiopia Finland Fiji Falkland Is. France Gabon United Kingdom Georgia Ghana Greenland Gambia Guinea Eq. Guinea Greece Guatemala Guinea-Bissau Guyana Honduras Croatia Haiti Hungary Indonesia Ireland Israel India Iraq Iran Iceland Italy Jamaica Jordan Japan Kenya Kyrgyzstan Cambodia Dem. Rep. Korea Korea Kuwait Kazakhstan Lao PDR Lebanon Sri Lanka Liberia Lesotho Lithuania Luxembourg Latvia Libya Morocco Moldova Montenegro Madagascar Macedonia Mali Myanmar Mongolia Mauritania Malawi Mexico Malaysia Mozambique Namibia New Caledonia Niger Nigeria Nicaragua Netherlands Norway Nepal New Zealand Oman Panama Peru Papua New Guinea Philippines Pakistan Poland Puerto Rico Palestine Portugal Paraguay Qatar Romania Serbia Russia Rwanda Saudi Arabia Solomon Is. Sudan Sweden Slovenia Slovakia Sierra Leone Senegal Somalia Suriname S. Sudan El Salvador Syria Swaziland Chad Fr. S. Antarctic Lands Togo Thailand Tajikistan Timor-Leste Turkmenistan Tunisia Turkey Trinidad and Tobago Taiwan Tanzania Ukraine Uganda United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Venezuela Vietnam Vanuatu Yemen South Africa Zambia Zimbabwe Dominica Marshall Islands Liechtenstein Comoros Nauru Monaco Kiribati Seychelles Barbados Bahrain Vatican City Grenada Micronesia Antigua & Barbuda St Kitts & Nevis Mauritius Singapore Malta Andorra Palau St Lucia Maldives Kosovo San Marino St Vincent & Grenadines Samoa Sao Tome & Principe Tuvalu Tonga Cape Verde
Visited, 164 Planned, 19 Still to go, 14
Lived in

Seven countries have been home long enough to learn them properly, not just pass through.

PortugalBelgiumCzechiaGermanySerbiaSaudi ArabiaUnited Arab Emirates
From the road

What the travelling actually taught me.

The useful part of the journey was never the count. It was calibration, market by market, on how people read risk and trust. Those lessons live in the Field Notes.