About Me

Hello!  My name is Matt, and I am an expat who has been living overseas and traveling since 2010.

My goal is to visit every country and territory in the world.  So far, I have been to 114 countries along with 6 semi-autonomous official/unofficial geopolitical entities, and I have no plan to stop until my goal is complete.  After I complete my goal, I plan to revisit a lot of the places and explore them in more in-depth since I love learning and seeing new things.

In order to accomplish my goal, I define a country as being a Member State of the United Nations.  However, since many places in the world are in a gray limbo-like area with either no international recognition or very limited recognition, I also use the list supplied by The Travelers' Century Club (TCC) as a guide as well.  As the TCC states, not all the places on the list are separate countries but "are removed from the parent country, either geographically, politically, or ethnologically."  This explains why places, such as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (Transnistria) are listed despite the former having limited recognition (Turkey), and the latter having no recognition aside from a handful of other non-recognized entities.

Please enjoy my blog as I share not only my thoughts on topics relating to international travel and expat life but also chronicle my goal to visit every country in the world.

Feel free to keep up with my adventures on Instagram at The Traveling Expat.