Finally had my last exam on Saturday, then moved home on Sunday which was my birthday. One of the most minimal birthdays I’ve ever had which was a little sad I suppose.
Inevitably when people ask me “how many countries have you been to?” their follow-up is “what counts?” It’s a really great question as both the idea of “being” or “going” someplace as well as the meaning of “country” are constructed ideas with multiple definitions.
I thought it would be fun to explain some of the different interpretations of these ideas and show how I count where I’ve been.
“Going”
The “how” of travel counting is often the more debated of the two - as it is intrinsically flexible (i.e without changing your definition you can return a different way and then count it, whereas once you define “country” it is essentially static). The three most common definitions I’ve heard, from most required to least, are:
24-hours: I have a few friends who only count locations that they’ve been in for more than 24 hours (or sometimes even more- maybe a week!) They argue that it needs to be more than a quick jaunt and that the location really needs to be taken in. My thoughts against this methodology is that 1. Some small countries don’t need 24 hours (Liechtenstein, San Marino, etc) and 2. So much can be done in 12 hours! Or even 5! I’ve walked the beach of Old Town Colonia and posed with elephants in Chobe National Park – so if you tell me I haven’t been to Uruguay or Botswana, I’d be less than convinced. In fact, there are more than 10 countries I count that I’ve been in for less than 24 hours! These are mostly in Europe as I’ve done road trips with many stops.
Experience: Personally, this is how I define “going” somewhere- Asking myself “Have I experienced the country?” or “Can I talk about my time in the country and relate to others who have been?” Usually I say that I need to have eaten something and seen a famous site.
Presence:Others say that having been physically located in a place, even in transit, counts as “being” there. I disagree with this way because I don’t think that an airport really gives the feeling of a place, and politically speaking you haven’t crossed the border. That said, sometimes when I get stunning views of the landscape while landing and then have some local cuisine at the airport restaurant, I wonder if it counts
“Country”
The more political of the two travel counting debates is obviously what is a “country”. Despite common belief, there is no real definition of a “country” or a “nation” because different governments recognize various regimes as independent or not. The perfect example of this being some countries refusing to recognize Palestine and others ignoring Israel. But the three most used definitions in travel counting, from least inclusive to most, are:
Political: UN Member Nations: The UN officially has 193 member nations in its main governing body. However, this does not include a number of largely recognized states (some who are observers and a few other that are members of other UN bodies like WHO and UNESCO) such as Palestine, Western Sahara, and the Vatican. I generally think that this is a good measure but being the political one, it is a bit slow to adapt to new movements, and also ignores locations that are so different from who they’re governed by (i.e Hong Kong and Macau which are technically part of China).
Cultural- Slight flexibility: Again, the moderate approach is the one that I use myself. I think defining “country” or “nation” in a more inclusive and flexible way is useful not only in travel counting, but also in general global understanding, cultural appropriateness, and modern identities. I generally think of it on a per-country basis and make a judgement call then. Usually though, my unscientific methodology requires 1. Some level of political autonomy 2. A quite separate cultural identity 3. Other historical and/or economic differences that would mean experiencing one part would not correspond to the other. Some of these are more obvious to me, like Palestine and Kosovo, and others are more grey-zones like Puerto Rico.
Territories, states, and more: It is common in extreme travel counting (those who have been to all UN Member Nations, observer states, partially autonomous locations, etc) to make lengthy lists of “countries” or “nations” that may include all 50 US States, all 7 Emirates in the UAE, each island of New Zealand, etc. This means that lists may exceed 500 or even 800. The most famous forum for travel counting: http://mosttraveledpeople.com/ uses a few counting techniques but also offers a list of 875 locations they describe as: territories, autonomous regions, enclaves, geographically separated island groups, and major states and provinces. These are voted upon by their members for inclusion- but in my perusal of it, I’ve found it to be rather Western-centered with districts in countries like the US and Canada being all separate but not those in some major Eastern countries.
Overall- traveling shouldn’t be just about counting all the stops you make. It is a fun way to plan your next trip or compete in a friendly way – but the real value in travel is the awe-inspiring sites you see, the differently similar people you meet, and the life long memories of experiences had!
The map of the 81 “countries” I will have “been” to by next week
I’ve hit a milestone. It is somewhat obscure but very meaningful, and is an accomplishment that took lots of effort, and yet was never really striven for.
On September 8th, at the age of 21, I landed in Trinidad, and officially had been to fifty countries. The big 5-0.
I think that all of this reflection I’ve been talking about in the past couple posts was initiated largely by the realization of this accomplishment. It is strange because I don’t travel to increase my number, yet as a fact, it is still representative of many things. As I’ve written before (here), I view my passport as kind of the physical manifestation of this ‘number,’ and as a kind of table of contents to my life. The stamp, or the name of the country on the list I’m about to present, doesn’t tell you what I’ve experienced or learned in each location, but you can assume certain things.
I’m presenting the list here for a few reasons. 1. I think it would be fun for readers to ask me about certain locations I may have not yet written about. 2. In the next few days I want to put a list up of places I want to go, and it would only make sense to know where I’ve been. 3. It’s a generally accepted human desire to share accomplishments with others. Also, if you think I’ve traveled a lot- then read about the world’s most traveled men (here).
So here it is. I’ve divided it by continent (though I like to divide it by region too) and then in parentheses written the order it was chronologically. If I’ve written a post about it then a link follows.
TheRoss Dependency (named for British explorer Sir James Clark Ross) was originally a British claim in Antarctica (from 1841), before being passed to New Zealand control in the 1920s. Since the enactment of the Antarctic Treaty in 1961, most of the world no longer recognizes Antarctic claims, though that hardly stops anyone from claiming them anyway…
Stamp details: Stamp on top: Issued on: January 11, 1957 From: Scott Base, Ross Dependency MC #1
Stamps on bottom: Issued on: November 25, 2009 From: Scott Base, Ross Dependency MC #114-118
The plight of the kākāpō is a tragedy. Once the third most common bird in New Zealand, this large, flightless parrot has seen its numbers reduced to less than 150. In fact, for a time, it was even thought to be extinct. Today, serious effort has been put forth to try and recover this species from the brink of extinction. It has long been recognized that kākāpō breeding efforts are conspicuously tied to the phenology of certain trees but recent research suggests one in particular may hold the key to survival of the species.
The kākāpō shares its island homes (saving the kākāpō involved moving birds to rat-free islands) with a handful of tropical conifers from the families Podocarpaceae and Araucariaceae. Of these tropical conifers, one species is of particular interest to those concerned with kākāpō breeding - the rimu. Known to science as Dacrydium cupressinum, this evergreen tree represents one of the most important food sources for breeding kākāpō. Before we get to that, however, it is worth getting to know the rimu a bit better.
Rimu are remarkable, albeit slow-growing trees. They are endemic to New Zealand where they make up a considerable portion of the forest canopy. Like many slow-growing species, rimu can live for quite a long time. Before commercial logging moved in, trees of 800 to 900 years of age were not unheard of. Also, they can reach immense sizes. Historical accounts speak of trees that reached 200 ft. (61 m) in height. Today you are more likely to encounter trees in the 60 to 100 ft. (20 to 35 m) range.
The rimu is a dioecious tree, meaning individuals are either male or female. Rimu rely on wind for pollination and female cones can take upwards of 15 months to fully mature following pollination. The rimu is yet another one of those conifers that has converged on fruit-like structures for seed dispersal. As the female cones mature, the scales gradually begin to swell and turn red. Once fully ripened, the fleshy red “fruit” displays one or two black seeds at the tip. Its these “fruits” that have kākāpō researchers so excited.
As mentioned, it is a common observation that kākāpō only tend to breed when trees like the rimu experience reproductive booms. The “fruits” and seeds they produce are an important component of the diets of not only female kākāpō but their developing chicks as well. Because kākāpō are critically endangered, captive breeding is one of the main ways in which conservationists are supplementing numbers in the wild. The problem with breeding kakapo in captivity is that supplemental food doesn’t seem to bring them into proper breeding condition. This is where the rimu “fruits” come in.
Breeding birds desperately need calcium and vitamin D for proper egg production. As such, they seek out diets high in these nutrients. When researchers took a closer look at the “fruits” of the rimu, the kākāpō’s reliance on these trees made a whole lot more sense. It turns out, those fleshy scales surrounding rimu seeds are exceptionally high in not only calcium, but various forms of vitamin D once thought to be produced by animals alone. The nutritional quality of these “fruits” provides a wonderful explanation for why kākāpō reproduction seems to be tied to rimu reproduction. Females can gorge themselves on the “fruits,” which brings them into breeding condition. They also go on to feed these “fruits” to their developing chicks. For a slow growing, flightless parrot, it seems that it only makes sense to breed when food is this food source is abundant.
Though far from a smoking gun, researchers believe that the rimu is the missing piece of the puzzle in captive kākāpō breeding. If these “fruits” really are the trigger needed to bring female kākāpō into good shape for breeding and raising chicks, this may make breeding kākāpō in captivity that much easier. Captive breeding is the key to the long term survival of these odd yet charismatic, flightless parrots. By ensuring the production and survival of future generations of kākāpō, conservationists may be able to turn this tragedy into a real success story. What’s more, this research underscores the importance of understanding the ecology of the organisms we are desperately trying to save.
Holly Hunter at her most eccentric, as androgynous Swiss spiritual guru GJ in the first season of the New Zealand-set murder mystery series Top of the Lake (2013, Jane Campion & Garth Davis)
- [For Lord of The Rings] I had to do huge battle scenes, and in Hollywood films when it gets to big crowds it’s really only at most two thousand people. But Tolkien writes about Helm’s Deep and ten thousand Uruk-hai, and the only way to do that was in a computer. So we created the “Massive” software, where each of the computer people makes its own choices. At the first test screen we had 30 CGI people running at each other and half of them turned and ran away, so we had to dumb them down and tell them to stay fighting.
- You don’t know how the battle is gonna turn out?
- No. If you have orcs fighting elves, you teach CGI orcs how to fight like orcs and CGI elves to fight like elves. You’re literally not in control. You have this huge battle scenes with horses for and that renders for about three days and we don’t know what it’s gonna be like, so we wait and see.
- [Per il Signore degli Anelli] dovevo fare scene di battaglia enormi, e nei film di Hollywood quando si tratta di grandi folle in realtà al massimo ci sono duemila persone. Ma Tolkien parla del Fosso di Helm e diecimila Uruk-hai, e l’unico modo di farlo era a computer. Quindi abbiamo creato il software “Massive”, dove ogni “persona da computer” fa le proprie scelte. Ai primi screen test c’erano 30 persone CGI che si correvano addosso, e la metà si è girata ed è scappata via, quindi abbiamo dovuto renderle meno intelligenti e dirgli di rimanere a combattere.
- Quindi non sapevate come sarebbe andata la battaglia?
- No. Se hai degli orchi che combattono gli elfi, insegni agli orchi CGI a combattere come orchi e agli elfi CGI a combattere come elfi. Non li puoi controllare. Hai queste scene di battaglia enormi con i cavalli e le fai andare per circa tre giorni e non sai come verrà, quindi attendi.
Drinks pictured: Flat white ($5) and hot chocolate ($5).
The last place I had coffee at in New Plymouth was Vintage Industries, which is a cafe and vintage goods store in in the same place! They serve Ozone coffee, and only have takeaway cups available. They do have quite a few seats inside, and I would definitely recommend sitting in (if you can) or atleast taking a quick peek at all the vintage stuff in the store!
Back to the last couple of New Plymouth cafes, the first of which is Monica’s Eatery, which is right next to the Len Lye Centre/Brewster Gallery. They serve Ozone coffee, which was good. They have mostly indoor and some outdoor seating, and I especially liked the interior of the cafe!
Drinks pictured: Flat white ($5) and long black ($4.5).
Food pictured: Bun from Scandibunz
Small pause in my New Plymouth cafe posts for a post about Crumb in Auckland. Had yummy Flight Coffee there yesterday. It’s a cosy little cafe with indoor and outdoor seating, and I really like the mugs that they serve their coffee in. Sadly, their last day open is this Sunday (20th Feb ‘22), so do stop by this weekend if you haven’t been there before!
Drinks pictured: Flat white ($4.4), hot chocolate ($4.8).
The second coffee stop in New Plymouth was Bleached Coffee & Company, serving Allpress Coffee. The cafe space is combined with a store. I really liked the yellow colour scheme and all the plants near the seats (in the second photo)!
Also I really struggle to take flatlays and took the first photo in the series with the help and encouragement of my partner who has no interest in coffee or cafe photography, but wanted to help me anyway.
