# Who was the first peron to travel to every country. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 1, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251 "2017-09-01T15:16:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nansbread1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Nansbread1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nansbread1)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/1 "2017-09-01T15:16:34Z")
Who was the first person credited with travelling to every country in existence at the time. The travels also should have been verifiable. Did Guinness records credit anyone with this? Travels not necessarily in one big go. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/2 "2017-09-01T15:45:59Z")
First Peron? Maybe Juan? Or maybe this Wikipedia article can help us decide. It’s not clear cut. I’m not sure we can say definitively that anyone’s visited EVERY country yet. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_people\_by\_number\_of\_countries\_visited](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_by_number_of_countries_visited) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/3 "2017-09-01T16:38:40Z")
The notion of a country, a nation-state with specified borders, is much more modern than people understand. People talk about the [Peace of Westphalia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia) in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years War as setting up the system of sovereign nations in Europe. It turned out that’s what happened but it wasn’t specified in the language and may not have even been thought of that way. That was just a tiny corner of the world, though. Where were the countries in Asia, Africa, and the Americas? Is a colony a nation? Is a claim to a territory a nation? It’s probably not until well into 19th century or even the early 20th century, after the European imperialists divided the world into chunks, that the notion of a fixed country that could be visited even makes sense. A listing of nations in 1900 probably changed virtually every single year after that, as well, including this year and next year and the one after that. Depending on how you define things, nobody has ever visited every “country.” The [Travelers Century Club](http://travelerscenturyclub.org/countries-and-territories) lists 325 countries & territories. That’s a goal that I don’t think anybody has ever reached. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/4 "2017-09-01T17:37:14Z")
**Jtur88**? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/5 "2017-09-01T18:03:01Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > **Jtur88**? No, no. He says he’s been in every _county_, not every country! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/6 "2017-09-01T18:24:45Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > First Peron? Maybe Juan? You beat me to it! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/7 "2017-09-01T18:25:05Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > No, no. He says he’s been in every _county_, not every country! 😃 He seems to be well-travelled around the whole world too, judging from his posting history. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/8 "2017-09-01T20:17:23Z")
No matter how we define countries, we can probably agree that they did not all spring into existence simultaneously. One of them must have been established first. So the first person to travel to every country was probably someone who travelled to the first and only one. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/9 "2017-09-01T20:25:16Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > You beat me to it! 😃 And me!, and I was so happy to tout my man Juan Domingo’s travel record ☹ (Historical trivia, my mother and father both voted for him when he was elected president in 1974). ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/10 "2017-09-01T20:30:39Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > No matter how we define countries, we can probably agree that they did not all spring into existence simultaneously. One of them must have been established first. So the first person to travel to every country was probably someone who travelled to the first and only one. Technically he didn’t travel because he was already there. It would have to be to the second country. And more likely he traveled there to kill or subjugate them. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/11 "2017-09-01T20:45:08Z")
Nah, right after the first country was established, there would have been some trader or something who visited from elsewhere. Or maybe just some farmer who didn’t realize that his fields now straddled the border that some big hobnob had just established, and who came home from working the back 40. ---
**Author:** ![Nansbread1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Nansbread1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nansbread1)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/12 "2017-09-01T20:49:40Z")
I did say verifiable today. And a name. Times when countries did not exist… ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/13 "2017-09-03T04:09:30Z")
Who’s been everywhere, man? People singing “I’ve Been Everywhere Man” that’s who. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/14 "2017-09-03T06:32:50Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > T > Depending on how you define things, nobody has ever visited every “country.” The [Travelers Century Club](http://travelerscenturyclub.org/countries-and-territories) lists 325 countries & territories. That’s a goal that I don’t think anybody has ever reached. That list is kind of bullshit however. They list “Turkey in Asia” and “Turkey in Europe” as two seperate items, lots of other duplications if you are interested in actual countries. According to the UN there are “only” 195 countries in the world. According to the UN definition that wiki link above lists quite a few people that have visited all 195 + some other territories. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/15 "2017-09-03T11:50:16Z")
I came to basically say what Exapno said. For my first-year college students, I simplify matters by telling them that France was sort of the first state (country) in a modern sense, but England and Spain weren’t far behind, and China could make a case for being ahead of all of them. So, no way to answer the OP. Maybe the question could be rephrased to something like: “Since the founding of the UN in 1945, has anyone visited all of its members (not including new later member states carved out of older ones; in other words, if someone visited Sudan in 1985, they wouldn’t have to go to South Sudan in 2005)?” ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/16 "2017-09-03T11:53:11Z")
I see now that coremelt answered my proposed modification to the OP. There you go, then! Does that web link mention who did it first? Let’s see… ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-first-peron-to-travel-to-every-country/795251/17 "2017-09-03T12:01:26Z")
Okay, from that Wikipedia list, the two best answers to the OP seem to be: Albert Podell, who apparently visited all UN countries before anyone else (1970s?) Kashi Sammadar, who also did things like be in South Sudan on their Independence Day.