I have been to the following countries:

• United States: I have been to 48 of the 50 states. I have yet to set foot inside Alaska and Maine. One day I hope to visit both, of course. Of the remaining states, South Carolina is the state I have spent the least amount of time - an hour or two, just long enough to visit its state highpoint at Sassafras Mountain.

• Mexico: I suspect I went over the border into Juarez from El Paso when I was a baby and my folks lived at Fort Bliss near El Paso. This would have been between 1967 to 1969. Otherwise I have popped into the border cities such as Tijuana (first time: 1981), Nogales, Agua Preita, Algodones, and one illegal visit while visiting the Imperial (CA) county highpoint, when we also checked out the border monument and walked into Mexico a few feet. I have been as far 30 miles inside Mexico in the Pinacate Preserve near Rocky Point, and in Mexicali as well.

• Canada: I've only visited the Great White North twice, my first time in July 1999 while attending a convention in Windsor, Ontario, and another time with my wife driving to Harrison Hot Springs in B.C., 2004.

• Australia: I visited Oz for the first time in 1985 on a month-long bus tour of the interior, going to all those neat Outback locations such as Birdsville, Coober Pedy, Kakadu, Darwin. Too bad I no longer have the photos. In 1987 I spent a year going to school in Canberra, then came back in 1988 to visit friends and go to the World's Fair in Brisbane. I have been to all of the Aussie states and territories except for Tasmania.

• Fiji: In 1987 there was a coup, and this shut off tourism to Fiji for awhile so to promote tourists to come back, they lowered air fares from Sydney (I was in Australia at the time) to a ridiculously low level, so I bit and visited Fiji for a week in August 1987. I stayed at a youth hostel "resort" about 50 miles from Nadi (pronounced "Nandy"). It was fun: I just lazed around, walked the roads, checked out the tidal pools, watched the huge fruit bats fly through the air at night, and hang with an interesting, motley collection of travellers from all over, some of whom clearly were vagabonding the world.

• Zimbabwe: I had an 18-hour layover here in November 1987 leaving Australia. Story.

• Kenya: Spent a week in Kenya, which you can also read about in the above link.

• Germany: Leaving Africa, I spent a week or so in Germany in 1987 back when there was still an East and West version thereof. Had college friends in Goettingen, and we made the train ride to West Berlin, plus a day trip through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin, my first real visit to a commie country.

• France: In 1987, now visiting family friends stationed in Germany, we made a quickie two-day drive into Paris, and made a rush-rush visit to the big Parisian points of interest: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre (where I got yelled at for photographing the Venus de Milo), the Arch de Triomphe, the Hotel des Invalidees (sp?), the Notre Dame, and lots of other neat old French buildings. However, driving the roads was a nightmare. In France, they're called "rues". They run for about 30 feet and where there's a slight bend, it gets a new name. One of us would read off the rue name from a sign, another of us would find it on our map, then let the driver know what to do. It was crazy. Why they rename their rues every few feet is beyond me. I began to rue the whole process. Perhaps it's a French ruse. In Australia, I saw kanga roos.

• Hungary: My wife and I spent our honeymoon in Budapest. Read all about it here.

• Czech Republic: The second half of our honeymoon was in Prague. I have lots of photos but never have formed them into a page. Shame on me. Great place, lots of old medieval buildings. Got icicles on my mustache for the first time ever. I was impressed by the lack of vowels in their words.

"Just Passing Through"

• New Zealand: Two or three times I have spent many an enjoyable hour in the Auckland airport on flights to Sydney.

• Greece: Flying from Kenya to Germany, we stopped for gas in Athens.

• Belgium: A stop-over on the Frankfurt to New York flight.

• Slovakia: Passed through on the train to Prague from Budapest, but we still got a Slovakian stamp in my passport.

"Almost Visits"

• Sudan: On the Nairobi-Frankfurt flight in 1987, strong storms were pushing the plane around and the pilot mentioned we might have to land in Khartoum. Now that would have been something else. We made it to Greece (see above).

• O: This narrow nation sits between Czech and Slovakia. In the old days the three nations were combined as "Czechoslovakia". We passed through O while on the train between Slovakia and Czech. O has no area, as it's just a boundary. People in O, called "O-anians", must straddle the line, keeping one foot on the line at all times. Passing someone in O forces one temporarily into either Czech or Slovakia, so they often leap-frog one another instead. Often, though, they just line up into a queue, called an O Q.

Industry is limited due to the dimensions of O. Primary industry is paper manufacturing, where the paper is stored upright on its edge. The main crop in O is spaghetti, which is grown linearly, while the main wildlife is snakes, and in its waterways, eels, worms and amoebas.