50 Countries in 50 Photos

Earlier this summer, I hit a major travel milestone: crossing off my 50th country! Other than a brief pause from work between October 2011-April 2012, when I decided to quit my first corporate job and study abroad in Taiwan, I’ve held a full-time job since graduating in June 2010. I’m amazed at how much of the world I’ve been able to see over the years just by maximizing my time off.

Without a doubt there were five things that helped me travel this much:

doing points and miles over the past 15+ years
keeping rent and food costs low to afford travel and payoff student loans
working for employers that offered 20+ days of paid vacation
taking vacations around at least one federal holiday
country stacking and visiting multiple countries on one trip

While a few of these visits, like Canada and Japan, were done before college, the vast majority of these adventures happened in the years since. For frequent favorites like France and Mexico, choosing just a single picture was incredibly difficult. For others, I only had an extended layover and a few hours to capture the moment. Without further ado, here is a visual timeline of the past 15+ years: one photo and the year of my visits for every country, in chronological order.

01 – Canada – 1999, 2006, 2015, 2016