30 Countries By 30

By Erin
In Blog
Date May 1, 2019

I’ve always been driven and goal-oriented, with a thirst to succeed and excel at whatever I set my mind to. This strive for perfectionism is a blessing and a curse – a blessing because I push myself to achieve 100% and a curse because I’m bitterly disheartened if I achieve 99%. Personally, I think a life void of goals and drive is a life wasted.

I’ve set a lot of goals for myself over my short time on Earth and I’m proud to say I’ve achieved a lot of them – getting my bachelor degree in design, pursuing a career in graphic design, overcoming my mental demons (still a WIP), lose 20kg, get fit, run 5km, travel solo, live abroad, to name a few. But there’s one goal I set out for myself when I was 15 years old, that I announced in my grade 11 English class that seemed like a pipe dream at the time: travel to 30 different countries by my 30th birthday.

At the time of writing this, I’m 1.5 months shy of my 28th birthday and I’m absolutely blessed to be able to say I’ve travelled to 28 different sovereign states. I’ve not always written about my experiences in each country (something I now regret), however I have been considering retrospectively writing about my experiences.

I’m often asked where I’ve travelled to, so without further ado, here’s a chronological list of places I’ve been fortunate enough to visit (I’m excluding countries that I’ve passed through in transit or have only spent a few hours in):

  1. Australia
  2. Brunei
  3. Philippines
  4. New Zealand (x 3)
  5. Japan
  6. England (I spent a year living in London in 2013)
  7. France
  8. Netherlands
  9. Germany
  10. Czech Republic
  11. Austria
  12. Italy
  13. Vatican
  14. Switzerland
  15. Spain
  16. Wales
  17. United States of America
  18. Fiji
  19. Thailand
  20. Laos
  21. Vietnam
  22. Cambodia
  23. Denmark
  24. Sweden
  25. Finland
  26. Estonia
  27. Norway
  28. Mongolia
  29. Vanuatu

I’ve only been back from Mongolia for just over a month now, so I’m not entirely sure where I will venture to next (the beaches of Vanuatu are calling me); however some dream destinations of mine are Bhutan, Madagascar, Chile and Argentina (Patagonia), Antarctica, Canada, The Bahamas, Jordan, Iceland, Morocco, Ecuador (Galapagos Islands) – just everywhere basically, sign me up!

Sunset in San Sebastián, Spain
Swimming in the ocean off the Amalfi Coast!
Getting lost in a sea of people in Shibuya, Japan!
Yosemite Valley, USA.
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