Which Travel Milestones Are Worth Chasing? A Method for Picking Your Next One

Most people set travel goals the same way: take the country count, round it up to the next number ending in zero, and aim for that. Twenty becomes 25, 34 becomes 50. It is simple, and it is the reason so many travel records look the same at 50 countries as they did at 30: more of Western Europe, one more beach in South-East Asia, a long weekend somewhere cheap with a direct flight.

A good milestone does something different. It forces a kind of trip you would not otherwise take. This article sets out a method for picking the next one, using a real record as the worked example.

The test: does it change the trip?

Before you adopt a milestone, ask one question: would reaching it require a trip that looks different from your last three?

If the answer is no, the milestone is a counter, not a goal. You will reach it anyway, eventually, by doing what you already do. That is fine, but it will not change what your record says about you.

If the answer is yes, it is worth writing down. A milestone that needs a new continent, a new hemisphere, a longer stay or a different kind of site pushes your record somewhere it has never been.

Three properties make a milestone pass the test:

1. It is defined by a rule you can write in one line. 'Every continent' is vague until you decide which continent Turkey sits in. How many continents you've been to depends entirely on that rule.
2. It is reachable within three to five years. A milestone you cannot hit before the next decade is a wish, not a plan.
3. It changes the shape of the map, not just the total. Ten more countries in one region add colour to a patch that is already coloured.

A worked example: 34 countries

Here is a real record, the one behind MapMyWorld's own map: 33 countries visited plus one lived in (the UK), 202 places, 12 UNESCO World Heritage Sites and 13 airports.

The round-number goal would be 50 countries. Sixteen more. Look at where the 34 sit, though:

• Europe: 21 countries, including the home country
• Asia: 8 (China, Indonesia, Japan, the Maldives, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam)
• North America: 2 (the US and the Dominican Republic)
• South America: 2 (Argentina and Brazil)
• Africa: 1 (South Africa)
• Oceania and Antarctica: none

Sixteen more countries would be the easiest thing in the world to reach without leaving Europe: the Baltics, a couple of Balkan states, the microstates. The total would hit 50, and the map would look almost exactly as it does now.

The milestones that actually change this map are different:

• A sixth continent. One trip to Australia or New Zealand does more to the shape of this record than any ten European countries.
• A second African country. One country on a continent of more than fifty is a toehold. A second, ideally in a different region, is the start of a picture.
• 25 UNESCO sites. Twelve sites across 34 countries is roughly one site for every three countries. Doubling that means planning trips around sites rather than passing them on the way to somewhere else.

None of these require more travel in total. They require different travel.

The milestone ladder, rung by rung

Most milestone systems, including the achievements built into MapMyWorld, use a ladder of thresholds. Here is how to read each rung, and where it stops being useful.

Countries: 10, 25, 50, 100, 150

The first two rungs come naturally to anyone who travels a few times a year. Fifty is where the count starts to say something, because it usually needs at least four continents. One hundred is the threshold the Travelers' Century Club is built around, though its list of more than 300 destinations counts territories and island groups separately, so a club 100 is not the same as 100 sovereign states.

Above 100, the rule you use matters more than the trips you take. The UN has 193 member states and two observer states; other lists run much higher. Pick your list before you aim at a number on it. What counts as visiting a country sets out the decisions you need to make first.

Continents: all seven

The most popular single milestone, and the one with the most hidden rules. Antarctica usually means an expedition cruise. Oceania is the continent most European and American travellers are missing. And whether a weekend in Istanbul counts as Europe or Asia depends on a rule you need to write down. In MapMyWorld each country belongs to exactly one continent: Turkey is filed under Asia, Russia under Europe and Egypt under Africa. That is one consistent rule, not the only possible one.

Hemispheres: north and south

A small milestone that is easy to overlook. If every country you have been to sits in the northern half of the map, the southern hemisphere is a cleaner goal than any total. In the record above, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa lie mostly or entirely south of the equator, so this one is already done. In MapMyWorld it is decided by your places rather than your countries: a place logged south of the equator puts you in the southern hemisphere.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites: 10, 25, 50

The best ladder for someone who already has a decent country count, because it rewards depth. Italy, Spain and France each hold dozens of sites, so you can reach 25 without adding a single country. MapMyWorld's reference list holds 1,250 World Heritage Sites, and how to record every UNESCO site you've visited covers what counts as having been to one.

Trip length: 30, 60, 90 days

The milestone almost nobody sets on purpose. A 30-day trip is a different kind of travel: you rent rather than book, you learn the bus routes, you have a regular café. Plenty of people with 40 countries have never spent a month in any of them. If your longest trip is a fortnight, a month in one place is a more interesting goal than five new countries.

Capitals: 25, 50, 100

Good for people who travel for cities. Watch the edge cases: some countries split the role between two cities, which countries with two capitals works through.

Airports: 10, 25, 50

The one ladder that rewards connections. It only means something if you log the airports you pass through, not just the ones you land at to stay.

How to pick yours: the three-question method

Write the answers down. It takes five minutes.

1. What is missing from the map? Look at your record by continent and by region, not by total. Name the biggest empty patch you would genuinely want to fill. Not the one that sounds impressive; the one you would book.

2. Which ladder are you lowest on, relative to your country count? Divide your UNESCO sites by your countries. Compare your longest trip with your typical one. Count how many of your countries are on each continent. The ladder where you are furthest behind your own country count is where the next trip will add the most.

3. What is the single trip that would cross it? A milestone should translate into one trip you can describe in a sentence: a month in Japan, two weeks in New Zealand, a route through southern Africa. If you cannot name the trip, the milestone is too abstract to plan around.

For the record above, the answers are: Oceania is the gap; UNESCO is the weakest ladder at roughly one site per three countries; and the trip is two weeks in New Zealand, which would add a continent, a run of new places and at least one World Heritage Site.

The round-number version of that goal, 50 countries, would have been met with a lot of long weekends. The milestone version produces one trip that changes the record.

Milestones that are not worth setting

Some popular goals fail the test:

• A country for every year of your age. It rewards volume and pushes you toward the quickest possible border crossings, which is how a record fills up with countries you could not describe.
• As many countries as possible in one calendar year. It turns a year of travel into a timetable. Fine once, if you know why you are doing it.
• Any goal that depends on counting a layover. If reaching it relies on an airside connection in Doha counting as Qatar, the goal is making your decisions for you. Decide the layover rule first, then set the goal.

Keep the record honest as you go

A milestone is only as good as the count underneath it. Three habits keep it honest:

• Write your rules down once. What counts as a visit, which continent a transcontinental country sits in, whether a layover counts. Change a rule halfway and every number on the ladder moves with it.
• Log as you cross, not afterwards. Drive-through countries and connecting airports are the first things to go missing from memory.
• Record more than the count. A milestone tells you where you have been. Places, days and what the trip cost tell you what it was. In MapMyWorld, countries, places, UNESCO sites, airports and trips sit in the same record, and the milestone ladders above are calculated from them, so when you cross one the evidence is already there.

Summary

The next round number is the easiest goal to set and the one least likely to change how you travel. Instead:

• Test every milestone against one question: does it need a trip that looks different from your last three?
• Look at the shape of the map, not the total.
• Pick the ladder where you are furthest behind your own country count.
• Translate the milestone into one trip you can name.

For a 34-country record with nothing in Oceania, that trip is not sixteen more countries. It is one long flight south-east.