• Train Travel
  • Urban Rail Transit
  • Where To Stay

Nomadic Notes

Travel blog and weekly travel newsletter

  • Blog
  • Newsletter About Travel

When can you say you’ve been to a country?

January 4, 2010 By James Clark 8 Comments

When can you say you’ve been to a country?

Can you say you have been to a country if you only spent a few hours in one of its cities? Changing planes at international airports doesn’t count (of course), but what about a weekend or day trip to one place? Technically you can, but do you?

I was thinking about this question when filling in one of those where have you been maps that you might have seen doing the rounds.

I had a go at one of these maps when someone sent me a link, and I found that large countries lit up because I had been to one of its cities. I felt like a British colonial cartographer, trying to shade the world red.

British Empire Map
[British Empire Map (from wikipedia.org]

I wasn’t going count some countries, but then I thought I should just to illustrate this train of thought. This is the map of the world of the countries that I’ve technically been to. (This map of Visited Countries by VirtualTourist).

Visited Countries Map

Notice how all of Turkey is coloured in. I did a day trip from Rhodes in Greece to Marmaris in Turkey. Marmaris has a large expat beach scene and the 4 hours I was there didn’t really feel like Turkey.

I once spent a weekend in Mexico at Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point), about 60 miles from the US border on the Gulf of California. I went with some friends from Arizona. Rocky Point is a beach resort town and it is the closest beach to Phoenix. I didn’t feel like I was in Mexico (except for those mariachi buskers with oversized hats) and back then you didn’t even need a passport to go there. So when I’m asked if I have been to Mexico I usually say no. I guess you could say I’ve been there, but I haven’t done it.

I have been to the capitals of every Scandinavian country but I have never seen the Fjords of Norway or the Wilderness of Lapland, so I don’t usually say I’ve been to Norway or Sweden either. I have though beaten myself with birch branches in a sauna in a small town in Finland, so I don’t beat myself up about that one and proclaim Finland as done.

With these sorts of maps at least they break down the states and territories of the US and Canada. Even so, some of these areas can be vast. The territory of Ontario has been lit up on my map because of a weekend I spent, mostly indoors, at a convention in Toronto.

I have lived in a few different countries and I have found my preference is to base myself in one place and get to know a country. I feel confident in saying that I have done England, Ireland, Switzerland and Hungary.

Australia is my home country so I have to say I’ve been there but so far I have only done the East Coast.

Another question to ponder is if say you have been to a country when it was known as something else or part of another country.

Serbia is a good recent example of this. In 1991 Serbia was part of Yugoslavia. Since then Yugoslavia gradually split up to become Croatia, Slovenia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Republic of Macedonia, leaving just Serbia and Montenegro in 2003.

In 2006 Montenegro voted to end its union with Serbia and become a separate country, thus adding another nation to the world tally.

In 2008 the region of Kosovo in Southern Serbia declared independence from Serbia, and they too proclaimed themselves a separate country. Here is where your country count gets tricky. Serbia has not recognized Kosovo as an independent country as it counts the region of Kosovo as a historical and integral part of Serbia. Half of the world has recognised Kosovo as an independent country and half of the world hasn’t.

If you are on a quest to visit every country in the world and you ticked off Yugoslavia before 1991, you now have to come back and visit 7 countries, or 8 if you count Kosovo.

When do you say you have been to a country?

Filed Under: Travel Thoughts Tagged With: every country, maps

About James Clark

James Clark is the founder of Nomadic Notes. He has been a digital nomad since 2003, and Nomadic Notes features trip reports, train travel articles, and where to stay guides. He writes about transport and urban development at Future Southeast Asia. Subscribe to the weekly travel newsletter.

Comments

  1. Enigma of Bellevue says

    January 5, 2010 at 8:43 pm

    Interesting point to ponder. Including stopovers seems quite inelegant. How many cities in which countries until you’ve ‘been’ anywhere? A wonderful topic for nomads to discuss over late night beans.

    Reply
  2. Lynda says

    January 9, 2011 at 8:42 pm

    I have asked myself the same question. I have travelled a lot, but have also spent many ‘stopovers’ in airport hotels… do they count? I don’t really think so. I would consider a weekend in Paris ‘been there’… but a week in Boston hardly qualifies as having ‘been’ to the US. Interesting point.

    Reply
  3. Lasse says

    February 14, 2011 at 11:34 pm

    Of course airport stopovers count. Box-ticking or not, you were there, weren’t you? I’m not saying it’s a good way to experience anything, but if you have been somewhere, no matter what you did or how long you spend time there, you have been there. Period.

    Reply
    • Robin says

      November 8, 2019 at 6:11 pm

      Lasse, airports are international territory. So, if you have had a stopover in France, you have never been on territory of France, so you have never been to France. That is international law.

      Reply
  4. Gabriele says

    February 14, 2011 at 8:44 pm

    Reading your thoughts about when one may claim to know a country I must totally agree with you and Lynda.

    It’s a shame I hardly have any photos of Portugal, France and Southern Africa, countries I thoroughly know. When I see people who have been to almost every major city of the world where they spent hardly a week I can only smile.
    They think they know while not having a clue.

    I live on Tenerife Island now where I know much. However, I am still learning more about it which makes it interesting for myself.

    Reply
  5. Erica Valentin says

    July 9, 2021 at 10:43 am

    right! I agree to an extent….I went over the border to canada once but it was only a few hours and i didnt do much …..so in my mind ive never really been to canada!

    Reply
  6. Michael John Crisp says

    July 4, 2023 at 3:13 pm

    How about this one. First of all, I’m English. Now, who counts the United Kingdom as a country, because if I asked what country I was born in, my reply would be England. No doubt the same logic would apply to those born in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I might say that I’m British, more likely English. These are countries, they are not States. Thoughts on the matter?

    Reply
    • James Clark says

      July 5, 2023 at 12:20 am

      Agreed, this is a complicated definition. I lived in London for a while so I got the chance to visit the countries within a country. While I would technically say I have been to the UK if I only went to London, I would feel weird in not having been to the others.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Weekly Travel Newsletter

Sign up for the weekly newsletter about travel for the latest posts, and a roundup of best travel reads from around the web.
Subscribe For Free Here

About Nomadic Notes

James Clark from Nomadic Notes

Hi, I’m James Clark, and I've been travelling the world since 2003 while running a location independent travel business. Nomadic Notes is a travel blog featuring travel guides and notes from my travels.

More about me and Nomadic Notes.

Follow Nomadic Notes

Recent Posts

  • Notes on Vang Vieng: Trains and tubing in Laos
  • Where to stay in Ho Chi Minh City: the best areas for visitors in Saigon
  • Train SE22 from Saigon to Danang
  • Defunct airports of Southeast Asia
  • Notes on Boten: The border station of the Laos-China Railway
  • Notes on Muang Xai: A stop on the Laos-China Railway
  • Where to stay in Langkawi: The best beach areas and hotels
  • Where to stay in Bangkok: the best areas and hotels for visitors
  • Where to stay in Singapore: The best areas and notable hotels
  • Sumatra Railways: A guide to every train line in Sumatra

Where to stay in Southeast Asia

Malaysia
Where to stay in Kuala Lumpur

Singapore
Where to stay in Singapore

Thailand
Where to stay in Bangkok

Vietnam
Where to stay in Da Nang
Where to stay in Hanoi
Where to stay in Ho Chi Minh City

Southeast Asia Rail Travel

Southeast Asia current and proposed railways

A complete guide to train travel in Southeast Asia

European Rail Travel

Eurail Pass Travel Guide

About Nomadic Notes

About
Advertise
Contact
Contribute
Press/Media Mentions
Where I've Been

Search Nomadic Notes

Travel Notes

Travel Notes

Travel Resources

Digital Nomad Resources
Long-term Travel
Travel Blog Directory
Travel Gear
Travel Insurance
Travel Sites

Where To Stay In…

Bangkok
Chiang Mai
Da Nang
Ho Chi Minh City
Hoi An
Hong Kong
Jakarta
Kuala Lumpur
Macau
Penang
Singapore

Travel Newsletter

Sign up for the weekly travel newsletter for the latest posts and a roundup of best travel reads from around the web.

Copyright © 2023 Nomadic Notes · Site Map | Privacy · Log in