Around The World—New Year's Resolution For 2019

My New Year's Resolution for 2019 is not to be healthier, be nicer, work smarter, stay happier, or some other falderal that one should be doing everyday anyway, nope, not this year. I have made those sorts of self-improvement resolutions in the past and I usually kept them with good results, so enough. Time for some fun.

In this New Year 2019 I am going to digitally visit a new country every day for as long as they last! Then I will explore the arctics, some islands, the ocean floor, maybe the moon, and so on. I plan to use my new deluxe Goggle Earth Pro on days when I have a lot of time to explore, and for a quick-look day, I found the following list which has links to fun facts for each country in the world*. For example, did you know that out of 257± countries in the world there are only 191 countries whose borders are undisputed?

I made this resolution to digitally tour the world when I tired of batting off my Kindle device's auto-suggestions for documentaries on serial killers, unresolved murders, and other aberrations. Why does Amazon set its search findings to offer up fearsome and unpleasant results each evening? Controlling the masses? I goggle-search for "documentaries" and instead of archeological sites or anthropology, Goggle gives me ax murders. Well, I will structure my own free time, and it will not be with monsters.

Just when I thought old age had relegated me to an armchair, technology opened the world back up again. Lucky, lucky me, soon to be a septuagenarian armchair adventurer.

In real life I have lived in numerous states: born in Baltimore, Maryland, lived with my parents in Minnesota (twice), Manhattan, Kansas, Kansas City, Kansas & Missouri (several times each), and Ohio (several times). Then on my own I lived in Arizona (several times), Nevada, California (several times), and Illinois (several times). I have traveled through most states in the USA. I have boated the boundary waters of Canada. I have kayaked a little in the Pacific Ocean. I have traveled as far south in the Americas as the Baja Peninsula in the west and the Mexican Yucatan in the east—solo. I am a former Peace Corps volunteer, (appropriate technology) sited in Mali, West Africa—solo. On the way back, I saw some of Germany, and a day in Holland. Since then I have cruised through Caribbean islands, and I have driven a perambulation around each of the major islands of Hawaii—solo. I spent three weeks in Great Britain, staying on the Isle of Wight, and I toured London and Stonehenge. A few years ago I took a cruise up the west coast of Norway, going well into the Arctic Circle. I may have forgotten to list a few past domiciles, but during the conclusion of my life I plan to live in Seattle, Washington.

I have not given up hope of actual travel again. But for 2019, I will work my way through this mixed list:

(I cannot wait and have ready started with China via http://serpentza.com/ & Peru via https://hiddenincatours.com/.)

1 Afghanistan

2 Akrotiri

3 Albania

4 Algeria

5 American Samoa

6 Andorra

7 Angola

8 Anguilla

9 Antarctica

10 Antigua and Barbuda

11 Argentina

12 Armenia

13 Aruba

14 Ashmore and Cartier Islands

15 Australia

16 Austria

17 Azerbaijan

18 Bahamas, The

19 Bahrain

20 Bangladesh

21 Barbados

22 Bassas da India

23 Belarus

24 Belgium

25 Belize

26 Benin

27 Bermuda

28 Bhutan

29 Bolivia

30 Bosnia and Herzegovina

31 Botswana

32 Bouvet Island

33 Brazil

34 British Indian Ocean Territory

35 British Virgin Islands

36 Brunei

37 Bulgaria

38 Burkina Faso

39 Burma

40 Burundi

41 Cambodia

42 Cameroon

43 Canada

44 Cape Verde

45 Cayman Islands

46 Central African Republic

47 Chad

48 Chile

49 China

50 Christmas Island

51 Clipperton Island

52 Cocos (Keeling) Islands

53 Colombia

54 Comoros

55 Congo, Democratic Republic of the

56 Congo, Republic of the

57 Cook Islands

58 Coral Sea Islands

59 Costa Rica

60 Cote d'Ivoire

61 Croatia

62 Cuba

63 Cyprus

64 Czech Republic

65 Denmark

66 Dhekelia

67 Djibouti

68 Dominica

69 Dominican Republic

70 Ecuador

71 Egypt

72 El Salvador

73 Equatorial Guinea

74 Eritrea

75 Estonia

76 Ethiopia

77 Europa Island

78 Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)

79 Faroe Islands

80 Fiji

81 Finland

82 France

83 French Guiana

84 French Polynesia

85 French Southern and Antarctic Lands

86 Gabon

87 Gambia, The

88 Gaza Strip

89 Georgia

90 Germany

91 Ghana

92 Gibraltar

93 Glorioso Islands

94 Greece

95 Greenland

96 Grenada

97 Guadeloupe

98 Guam

99 Guatemala

100 Guernsey

101 Guinea

102 Guinea-Bissau

103 Guyana

104 Haiti

105 Heard Island and McDonald Islands

106 Holy See (Vatican City)

107 Honduras

108 Hong Kong

109 Hungary

110 Iceland

111 India

112 Indonesia

113 Iran

114 Iraq

115 Ireland

116 Isle of Man

117 Israel

118 Italy

119 Jamaica

120 Jan Mayen

121 Japan

122 Jersey

123 Jordan

124 Juan de Nova Island

125 Kazakhstan

126 Kenya

127 Kiribati

128 Korea, North

129 Korea, South

130 Kuwait

131 Kyrgyzstan

132 Laos

133 Latvia

134 Lebanon

135 Lesotho

136 Liberia

137 Libya

138 Liechtenstein

139 Lithuania

140 Luxembourg

141 Macau

142 Macedonia

143 Madagascar

144 Malawi

145 Malaysia

146 Maldives

147 Mali

148 Malta

149 Marshall Islands

150 Martinique

151 Mauritania

152 Mauritius

153 Mayotte

154 Mexico

155 Micronesia, Federated States of

156 Moldova

157 Monaco

158 Mongolia

159 Montserrat

160 Morocco

161 Mozambique

162 Namibia

163 Nauru

164 Navassa Island

165 Nepal

166 Netherlands

167 Netherlands Antilles

168 New Caledonia

169 New Zealand

170 Nicaragua

171 Niger

172 Nigeria

173 Niue

174 Norfolk Island

175 Northern Mariana Islands

176 Norway

177 Oman

178 Pakistan

179 Palau

180 Panama

181 Papua New Guinea

182 Paracel Islands

183 Paraguay

184 Peru

185 Philippines

186 Pitcairn Islands

187 Poland

188 Portugal

189 Puerto Rico

190 Qatar

191 Reunion

192 Romania

193 Russia

194 Rwanda

195 Saint Helena

196 Saint Kitts and Nevis

197 Saint Lucia

198 Saint Pierre and Miquelon

199 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

200 Samoa

201 San Marino

202 Sao Tome and Principe

203 Saudi Arabia

204 Senegal

205 Serbia and Montenegro

206 Seychelles

207 Sierra Leone

208 Singapore

209 Slovakia

210 Slovenia

211 Solomon Islands

212 Somalia

213 South Africa

214 South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands

215 Spain

216 Spratly Islands

217 Sri Lanka

218 Sudan

219 Suriname

220 Svalbard

221 Swaziland

222 Sweden

223 Switzerland

224 Syria

225 Taiwan

226 Tajikistan

227 Tanzania

228 Thailand

229 Timor-Leste

230 Togo

231 Tokelau

232 Tonga

233 Trinidad and Tobago

234 Tromelin Island

235 Tunisia

236 Turkey

237 Turkmenistan

238 Turks and Caicos Islands

239 Tuvalu

240 Uganda

241 Ukraine

242 United Arab Emirates

243 United Kingdom

244 United States

245 Uruguay

246 Uzbekistan

247 Vanuatu

248 Venezuela

249 Vietnam

250 Virgin Islands

251 Wake Island

252 Wallis and Futuna

253 West Bank

254 Western Sahara

255 Yemen

256 Zambia

257 Zimbabwe

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

* https://www.listofcountriesoftheworld.com/

Caption: Map of the World in Mollweide projection—which shows the relative size of countries.

(open sourced, with royalty free curlicue clip art)