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)