ollowing up on yesterday's column
about how to keep a count of the places you visit, here's a great
note from Bob Krause of Supertravel in Gainesville, Fla.:
"I read with enjoyment your column regarding the number of
countries of the world you have visited. This is a subject near and
dear to me as my wife and I collect those little flags for each
country visited and keep them displayed on a plant shelf in our
home.
"But you're cheating yourself if you exclude from your list
those countries which you have set foot in only in an airport
transit.
"A number of years ago a friend and I came up with 'Bob &
Jim's Official Country Count Rules:'
1. Flying over a country or state does not count.
2. Traveling through the territorial waters of a country without
going ashore does not count.
3. Driving through a country or state -- even if one does not
stop -- does count.
4. Landing in a country or state, even if one does not deplane,
does count. It is not necessary to clear customs/immigration of the
country in order to count.
5. If you've visited a country that no longer exists, it still
remains on your list.
6. Official territories of another country do count as separate
entities.
"These are important rules. If you're on a cruise and your ship
passes St. Lucia, you can't count it unless the ship stops and you
get off. You can't fly over South Korea and count it unless the
plane lands.
"But if you change planes at Schiphol Amsterdam you can
officially say you've been to the Netherlands! If you ever visited
East Germany before it merged, you can still count it today.
"Puerto Rico and Guam count as separate entities and each can be
added to your list. You can count the U.S. Virgin Islands as a
"country" for your list and you can count the British Virgin
Islands as well. (But you can't count St. Thomas and St. Croix
separately; they're both U.S. Virgin Islands and that only counts
once!).
"You can only count the Netherlands Antilles once, even if
you've visited both St. Maarten and Curacao. But Aruba is a
separate territory under the Dutch crown so it counts
separately.
As you can see, this is serious stuff. But please do count those
airport transits. You've been there.