Trav takes the train at Buchs, Switzerland. It is a beautiful day. The train passes Schaan-Vaduz station, Liechtenstein where it stops for a couple of minutes, then continuing to Feldkirch, Austria, where Trav gets off. Trav saw the mountains and the station at Schaan-Vaduz from his comfortable seat on the train. Has Trav visited Liechtenstein?
In this version, Trav takes the train at Buchs, Switzerland. It is a beautiful day. The train passes Schaan-Vaduz station, Liechtenstein where it stops for about 10 minutes, then continuing to Feldkirch, Austria, where Trav gets off. In Vaduz, Trav gets off the train at the platform only, then back on the train. Has Trav visited Liechtenstein?
In this version, Trav takes the train at Buchs, Switzerland. It is a beautiful day. The train passes Schaan-Vaduz station, Liechtenstein where it stops for about 10 minutes, then continuing to Feldkirch, Austria, where Trav gets off. Trav gets off the train and has enough time to leave the station and head outside, cross the road, see the post office and a theatre in the distance and quickly run back to the train. Has Trav visited Liechtenstein?
In this version, Trav takes the train at Buchs, Switzerland. It is a beautiful day. The train passes Schaan-Vaduz station, Liechtenstein where it stops for about an hour due to a technical problem, then continuing to Feldkirch, Austria. Trav gets off the train at Schaan-Vaduz and has enough time to leave the station and head outside and walk around for 45 minutes, seeing the theatre and having a quick coffee in Schaan. Has Trav visited Liechtenstein?
Ling drives from Thessaloniki, Greece to Belgrade, Serbia. She crosses into North Macedonia where she makes one stop at a gas station only for 5 minutes, does not get out of her car (paying the attendant from her seat) and then continues and crosses into Serbia about 2 hours after entering North Macedonia. Has Ling visited North Macedonia?
In this version, Ling drives from Thessaloniki to Belgrade. She crosses into North Macedonia where she makes one stop at the gas station for a few minutes. She gets out into the service station to pay and buy a bottle of water, and then continues and crosses into Serbia about 2 hours after entering North Macedonia. Has Ling visited North Macedonia?
In this version, Ling drives from Thessaloniki to Belgrade. She crosses into North Macedonia where she turns off the highway for a few minutes, taking a few photos of the archaeological site of Stobi (without entering the site) and then continues and crosses into Serbia about 2 hours after entering North Macedonia. Has Ling visited North Macedonia?
In this version, Ling drives from Thessaloniki to Belgrade. She crosses into North Macedonia where she turns off the highway and has a quick driving tour of Skopje without getting out of the car (detouring from the main highway for around 30 minutes) and then continues and crosses into Serbia about 150 minutes after entering North Macedonia. Has Ling visited North Macedonia?
Trav takes the bus from Tashkent to Bukhara. The bus makes a stop at the bus station of Navoi, which is a different NomadMania region. The bus station is on the highway outside town but Trav manages to cross the highway and walk around for 10 minutes before the bus continues to Bukhara. Has Trav been to the region which includes Navoi?
In this version, Trav takes the bus from Tashkent to Bukhara. The bus makes a stop at the bus station of Navoi, which is a different NomadMania region. The bus station is on the highway outside town but Trav takes a taxi and has a very quick tour of the centre for 20 minutes, where he gets off at Alisher Navoi National Park for a quick photo. He then goes back to his bus for Bukhara. Has Trav been to the region which includes Navoi?
Trav and Ling and baby Nomad take a Mediterranean cruise. In Tunis they go to the shops at the port area, buy their souvenirs and then go back to their ship without leaving the port area. Have Trav and Ling visited Tunisia?
Trav and Ling have a second baby! To celebrate they take a unique river cruise from Kinshasa to Kisangani on a new deluxe boat aimed at promoting tourism in DR Congo. In the region which includes Mbandaka, crossing which takes a day or so, they don’t get off the boat but they see a bit of the town from the boat and lots of typical scenes of life on the river. Have Trav and Ling been to the region that includes Mbandaka?
In this version, Trav and Ling have a second baby! To celebrate they take a unique river cruise from Kinshasa to Kisangani on a new deluxe boat aimed at promoting tourism in DR Congo. In the region which includes Mbandaka, they get off the boat but Ling is not feeling well (they may have caught malaria!) so after one minute on land they get back on board. Have Trav and Ling been to the region that includes Mbandaka?
Trav, Ling and babies Nomad and Mania take the boat in Samoa to Tokelau. When they arrive, however, they are not allowed off the boat, are denied entry and have to return to Samoa. They have merely seen a bit of Tokelau from the boat. Have they visited Tokelau?
In this version, Trav, Ling and babies Nomad and Mania take the boat in Samoa to Tokelau. When they arrive, however, they are detained and taken straight to Tokelau prison, After a few hours, they are escorted back to their boat and sent back to Samoa. They have merely seen a bit of Tokelau from the boat and their prison cell and the road on the way. Have they visited Tokelau?
Trav and Ling go to an international travel festival in Tornio, Finland. They have a lovely time socializing with other travellers, following the festival and enjoying food and drink. One evening they get completely wasted on strong Finnish alcohol. They don’t know or remember anything of what happened that night until they wake up in their hotel the following morning. But their GPS reveals that in their severely drunken state they wandered across the border into Haparanda, Sweden and walked around there for an hour or so. Have they visited Sweden?
Ling flies to Asuncion, Paraguay for a business meeting. She is taken by car from the airport to the company offices a couple of miles away, where she has a 6-hour meeting. She is then driven back to the airport for her flight out. Has Ling visited Paraguay?
Trav heads to South Korea and decides to do the DMZ (demilitarized zone) tour. He enters the hut where the line that separates the buffer zone of the south from the north passes in the middle of the hut. He crosses the line within the hut and claims he can now count North Korea as visited. Has Trav visited North Korea?
In Soviet times, Karki was an Azeri village. De jure it is still Azerbaijan territory, an exclave that is fully surrounded by Armenia. De facto, all the Azeris have long left the village, which is now populated by Armenians and is called Tigranashen. Trav, Ling and babies Nomad and Mania take a road trip from Yerevan to the Tatev monastery. Since they see Karki/Tigranashen on NomadMania’s M@P list located just by the highway, they make a quick detour off the highway and visit the village for a few minutes, walking around and taking photos. Have they visited Azerbaijan?
Trav and Ling really want to travel to Syria but cannot get a visa. Because the Golan Heights are de jure territory of Syria, they decide to visit them and claim they have been to Syria. They visit the portion of the Golan Heights that has been controlled by Israel since 1967, coming in and going out from/to Israel and going as far as possible until they can’t go further. Have they visited Syria?
Labadee is a port located on the northern coast of Haiti functioning as a private resort leased to Royal Caribbean for the exclusive use of passengers of its three cruise lines until 2050. The resort is completely tourist-oriented, and is guarded by a private security force. The site is fenced off from the surrounding area, and passengers are not allowed to leave the property. Food available to tourists is brought from the cruise ships. A controlled group of Haitian merchants are given sole rights to sell their merchandise and establish their businesses in the resort.
Trav and Ling take a Caribbean cruise and spend half a day at Labadee. Have they visited Haiti?
Ling flies on a small airliner from Port Vila (Vanuatu south region) to the Solomon islands. On one island in the region of Vanuatu north region, the landing strip is just a grass field and the “airport” a one room concrete building with the only telephone on the island. Ling is told she can get off and wait in the airport until the flight is ready to continue on its way. She walks across the “runway” and into the “airport”. There are 3 villagers in the room waiting to use the telephone. The two men are only wearing “kotekas” and the woman has a few leaves strung around her waist. They all have leaves and flowers in their hair and they are all chewing betel nuts and spitting the red juice on the floor. Other people are just outside the “airport” on the runway field, some of them selling fruit and homemade sweet things and kids are playing soccer with a rattan ball. Ling kicks the ball around with the kids until the flight is ready to go again. Has Ling visited the region ‘Vanuatu north’?
Trav takes a cruise that stops at Yucatan, Mexico. He decides not to leave the port area. The local government has invited a local “voladores” group to come to perform their fantastic death-defying spiral drop from a rotating tower on the pier. There are numeous local musical groups performing and even short classes offered on everything from coffee preparation to serape making. Has Trav visited the Yucatan region?
Trav and Ling transit through the airport in Munich, Germany without leaving the airport or even crossing immigration. The airport terminal is decked out for Oktoberfest. There are beer halls and oompah bands playing in the airport and locals dressed in their finest lederhosen. Have Trav and Ling visited Germany?
Bouvet island is arguably the most remote destination of the planet – uninhabited, ‘unfriendly’, windy and far far away. Trav and Ling board a trip that visits the island. They reach Bouvet after 8 days of sailing in choppy waters but at Bouvet the weather is extremely cloudy and foggy – they can see nothing of the island itself. Nevertheless, captain Jeroen is very brave and gets them on a zodiac at their own peril. They reach the shore, put a foot on the ground, in total fog, and then the zodiac overturns. They are drenched but have touched land; they manage to salvage the zodiac and get back on their ship. Have they visited Bouvet?
In this version: Bouvet island is arguably the most remote destination of the planet – uninhabited, ‘unfriendly’, windy and far far away. Trav and Ling board a trip that visits the island. They reach Bouvet after 8 days of sailing in choppy waters but at Bouvet, while the skies are clear, it is too windy to land safely. They spend a day circumnavigating the island – they can see the peaks, the snow covering all the land and can take photos of it all. Have they visited Bouvet?
Final ‘ridiculous’ case. Trav and Ling decide to pull a crazy stunt just for you at NomadMania. Ling contacts one of the world’s superpower spy agencies, who abduct her husband Trav from their home, put him blindfolded into a plane and take him to a destination he does not know, where he is then put in a dark cell for a week. He is then taken away again blindfolded and put into a plane, waking up at home. Trav then discovers that he was taken to Eritrea. Has Trav visited Eritrea?
