Stamps on one of Chris Guillebeau's passports.

Chris Guillebeau
AC360° Contributor

This post is relevant for readers with U.S. passports who travel frequently. If you don’t fit in that group, feel free to skip this one — or just read it for the entertainment value.

I’ve mentioned a few times that I have two U.S. passports, and each time at least one person asks me how that works. Well, I’ll tell you exactly how I got the second passport, and what you need to do if this would help you too.

First, the need for a second passport. Why bother?

U.S. passports are good for a number of reasons: notably, they are valid for 10 years, and when you fill up the pages with lots of stamps and visas, the State Department in Washington, D.C. or any embassy abroad will issue more pages at no charge. I’ve had three passport page extensions so far, and without that option I would have needed at least four passports by this point. No other major country of which I am aware offers a passport that includes both of these important features.

As good as a U.S. passport can be, there are still two problems with having only one passport of any kind. First, when you visit politically sensitive countries (especially in the Middle East), the ensuing stamps can cause delays and other problems for you later.

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The Palace of Happiness in Bhutan.

Chris Guillebeau
AC360° Contributor

When you first head off to places in the world that are a lot different from where you live, a number of things change. You have to learn to adapt.

I still make a lot of mistakes everywhere I go, but I try to learn from each of them. Here’s a short list of things I wish I’d known before I started my routine of extensive overseas travel, especially in countries in Africa, South Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America that are not part of the tourist circuit.

Health Care

1. You can legally buy safe medicine, including prescription drugs, for very little money overseas. When in Africa or Asia, I stock up on anti-malarials that cost $5 a day in Seattle. On location, it’s more like $1 for a 10-day supply.

2. The best health care is not in the U.S., Canada, or the U.K. The best healthcare is in places like Thailand and Costa Rica; that’s why the practice of medical tourism will continue to surge as both travel and overseas healthcare become more accessible.

Money

3. Take a lot of cash with you, and make sure the bills are new and have no writing on them. If you go to a place that accepts credit cards, then you can just redeposit the cash when you get home. It is far worse to end up short of cash with no credit card option.

4. If you do use your credit card, check the online statement at least once a week while traveling to make sure there are no fraudulent charges. Keep all your receipts, especially for large purchases such as hotel stays, and compare the amounts charged when you get back.

5. When you exchange money, hang on to the receipt you get until you’ve left the country. Once in a great while, someone at the airport will want to see proof of all your foreign exchanges.

Outside the Tiger's Nest Monastery in Bhutan.

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A photo of Khaju Bridge in Isfahan, Iran, taken by an American traveler.

Chris Guillebeau
AC360° Contributor

If you do enough traveling or are crazy enough to want to go everywhere, sooner or later you’ll encounter a few countries that aren’t especially known for being welcoming to travelers. Sadly, civil war, longstanding dictatorships, and massive corruption can be the norm in several parts of the world.

For the independent traveler, these countries present special challenges. Thankfully, most of the challenges can be overcome – at least so that you can go there and return safely.

THE BASICS

Let’s start with a couple of assumptions, followed by the principle that makes this kind of travel possible.

First, the assumptions:

1. You need $2 a day to go anywhere. Almost anyone who reads this can probably save $2 a day toward a travel destination of choice. Most people will probably not choose to put their pennies towards North Korea or Syria, but the cost shouldn't be your largest obstacle.

2. It helps to have a passport from a rich country.* If you are a citizen of a rich country or otherwise carry a rich country’s passport, it will be easier than if you live in a poor country. This is not required, but it does help with visas. Keep reading

Editor’s Note: President Obama made his first visit to Sub Saharan Africa as President this past weekend. He and his family visited Ghana where the president gave a wide-ranging address to the parliament of Ghana, a western African nation seen as a model of democracy and growth for the rest of the continent. Obama’s visit prompted AC360° contributor Chris Guillebeau, to reflect on his four years working in the region.

Boats along the shore of Ghana's coast.

Chris Guillebeau
AC360° Contributor

West Africa is the kind of place that is largely unknown to most people who haven't made a deliberate effort to study it. Travel writers struggle to describe the region without the clichéd contrasts: hope, despair, joy, sorrow. That's what you get when you combine a poverty-stricken area with some of the world’s happiest people.

Many people ask how they can get started in international development work. My answer: carry boxes.

Depressed after 9/11, I surfed the internet looking for volunteer jobs as far away from America as possible. I found one in a medical charity that needed a warehouse manager, which turned out to be a euphemism for box-carrier. Technically I managed a slew of donated goods for refugee camps and nurses, but mostly I shuffled boxes back and forth in a Land Rover every day.

No matter. It was the best job ever. I went to West Africa in 2002 with a two-year volunteer commitment. Before the end of the first year, I ended up running more than the warehouse. The organization needed a Programs Director to oversee the field work and coordinate relationships with host governments throughout the region. “Pick me,” I said, and for some reason they did.

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A city in Yemen, one of the countries Guillebeau plans on visiting this year.

Chris Guillebeau
AC360° Contributor

On a six-hour train trip through Eastern Europe several years ago, I counted up the dozens of countries I had been to and realized I was in reach of 100. Doing a quick time-and-money estimate in my journal, I calculated that the cost to get to 100 would be about $30,000.

My first thought: only $30,000? My friends were buying S.U.V.s with that kind of money. I could have a large vehicle or I could have the world. Easy choice.

I had been living in West Africa, volunteering as an aid worker while moonlighting at night as a business consultant via the Internet , before moving to Seattle in 2006 for graduate school. During every school break, I traveled – to Uganda, Kosovo, Jordan, Brunei, and beyond.

While on one of those trips, I was daydreaming on a ferry from Hong Kong to Macau when the thought hit me: instead of just 100, why not try to visit every country in the world? I decided to go for it. Every good goal has a deadline, so I set mine for my 35th birthday, currently four years from now. By then I plan to have visited every country in the world, all from my new home base in Portland, Ore.

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