It took a look of pure exasperation from my housemate to make me realise that a flight of fancy had turned into an unhealthy obsession. We were tossing about potential locations for a holiday in September, the only stipulation being that it had to be quite sunny.
“I’ve heard that Finland is lovely at that time of year,” I lied, before making an unconvincing attempt to sing the praises of Helsinki’s architecture and cultural scene.
“Besides, it’s only a short ferry ride away from Estonia…”
In truth, I know very little about either Finland or Estonia. In fact, my sum knowledge of the two countries can probably be summed up in one paragraph, so here goes:
Finland and Estonia 101: Finland is the home of Nokia, Father Christmas, saunas and the World Wife Carrying Championship; Estonian and Finnish are arguably the two hardest languages in the world to learn, and an Estonian is the world wife-carrying champion.
That’s it, really, apart from the one key point: I’ve not yet been to either of them. And here lies the obsession. For reasons explicable only to myself, I have decided that unless I have been to sixty different countries by the end of 2008, then I have somehow failed in life. I don’t particularly care which sixty countries, or even where in those sixty countries. As long as I can spend at least a day in each of them, my largely pointless quest is on track.
If I think about it, I can blame my dad. Once, on a holiday in the south of France, he insisted that we should see Andorra (which, believe it or not, is a real country). We went, we noseyed about in the shops, we filled up with dodgy petrol, and then we spent a whole evening stranded on a roadside in a broken down car. It wasn’t the greatest of day trips, and we hated him for it at the time. But now all is forgiven – after all, Andorra is country number eight of the 33 currently ticked off the list.
This approach is, of course, totally wrong in so many ways. It’s hardly the best way to get to know a country or its culture, more exciting places get skipped in favour of any old town near the border and as for the carbon footprint… let’s not even go there. There are also more practical downsides – constantly having to use a new word for “thank you”, perpetually getting up early to catch planes and trains and having a wallet full of random coins that are no use to man nor beast.
But in other ways, it’s fantastic. While ostensibly about ticking off the boxes, it offers a fantastic chance to explore places that are a little off the mainstream tourist map. No-one really goes to Zagreb, for example, but as the Croatian capital is closer to the Hungarian and Slovenian borders, it seemed a more expedient bet than the more popular coastal cities. And guess what? It’s absolutely lovely.
Then there’s Luxembourg, visited purely to add on another country between France and Germany. I’d happily put Luxembourg City in my top five urban travel destinations – it’s in a gorgeous setting, and far more fun than anyone would have you believe.
It even means testing out places that would ordinarily hold no real appeal, but may have a few surprises in store. Zurich and Singapore spring to mind – not my usual type of place, but endearingly close to Liechtenstein and Malaysia.
The rather futile mission also offers a chance to learn far more about a range of places. Before heading to a new destination, I like to swot up on its history, traditions and culture, if only as a way of keeping occupied on the train journey. Consequently, I know things about Latvian artists, dancing in the Cook Islands and Norwegian agricultural policy that are entirely useless outside really hard pub quizzes.
And, when you’ve got to convince the cynics that going on holiday to, oooh, Finland and Estonia is a good idea, you stumble across some rather intriguing things to see and do. Who wouldn’t want to go to the Tampere Spy Museum or try bogwalking in the Soomaa National Park?
Mercifully, I’m not the only sad loser with such an obsession. I have one friend who managed to get himself dumped following a holiday in Rome, after insisting on a particularly uninspiring two day detour to San Marino. Now that’s dedication.
Then there are the real geeks. There is actually a club for people who have been to more than 100 countries, called the Traveler’s Century Club. As far as I’m concerned, this is for cheats as it allows you to count airport stop-offs and blatant non-countries like Alaska, Sicily and the Bismarck Archipelago. They even count Tasmania as a separate country, and that’s just not on. Heck, I may be a tickbox tourist, but at least I’ve got standards…
Tickbox tourism: Handy hints
- Maps and guidebooks are your friends, the first for seeing how close you are to the border of a new country, the latter for finding out how long it’ll take to cross that border.
- If you’re going to get serious about it, Europe is the place to head for – lots of countries are packed in relatively close, airfares are cheap and ridiculously tiny nations like the Vatican City and Monaco can be done as part of a trip to somewhere more exciting.
- To do it on the cheap, utilise tools such as Skyscanner – it lists cheap flights from any departure point by price and location.
This article was originally written for Ninemsn.
Copyright David Whitley.
