Here we are again, time for my Year in Review piece: A brief text with a few pictures to “tell the story” of the year that just ended. …And what a year it was! So without further ado, let’s do it!
Lucy’s Retirement
Yes, it was bound to happen… And it happened on 31DEC! After 44 years, with postings in 14 countries in 5 continents, time to leave the field to the younger crowd. This will have an incredible impact on our lives going forward: most significantly, we will become a lot more sedentary.
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In the Air: Another Record-Breaking Year
An incredible 109 flights in one calendar year. That’s 109 take-offs and 109 landings. Yikes! Up from 105 flights in 2024, my previous record. Driving the number up this year was my desire “to do” as many countries in Africa as possible, given that in 2026 I will no longer be living in that neck of the woods. According to FlightRadar24, it was 383 hours and just over 250,000 km / 155,000 miles inside planes. That is 16 days and 6.2 times around planet Earth. And yet again, please note that the airplane is not my preferred mode of transport.
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On the Road: More Driving Across Africa for The Wilderness Project
2025 was great year on the road as well: I once again got to drive a support vehicle on one of The Wilderness Project’s Great Spine of Africa (GSoA) expeditions. The subject of study on this one was going to be the Luena River, a tributary of the Zambezi that runs West to East through the middle of Angola. The plan was to fly to Lusaka, Zambia, pick my truck up and then drive well over 2,000 km / 1,250 miles through Southern Africa—including Botswana and Namibia—to the source of the river (somewhere in the middle of Angola, between the towns of Kuito and Luena).
Once by the river, it would be another 800 km or so to its mouth, providing support to the project’s scientists working on the water. Once done, I would drive the truck back to Lusaka through the middle of Zambia and then fly home.
Things went absolutely per plans up to Caila, a tiny little place just after the Namibia to Angola border by Katwitwi. Once here, I received orders to stop and wait for further instructions. This because Angola had broken into a bad case of social unrest, a result of some rather unpopular measures taken by the government there. Well, as it turned out the expedition ended up being cancelled. …And just like that, my big, beautiful drive through the middle of Angola came to an end! It hadn’t even started. Instead, I was ordered to drive the truck to the project’s big regional base in Maun, Botswana. Which I did, of course.
I was heartbroken for the team. It is difficult to imagine the amount of prep work that one of these expeditions requires. As for me, the cancelation was not a total loss: I still managed to put in 2,300 km / 1,430 miles through beautiful, fauna-rich southern Africa; I added a few more countries to my count; and I got to experience a little bit of the famous Okavango Delta.
Last but absolutely not least, this “road trip” was the setting for the most random, most improbable meet-up of all the improbable meet-ups in this world: I run into MTP’s Charles Veley—a good friend of mine for quite a few years now—in Nkurenkuru, a tiny hamlet in Namibia near the Namibia / Angola border by Katwitwi. Him coming from Angola and heading south, to Windhoek; and me going on the opposite direction, heading north to Angola. What a great example of how small this beautiful planet of ours really is! We had breakfast at a Shell gas station—the only place in Nkurenkuru to do so—and then he decided to turn around and come with me back to Angola. We had a nice lunch at my hotel in Caila, and then he turned south again, back to the border, on his way to Windhoek.
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The Country Count: Up to 150
Yes, I ended up 2025 with a country count of 150! A whopping 20 new countries in green for the year, including a few somewhat complicated ones. As mentioned above, the driver for this extraordinarily high number was my desire “to do” as many countries in Africa as possible before moving back to the U.S. at the end of the year. And total success on this front: 15 new countries in Africa done! So, as of now, 46 to go, i.e., well on target to reach my goal of 193+3 by the end of the current decade. Rock on!
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Also Noteworthy
The year started with the evacuation by the State Dept of the Embassy in Kinshasa, D.R. Congo, in January. Curiously enough, it came while I was in transit at the airport in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on my way to the Maldives. Great timing on my part, I believe… Unfortunately, not everything worked out that nicely for me: We ended up being away from home for 3 months, which forced me to change drastically all my traveling plans for the year.
Special mention as well to the celebration of the wedding of Jacqui Kunz and Gunnar Garfors in May. This being Jacqui and Gunnar—two of the most extreme travelers on this little planet of ours—this celebration took place in Naustdal, Norway. Yes, Naustdal. Try to find it on a map! …And this being Jacqui and Gunnar, I couldn’t just show up in town in a “normal way.” Instead, my sister Rita (my +1 for the ceremony) and I converged in Paris, France—Rita from Portugal and me from the US—and then we continued onward to Naustdal travelling at “See Level.” In this case, a combination of day trains, a sleeper train, a ferryboat ride, and a rental car.
The year ended with the MTP Summit ’25, in Addis Ababa in mid-November. Great host country, Ethiopia; great conference venue, the Sheraton Addis; and great presentations by great speakers. So, a great success! But as it is often the case with this type of events, the MTP Summit ’25 was primarily a great opportunity to see old traveling friends and to make new ones.
A few other curiosities from 2025: 115 nights “on the road,” of which 85 in hotels, 14 with family and friends, 12 in airplanes, 2 in airports, 1 in a train, and 1 in a boat.
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The Pix
And now 12 pictures to further highlight all the above. Hope you’ll enjoy them.
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For 2026
After the craziness of last year, 2026 will be back to normal, as far as visiting new countries! Thus, I’ll be happy with adding 10 to 12 new countries to my count. A few things that I am currently looking at or considering: A quick trip through the island-nations of the southern Indian Ocean, namely Mauritius and Comoros (to use air tickets bought for one of the trips that I had to cancel in 2025); a “See Level” trip through some of the Stans in Central Asia (timed in coordination with the 2026 World Nomad Games in Kyrgyzstan); and a first “dip” into the island-nations of the western Pacific Ocean (to be done on my way to Extraordinary Travel Festival III in Bangkok, Thailand).
…And, yes, as you just read, in 2026 we will have the third Extraordinary Travel Festival. Bangkok, Thailand, will be again the place to be in late October to meet, to listen to, and to talk with some of the most extraordinary travelers on earth! Do check out the website of the event, Extraordinary Travel Festival – Travel Festival
And that’s a wrap. Hope you enjoyed it. Cheers.
