How I Visited 100+ Countries as a College Student

Anyone who knew me well before college would tell you that I loathed being on planes. I struggled with severe cases of air sickness as a child, but that never deterred me from excitedly mentally preparing myself for the flights for my annual family vacations. These resort-focused trips (think Atlantis Bahamas, Wild Wadi Dubai, Disneyland Paris, and Suncity South Africa) were vastly different from my current BUDGET ones. Nevertheless, I’m immensely thankful to my mum for prioritizing them, as they served as my gateway to experiencing diverse cultures and appreciation for travel.

Some might argue that my first “solo” journey was leaving Nigeria for boarding school in the US, but I wouldn’t quite classify it as such. The first trip where I distinctly recall being involved in the planning process was during my junior year of high school. It was a class excursion centered around The Cold War, taking us to Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Our teachers tasked us with crafting the itinerary based on our coursework. For sixteen-year-old me, this marked my initiation into planning a trip steeped in history and culture—an experience that significantly influenced how I approach travel to this day.

I attended university in Philadelphia, and my inaugural solo adventure was the summer after my freshman year. I received funding from my university to intern and conduct research on urban transportation systems in Medellin, Colombia. I was awarded with a stipend that was much larger than what was necessary for the two-month trip. I strategically took advantage of this, organizing my flights to allow for a 4-day layover in Monterrey, Mexico to visit a friend. Over the course of the summer, I explored six Colombian cities and ventured to Panama with a friend before returning to the US to compile my research findings into a paper for my university.

During college, I was part of a program that required learning a language and studying abroad for a semester. I studied Spanish, and during my sophomore year I studied at Universidad de Sevilla in Spain. Southern Spain is absolutely enchanting and afforded me the chance to venture by ship to Northern Morocco and journey by bus to Portugal. Unfortunately, the semester was cut short by the onset of the pandemic, prompting my return to the US.

By the time I left Spain, my passion for travel had blossomed. I relished forging friendships and the perpetual novelty of exploring unfamiliar places. However, with the pandemic confining me to Philadelphia, my wanderlust remained unquenched. Fortunately, my university partially refunded my housing costs for the interrupted semester in Spain and like many I received pandemic governmental stimulus checks. With the surplus funds beckoning for adventure, after months of lockdown in Philadelphia, I impulsively booked a trip to Bolivia during a conversation with a friend from boarding school, who had moved back to her hometown of Santa Cruz de la Sierra amidst the pandemic. What ensued was a memorable winter break spent in Bolivia, solidifying my decision to return to South America.

As the pandemic gradually abated in the spring of 2021, my freshman year roommate and I devised a plan to take advantage of countries offering discounts because of the pandemic tourism bust. We spent the summer doing internships on Wall Street, and along with another college friend, used our savings at the end of the summer to visit Egypt and Turkey. This trip taught us the art of budget travel: taking overnight buses between Turkish cities, bargaining $5 for morning showers at hotels, snagging hot air balloon deals for less than $80, and stashing our luggage in the homes of benevolent strangers in Istanbul that we connected with through Facebook groups. We were also lucky enough to have friends in Cairo who were invaluable during our trip, reaffirming a lesson I gleaned in Bolivia—the significance of local guidance when visiting new places.

At the onset of my senior year, I resolved to traverse South America to compensate for my lost semester in Spain but didn’t want to wait to endure the uncertainties of a post-graduation gap year. Scanning through my graduation requirements, I realized I had completed most major obligations. By shouldering a burdensome load of seven courses during the fall semester, I calculated that come spring, I’d be left with only my honors thesis and two independent research studies, none of which necessitated my physical presence on campus. Despite grappling with the demanding workload while juggling applications for graduate school fellowships, I made time for escapades. During fall break, my friends and I ventured to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, capitalizing on offseason flight deals. Opting for classes with project-based assessments rather than exams, I persuaded another friend to accompany me during final exam week to Honduras, the cheapest place to get your scuba diving certification. After Honduras, I embarked on a solo trip to Nicaragua for Christmas, courtesy of the hospitality of a college friend from Managua. 

In early 2022, I started the multi-month journey through South America, commencing with a flight from Philadelphia to Guayaquil, Ecuador. There, I joined three college friends (one of whom hailed from the area) for a week-long trip. When my friends returned to Philadelphia, I began my first extensive solo journey, unsure of what lay ahead. I resolved not to exceed my usual semester spending (~$6000 for rent and groceries) and to remain focused on completing my thesis and independent studies. And I did just that. Over nearly five months of travel, I meticulously documented every expenditure (~$6420, inclusive of flights even those that I missed oof!) and juggled remote teaching assistant duties for two university courses while diligently completing my research.

From Ecuador, I ventured onward to Peru, Chile, and trekked through Patagonia—where I interviewed for a summer internship. Subsequently, I explored Argentina and took a ferry to Uruguay—where I interviewed for graduate school fellowships. Then, I took a bus to Brazil then to Paraguay and back to Brazil. I stayed in Brazil for 6 weeks, half of which was devoted to writing code for my thesis which I had procrastinated. I visited Porto Alegre, Sao Paulo, Rio, Iguazu Falls, Brasilia (where I saw my friends from my semester in Spain!), Salvador, Recife, and Maceio.

With just over a month remaining until my graduation, I made plans to reconnect with my freshman college roommate (I’m sure you see a trend–she’s my travel buddy!), who had graduated a semester early to enroll in culinary school in Paris. We planned a pre-graduation excursion to Jordan and with the South American weather shifting, I opted to divert my path toward Asia to shorten my distance. Recalling a chance encounter with a girl from Kyrgyzstan whom I had met in my hostel in Turkey, I impulsively booked a flight to Bishkek. Kyrgyzstan captivated me, sparking a desire to explore the neighboring “stans,” though visa setbacks redirected me to Georgia, which swiftly became one of my favorite destinations. From there, I ventured to Armenia, and lingered in Kazakhstan before flying all the way to the Netherlands, just in time for King’s Day. In Holland, I reunited with a friend I met in Uruguay who was from Amsterdam and also got to spend a few days with one of my closest friends I had made during my semester in Spain who was doing her masters in Groningen—plus it was tulip season! A missed flight from Amsterdam necessitated an unplanned $330 detour to arrive in Jordan coinciding with the final week of Ramadan—an exhilarating culmination to my extended voyage.

I arrived back in Philadelphia just in time for graduation, marveling at the journey I had undertaken—and ready to do it all over again. My Zoom interviews conducted in the Patagonian wilderness and on Uruguayan shorelines had been successful, securing a summer internship and a full scholarship for a UK master’s program, signaling a new chapter in London. That summer, I took a short flight from Philadelphia to Canada, exploring Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, and Ottawa, before setting my sights on Europe. Six weeks before my masters began, I flew to London. It was September, the perfect time to visit the Nordic wonders of Norway, Sweden, and Finland, followed by a Baltic journey through Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and an unexpected finale in Budapest and Slovakia’s Kosice, obviously because it had the cheapest fares back to London.  

If you read this blog’s About Me page, you know that as a student the first thing I do when I receive a course syllabus is identifying the attendance rules and what class days are off. I was very intentional about this while in London to capitalize on low academic intensity weeks for off-season trips. In late October, I flew to Croatia to meet a friend I had met when I was in Morocco. From Croatia, I went to Lake Bled in Slovenia, segued to Vienna and Zurich by bus and visited Liechtenstein by train. I happily ended the trip visiting San Marino and Rome despite all my belongings getting stolen from the bus in Milan. In November, I had “reading week,” a week of no classes to catch up on coursework. I caught up on coursework from charming cafes in Tunisia and Malta. I spent Thanksgiving with other Americans in my scholarship program in Belfast and took a bus to visit my friend who was studying in Dublin. 

Amidst Christmas assignments, I seized a $90 bargain flight to Nicosia, Tel Aviv, and back, reveling in the underrated North Cypriot landscapes, the poignant sightings of places Jesus walked, and the beauty of road trips I had with friends I made in the West Bank. In February, we had another “reading week” which I spent visiting the French Rivieria, Monaco and Andorra alongside a nostalgic pit stop in Barcelona to visit friends I had made in Kyrgyzstan. March found me in Algeria lured by irresistible fares from London. And our university’s 1.5-month Easter break morphed into a Balkan odyssey through Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Greece’s Corfu, with a spontaneous detour to Belgium and Luxembourg.

Halfway through the long break, I returned to London to diligently tackle my final assignments for the semester. I had plans to visit Iranian friends that I had made in Armenia, but these were thwarted by visa complications, redirecting me to Iraq—the most memorable solo trip I had from my time in the UK. From Kurdistan to Basra I embraced the nation’s rich culture and history before crossing the border to Kuwait and then snagging flights with an Eid discount to Saudi Arabia. I visited Dammam and then took a bus to Bahrain and then went back to Saudi Arabia where I spent several days with my friend completing her Fulbright fellowship in Riyadh. I ended my trip in Jeddah before flying back to London a day before my final exams. Needless to say, I was cramming dozens of pages of class notes throughout this trip, but it was definitely worth it! Two days after my final exams, I celebrated by traveling to Romania with my friend. After she returned to England, I crossed the border to Moldova. In June, I gave a tearful farewell to London to complete an internship in the US.

During that summer, I persuaded my sister to do more solo traveling, and she got an apartment in the Dominican Republic which I took advantage of while visiting her for a long weekend. During Labor Weekend, my freshman year college roommate and I had our annual trip together. We ventured to Belize by boat via Mexico (because it was cheaper than flying directly) and spent a few days relaxing on the islands and scuba diving. 

At this point, I had the looming task of completing my master’s dissertation, but if I had learned anything from my undergraduate studies, it was the best place to write an extensive research paper is on the road. Everyone claims that Southeast Asia is the haven for budget travelers, thus, I purchased a one-way ticket to Malaysia—only to miss it because I went to the wrong airport! Undeterred, I secured another ticket the following day and commenced my Southeast Asian adventure in Kuala Lumpur. From there, I embarked on a solo trip spanning Brunei, Cambodia, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Bali, Myanmar, and Thailand. In Laos, I serendipitously met up with college friends who were visiting at the same time. My trip culminated in Vietnam where I coincidentally met someone from college on the Ha Giang loop and reunited with a friend from high school residing in Hanoi.

Returning to Nigeria for a friend’s wedding and a family reunion in December, I unexpectedly found myself granted a complimentary two-day layover in Nairobi due to flight cancellations by Kenyan Airways. After the New Year holidays, I embarked from Lagos on a road trip through Benin, Togo, and Ghana with my aunt, finally embracing the benefits of my West African passport.

At the end of my West Africa trip, I resolved to set out on one last extended solo trip before transitioning to full-time employment. Thus, I journeyed from Nigeria to Mumbai to commence a 2.5-month trip in South Asia. From the bustling streets of Mumbai to the beaches of Goa to the ancient splendor of Hampi and the amazing skyline of Bangalore, I loved the diversity of experiences India had to offer. It easily became one of my favorite countries! Then, I had a one-week stint in the Maldives with a friend I had made in my hostel in Myanmar before a milestone celebration in Sri Lanka, marking my 100th country visited! I hopped back into South India before experiencing a week of Ramadan in Bangladesh, then hopped back into North India for a mesmerizing exploration of Rajasthan before visiting Nepal for Nepali New Year.

As I draft these reflections from Mozambique, my 104th country, I remain awestruck by the realization that I’ve traversed over “half” the globe—all as a student. This transformative journey is so much more than I could have imagined when I took my first solo trip to Colombia during my freshman year. Indeed, embarking on these adventures as a student not only made them much more attainable but also more enriching. Being a student allowed me to take on travel without having a manager to report to or counting vacation days. My university’s myriad funding programs and the discounts that come with a student ID further facilitated these trips, while my familiarity with communal living and penchant for making new connections with classmates seamlessly aligned with the budget travel lifestyle. Moreover, I gained such a richer understanding from traveling than I did from any of my international relations classes I took for my major.

While my travels undoubtedly benefited from fortunate opportunities along the way and the privilege of having a strong passport, I maintain that receiving opportunities goes hand in hand with searching them out, which I prioritized throughout college. If you’re intrigued by the notion of maximizing travel opportunities as a student, check out the post where I share insights and tips I’ve gathered from my experiences.