When asked to weigh in on his travel in's and out's for 2025, associate editor Matt Ortile did not hesitate to declare the practice of “country counting” decidedly passé. If you're unfamiliar, a traveler engages in country counting when they present, usually on their Instagram story or some other form of social media, a list of destinations with adjacent boxes checked for each that individual has visited. If you don't think too hard about it, such posting is perfectly innocuous. But may we suggest that it only seems so because it is shallow and consumptive?
When you approach your travels in the same way you tackle a to-do list, you hollow out the nuance of place and turn it into just another prize for your mantle. Besides, what kind or quality of visit merits counting? How long must you stay? (Is a layover good enough?) And where must you go—certainly not everywhere within? Most importantly, once that box is checked, is there any point in going back to that country? To discuss, Ortile joined fellow associate editors Charlie Hobbs and Hannah Towey, associate articles director Megan Spurrell, associate social media manager Emily Adler, travel bookings editor Jamie Spain, and editorial assistant Kat Chen to discuss.
Charlie Hobbs: This debate is inspired by Matt and his feelings against country counting. Matt, could you please define country counting in your own words?
Matt Ortile: Gladly. Country counting is the practice of counting the countries you have “been to.” Very often, I see this in the bios of social media accounts, whether you're a travel influencer or a private citizen. People say something like, “59 countries and counting" with all the emoji flags for Japan and El Salvador and Australia. In my opinion, the idea that you're just gobbling up all of these countries clues me into how you travel and signifies an anti-slow travel mindset.
For me, I called it out in a recent video for the magazine because to me, country counting is about broadcasting where you've been, rather than sharing a story from an experience you had there or deeply engaging with what it means to be a visitor in a place. It's another sort of way of signaling status, of global citizenship. It just seems very shallow. I'm trying to sound very deep about it, but it just rubs me in such a weird way, very similar to the way that people say, “Oh, what's your body count?” You know, “What is your country count?”
I've had conversations with people, and they'll say, “Oh, yeah, I've been to Qatar,” for example. I was like, “Oh, what did you think of like the souqs?” and they were like, “Oh, I was just at the airport.” You're counting that when you had this very limited view, a very minute slice of what life in that place could be like. And I don't know, maybe that's travel to them, but it rubs up against my admittedly moralistic view of what travel can be.
CH: I want to ask the room: Have any of you ever put a country count up on your Instagram?
[Unanimous no's]
CH: Okay, no. Have you seen it around, though?
Jamie Spain: Yeah, especially with, like, Instagram travel, you know, social media travelers where that's their job. Like, “150 countries and counting!” I think it reveals more about how much you travel—a lot—than the places you visit.
Emily Adler: Can I play devil's advocate and ask: Isn't Instagram just shallow as a whole?
Megan Spurrell: That it's more of what Instagram already is? I mean, fair. The thing about a bio is that people, in a very small space, are trying to convey why you would trust and follow them—why they matter. Which is already a silly task, but people feel a need to justify themselves. It comes back to bigger issues with travel. Who is it for? Are you doing it to tell people you did it? Would you take the trip if you could never post about it or tell anyone?
My problem with country counting—beyond that it's annoying as are many things that all of us on social media including me do—is that it strips away the nuance that in one country, there are many things to do and see. People will be like, “Oh, well I've already been to Japan, so I've checked it off my list and I won't go back.” But if you've only been to Tokyo, you haven't seen Japan; you've seen Tokyo. If you go elsewhere in the country, you see a whole different thing. So it discourages people from looking for nuance and it's a bad habit.
CH: Once you check a box on a screen, it's very final, like you've completed something. And travel is wonderful when it makes you want to return.
JS: Even aside from there being multiple places to visit within one country, there's also something about falling in love with and visiting the exact same city many times. I think of you, Matt, and Paris, where every time you go it's a new experience. You cannot physically see these places on one visit, not to mention that things change and open and close.
MS: I think about that too with regard to the self: You are also different when you go back. In my early thirties, I am now returning to places I first saw in my early twenties because I've seen a lot of other things now and have things that bring me back or am choosing to circle back around. They feel so different, and it's so emotional—you're different, life has changed, the city has changed.
Kat Chen: I want to give everyone that does this the benefit of the doubt that they're doing so to spark inspiration. But whenever I've tried to engage in conversation, what I get back just brushes the surface of a place. There's also this undertone of Eat, Pray, Love Orientalism going on with this. Any time someone posts about Taiwan, I naturally get excited about it, but I find that people want to brag about going there because it's “exotic” without actually engaging with a place and it's people. Check, I went here.
There are of course exception to every rule. If you went to Changi and you really explored that airport, then that admittedly is a very Singaporean experience. They put so much investment into making that airport a symbol of its state. I think, though, that when you country count you deny the value of ordinary things. It's so weird that everyone wants to go to Bali to rediscover themselves but nobody wants to go to Utah and get a Mormon bath to do the same.
EA: I have a parallel question to reframe: What do you think about state counting, within the United States? To me, that has a different connotation because you're zoomed in and trying to see more within a country? I'm thinking of this as a lower stakes version.
CH: This is a question that I also wanted to ask. Is there a deeper way to do this? The states version being a way to encourage visitation of destinations here that don't get as much love. Is there a way to encourage rather than compete?
MS: I think when people get inspired to visit somewhere new, that is a good thing, but it turns negative when you go however briefly and return and say “I know that place.”
MO: Doing the 50 states does have a different cast to it. I was having a conversation with a wine travel specialist, and she said, “I don't know if this is true, but someone once told me that there is a winery in every single state.” And I thought, huh, that would be a wonderful goal to work toward—to visit a winery in South Dakota, in Alaska, in Hawaii over the course of your travel life.
MS: Madison Flager is doing a half-marathon in every state.
MO: Exactly like that, and how far along is she? 30?
JS: Closer to 15! She's young!
MO: This is something as well—the span of time. You speak to a 28-year-old travel junkie who is like “100 countries and counting”—there's around 195 countries in the world.
MS: And a lot of controversy about what is a country and what isn't.
CH: Not to mention places that you cannot or should not go, for one reason or another.
MO: But there's this sense of cramming it all in. “150 countries before you turn 30”—I'm exaggerating—but what are you really accomplishing there beyond burning a lot of jet fuel? I do love the Maddie example because it feels like this meaningful lifelong project that's in your body—as you're going along, you're getting faster, it's getting easier. There's something beyond the quantitative element.
MS: I do want to say that my family didn't do a lot of international trips when I was young. And when I started backpacking and getting to hop around places, I was excited to be getting access to something I didn't previously have. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think people with private jets are the ones country counting so much as people who are proud of themselves getting out and doing it. I just would love to do it without having to brag and compete. But I do think there's maybe a little of that child who is excited.
