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MTP's Master List of 871 locations is dynamic, and voting is ongoing HERE.

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Pancake house has been serving Smoky Mountains visitors for 50 years
Dublin's Docklands showcase a new, hip quarter
University of Texas Acquires David Foster Wallace Archive
Airlines improved on-time performance in January
Boing Boing Does the Road Trip
The Frugal Traveler: A Househusband in Italy
American Airlines, pilots 'far apart' in contract talks
Las Vegas balloon ride needs fix after wind scare
 According to our members, the world is made up of 871 countries, territories, autonomous regions, enclaves, geographically separated island groups, and major states and provinces. To visit all 871 would be to go everywhere.
See all 871 [Checklist] [Interactive Map]

No one has done it yet. The farthest along is Bill Altaffer of Carmel Valley who has visited 814, or 93%, of the pieces.
What's New?
Michael Novins
Added a report on Veneto
Hamzah Riyal
Added 3 photos on Shanghai (District)
Hamzah Riyal
Added a report on Beijing (District)
Hamzah Riyal
Added 12 photos on Beijing (District)
Michael Novins
Added a report on Puerto Rico
Hamzah Riyal
Added a report on Saint Petersburg (City)
Hamzah Riyal
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Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Malta
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Malta
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Luxembourg
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Luxembourg
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Liechtenstein
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Lithuania
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Lithuania
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Latvia
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Latvia
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Estonia
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Estonia
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Denmark
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Denmark
Bassem Elkot
Added 1 photo on Turkish Thrace
Chris Lewis
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Chris Lewis
Added a report on Czech Republic
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Croatia (other)
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Croatia (other)
Chris Lewis
Chris Lewis
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Walloon Region
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Walloon Region
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Flemish Region
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Flemish Region
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Brussels-Capital Region
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Brussels-Capital Region
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Austria
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Austria
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on South Island
Chris Lewis
Added a report on South Island
Michael Novins
Added a report on Hamburg
Chris Lewis
Added 2 photos on North Island
Chris Lewis
Added a report on North Island
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Victoria State
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Victoria State
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Queensland
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Queensland
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on New South Wales
Chris Lewis
Added a report on New South Wales
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on New York
Chris Lewis
Added a report on New York
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Dubai
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Dubai
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Abu Dhabi
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Abu Dhabi
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Quintana Roo
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Quintana Roo
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Nicaragua
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Nicaragua
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Islas de la Bahia
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Islas de la Bahia
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Honduras (mainland)
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Honduras (mainland)
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Guatemala
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Guatemala
Michael Novins
Added a report on Michoacan
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Costa Rica (mainland)
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Costa Rica (mainland)
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Belize
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Belize
Rafael Hernandez Justel
Added a report on Algeria
Rafael Hernandez Justel
Added 1 photo on Algeria
Ali Alkhadher
Added 2 photos on Kuwait
Roman Bruehwiler
Added a report on Heilongjiang
Roman Bruehwiler
Added 3 photos on Heilongjiang
Luis Filipe Gaspar
Added 1 photo on Roraima
Luis Filipe Gaspar
Added 1 photo on Bonaire
Pauli Kinanen
Posted a Trip Treasures of Andean
Michael Novins
Added a report on Western Cape
Chris Lewis
Added 2 photos on South Vietnam
Chris Lewis
Added a report on South Vietnam
Chris Lewis
Added 2 photos on North Vietnam
Chris Lewis
Added a report on North Vietnam
Chris Lewis
Added 2 photos on Thailand
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Thailand
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Singapore
Chris Lewis
Added 2 photos on Nepal (other)
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Nepal (other)
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Sabah
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Peninsular Malaysia
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Peninsular Malaysia
Chris Lewis
Added 3 photos on Laos
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Laos
Chris Lewis
Added 2 photos on Hong Kong
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Hong Kong
Chris Lewis
Added 2 photos on Guangxi
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Guangxi
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Guangdong
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Guangdong
Chris Lewis
Added 4 photos on Cambodia
Chris Lewis
Added a report on Cambodia
Chris Lewis
Added 1 photo on Kenya
Maciek Kremplewski
Added 1 photo on West Bengal
Iman Rahim

Upcoming Trips
 
Back to Africa: Namibia, Botswana & Zambia
Bali to Saigon: Komodo, Sulawesi, Borneo, Brunei
New Guinea Islands Adventure
Uganda: Primate Paradise
Vietnam & Angkor Wat
Chatham Islands - A land apart
Ducie Expedition - Pitcairn Islands
Empires of the East: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan
Eritrea Discovery (£1,490)
The Fabled Adriatic
Papua New Guinea Cultural Highlights
Treasures of Japan (with a day in Gyeongju, Korea)
Isla del Cocos, Costa Rica
Cook Islands to Samoa
Five 'Stans: Hidden Heart of Asia
Kashgar and Hunza valley
Chinese Turkestan & Central Asia
Turkey, Kurdistan Iraq and Iran
Swains, Tokelau and Phoenix Expedition
Southern Africa Safari
Larry Leventhal's road trip around Russia
Tokelau Islands and Swains Expedition
Bill Altaffer and the Kimberley Coast
ISLAND MAN ROCKALL EXPEDITION 2010
Spice Island Adventure- Orion Expedition Cruises
Jack Goldstein's road trip across Russia
Wakhan Corridor Trek: Tajikistan & Afghanistan
CENTRAL AND NORTH AFGHANISTAN
DR Congo - River Expedition (£4,600)
St. Paul Island, Nova Scotia
The Pamir Highway & Its Fabled Frontiers
Siberian Odyssey: Tuva, Baikal, Buryatia
Pamir Hwy in Aug 10
Bill Altaffers Stans and Pamir Highway
Angola - Northern Explorer
Forgotton Islands & Asmat Art - Orion Expeditions
World tour without airplane
SAUDI ARABIA: BEHIND THE VEIL ($ 4260)
East Timor Discovery (£1,770)
Mali - Ancient Empires and Tribal Traditions
Sierra Leone - Forts, Chimps and Beaches
Treasures of Andean
Birding Down Under
Galapagos of the Southern Ocean
Drive across frozen Lake Baikal
Atlantic Odyssey - From Antarctic to Cape Verde
90 European MTP-destinations
Switzerland: 26 cantons and 6 nearby destinations
29 European destinations: Germany, Benelux, France
29 European destinations (France, Spain)
Today's Report:
Ted Cookson         on Wake Island
 
A "MOST TRAVELED PEOPLE" VISIT TO WAKE ISLAND
by Ted Cookson

Dan Walker quickly descended from the gleaming white Continental Airlines 737-800 in the light rain. After reaching the freshly-laid blacktop on the runway, he turned to the right, walked a short distance, and asked a friend to snap his photo in front of the beige airport terminal building. At 8:39 AM on December 11, 2009 the lanky, six-foot six-inch Walker had become one of a relatively small number of tourists in recent decades to visit Wake Island.

When he is not traveling around the world, Walker, a Canadian living in Costa Rica, heads the Casa Canada Group, an umbrella organization for various companies dealing in investment, company and asset management, and travel as well as the non-profit Association of Residents of Costa Rica.

By participating in this tour operated by Military Historical Tours of Woodbridge, Virginia, the grinning Walker had also become one of only 82 members of Most Traveled People.com (MTP), a free online travel club, to reach Wake Island. Followed by its well over 7,000 members, the club's list, available at www.mosttraveledpeople.com, currently contains 773 destinations worldwide.

What made this tour to Wake Island special was that 24 MTP members living in ten countries participated. Of the top 21 MTP members (at the time of writing there was a tie for number 20), 12 were among the 97 paying passengers on the tour; and 17 of the top 40 MTP members were also there. Some remarked that this might have been the greatest concentration of well-traveled people ever assembled.

Most MTP participants had signed up many months in advance for this seldom-offered one-day Wake Island tour, which was priced at US$1,295 including round trip air from Guam, another American possession situated 2,417 km (1,502 miles) southwest of Wake and 2,507 km (1,558 miles) southeast of Tokyo. In fact, some persistent and patient travelers had even carried over deposits they had made for a longer tour in 2006 which was to have included Wake but which had to be cancelled after powerful Typhoon Ioke devastated Wake Island's air traffic control system in late August of that year.

Lying one-third of the distance from Guam to Hawaii, Wake has been in U. S. hands since it was taken from Spain in 1898 in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. President Roosevelt awarded jurisdiction of the atoll to the U. S. Navy in 1934. Shortly thereafter, in 1935, Pan Am established a seaplane refueling station on Wake in order to enable the airline to begin operating its fabled twice-weekly trans-Pacific Clipper flights. The Clippers were amphibious Sikorsky, Boeing, and Martin aircraft that would depart Alameda or San Francisco, California for a 6-day, 60-hour trip to Manila via Hawaii, Midway Island, Wake Island, and Guam.

Construction of a naval base on Wake had been underway for eleven months when the Japanese invasion took place on 11 December 1941; and Japanese forces then occupied the atoll for the remainder of the war. The atoll was designated a U. S. national historic landmark in 1985. Today Wake Island is administered by the U. S. Air Force from Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. Generally there are round trip flights from Honolulu to Wake twice a month. In addition, a supply barge is towed to the island as required.

Our tour of the island included visits to Invasion Beach, the Japanese-built revetments where enemy aircraft were kept, Drifter's Reef which is the current island watering hole, and the airport terminal building containing a U. S. post office, a one-room museum, and a well-stocked gift shop. Four memorials, a chapel and several old bunkers are all situated within a short walk of the terminal building.

Technical Sergeant Tom Czerwinski was one of a dozen or so support staff from the U. S. Air Force and Continental Airlines who accompanied our Military Historical Tours group from Guam. In preparation for our tour, Czerwinski had ridden one of the supply flights over to Wake round trip from Hickam Air Force Base. During the aircraft's two-hour turnaround, he had taken a quick tour of the island himself to ascertain which sites would be of most interest to a group of about 100 tourists. An Air Force medical specialist and a public affairs official also accompanied the group on the day of our visit.

Our local escort, who joined us for the tour in a yellow U. S. school bus and who hailed from Salem, Oregon, had been employed on Wake for a decade as an environmental specialist. Normally his work involved such things as performing bird counts and conserving natural artifacts. Our escort advised that certain areas around the island which are the responsibility of the U. S. Missile Defense Agency are designated as off limits. However, when questioned, he was unable to confirm whether missiles are in fact positioned on Wake at present.

The tour's finale was a wreath-laying ceremony to commemorate the sixty-eighth anniversary of the Japanese invasion of Wake Island. In addition to the large MTP contingent, 42 relatives and descendants of war veterans were in our group. Only two individuals who had fought against the Japanese on Wake participated in the tour. Since Military Historical Tours only operates groups to Wake at irregular intervals every few years, ours might have been the final tour to include those who had seen action on Wake.

At the conclusion of the ceremony all tour participants were wanded and our handbags were searched as we re-entered the airport terminal. After a flyover of Wake at dusk, Continental Captain Tom Campanelli smoothly pointed our aircraft toward the blazing sunset in the southwest for the three hour and seven minute flight back to Guam.

It had been a unique day.



Ted Cookson
Manager - Maadi
Egypt Panorama Tours
Cairo, Egypt
26 December 2009
www.eptours.com
www.tedcookson.com

 

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