Interesting find.

[link|http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/25/CMG31EF1H51.DTL|The title, "World's Most Traveled Man" may be contested, but covering 518 countries in five years should put Charles Veley on the map]

Only a tiny handful of country collectors -- precisely eight by one estimate, "not quite 20" by another -- have ever managed to cross Bouvet off their lists. The most recent is a 40-year-old dot-com millionaire from San Francisco, Charles Veley, and he believes this, along with all his other peregrinations, qualifies him as the most well-traveled person in the history of the world.

Veley has certainly seen more of the globe -- far, far more -- than Captain Cook, Magellan or Marco Polo. He has been to Meghalaya, to Mizoram, to Molukkas, methodically crossing each place off his long list. He has been to the Kermadec Islands, to Kingman Reef, to Kwazulu-Natal, filling six passports with obscure stamps and visas. He has been to Lampedusa, to Lord Howe Island, to Limpopo, missing his daughter's first steps and first birthday party. He has been to Ras Al Khaimah, to Rotuma, to Rio Muni, spending a million and a half of his own dollars on airplane tickets, freighter passages and sailboat charters.

In the end it boils down to "how do you define 'visting a country'?"

Wade.