World’s Most Traveled Man

So you’re thinking to yourself, you know, self, I’ve traveled a lot in my lifetime. I’ve been to a lot of different
countries, seen a lot of places, tread where few have tread before. Well, that’s nice. Perhaps you ARE well-traveled.
But are you as well-traveled as Charles Veley, who at 40 years old, claims to be the
World’s Most Traveled Man (WOMTAM, for short)? I doubt it.

Yes, Mr. Veley of San Francisco, a dot-com milionaire a few times over (he ran the company MicroStrategy that boomed
and then busted) claims to have visited 518, or 90% of the 572 countries, territories, autonomous regions, enclaves,
geographically separated island groups, and major states and provinces of the world. Don’t believe it? Well, Veley has
got a Web site to prove it. (He is also purportedly listed
in the Guinness Book of Records…where his record is NOT to be confused with the world’s
most traveled Teddy
Bear
). Yes, you can learn more about Veley and his trips, and see how he counts a country visit, and even watch a
remarkably slow, but oddly compelling Flash presentation of his vagabonding at  mosttraveledman.com. Oh, and did I
mention the annoying music? It’s there. But you can turn it off.

And if you want to read more about him, you can check out these links.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/03

http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/01/23/trvelvey_ed3_.php
http://www.iht.com/articles/2003/03/07/trtour_ed3_.php
http://www.intentional-traveler.com/pages/stories/travelerma