NOMAD MANIA
The web site “Best Traveled” was started by the Londoner Harry Mitsidis in 2012 as a means for travelers to keep track of the places they went to. Membership has an easy registration. NM is nonprofit and completely free. Every traveller has a profile with a photo. Simply transiting a country does not count in Nomad Mania.
Authentication. Requires personally meeting another Nomad Mania member who then authenticates your existence as a human being.
Country Verification. Requires proof that you have visited at least 20 countries – passport stamps, boarding passes, bills and photos are the most used methods.
Region Verification. Requires proof that have been to 60 regions.
Best Traveled consisted of the primary list of 1281 regions and along with the 193 United Nations countries and World Heritage Sites, this formed the nucleus of the website. In 2018, Harry added the Series – now over 54,000 individual sights divided up into several categories making it easy to find what you might be interested in seeing. The name was appropriately changed to Nomad Mania. That is when I became a Nomad Maniac.
Through the interviews, lists, podcasts, regular newsletters, photographs and meetings held around the world, fellow travelers share their experiences creating a true community. It is possible to post your current trip.
HOMEPAGE
The Home Page has a world map with each continent divided into areas. For example Europe is divided into Northern, Western, Southern and Eastern. Each area is further divided into the regions within each country. Click on any region and all the series of individual sights come up in the same progression. This gives a qualitative look at what to do in a place.
Travelers
• Master ranking, Gives the rank in NM 1281 in lots of 50. An upward pointing arrow shows travelers actively adding regions. The rank in your country is possible.
• In Memorium. Lists some travelers who are no longer living
• Travellers in History. Lists several politicians, celebrities and explorers. Very interesting.
• UN masters. Lists those travelers who have visited all 193 UN countries and is ranked by age. It has several qualifications – by the NM verification process, by word of mouth, by media references and by personal web sites.
• Interviews. List of all the interviews held. Profiles travellers Harry finds interesting – usually the biggest travellers or travelers from unusual places or countries with few big travelers. Recently focusing on women travelers.
Series: Click on each series to access all the individual series lists by region and country.
Fixers: Posted by individual travellers about tour operators usually in hard to go to countries. Very useful but could be organized better with countries grouped. Has some pointless entries to easy to see places.
Visas: This is a difficult area as every country has different visa arrangements with other countries. Some countries have poor availability to western visas (China, most African and poor countries). The best countries to come from are South Korea, Japan and most Western countries – all are visa free to 157 or more countries.
The information is in random order on obtaining visas. I don’t find this as useful as it could be because of its organization. It needs to be organized by continent and countries.
West Africa is a visa nightmare as some visas (Nigeria, Ghana) are very difficult to obtain. Costs are high in almost all, averaging over US$100. Most require proof of yellow fever vaccination. Many also have many requirements to be met.
Some countries require visas to be obtained in your home country (Pakistan, Ghana). India is a bureaucratic nightmare. China gives relatively short visas for most Europeans (amazingly as a Canadian, I have a 10-year visa). The most cumbersome require Letters of Invitation (USSR, Belarus, Uzbekistan and others) and often lists of accommodation booked; they also require registering every 5 days. Belarus is the only country requiring proof of medical insurance specifically for Belarus.
Visas often reflect how your home country treats another country, both in requirements, difficulty, and cost. Tibet, North Korea, Bhutan and Turkmenistan require booked tours to visit. Iran is a very difficult country for Americans. UK citizens and Canadians as tours are required, letters of invitation necessary and visa application times long.
Statistics: Shows the most commonly visited regions and countries and the biggest travellers (visited the most NM1281 regions) by year, both by new regions visited or by all regions visited including ones visited previously.
MASTER LIST
This was created by determining the size of the territory, population, cultural importance, economic significance and tourist appeal.
To count a region as having been visited, one must at least stand beyond the demarcation line.
The Master list in Nomad Mania has the following categories:
• Regions of the World: Each country was divided up into geographic areas to produce 1281 regions in the world – think the 50 states of the United States (but several have more than one region so there are 70 regions in the US), then add its territories (Porto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands etc) and often places of special interest that may be quite small (Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, Easter Island in Chile, Mt Athos and at least five island groups in Greece). Reorganized and now with 1301 regions.
• Countries in the United Nations – 193 – the ultimate goal is to see them all.
• UN+ – The 193 UN countries plus their territories – 265
• DARE (Distinctive Alternative Remote Extremes) – 1501
• TCC – Travelers Century Club – another travel website that some travellers use exclusively but inferior to Nomad Mania. It allows one to count a country if landing at an airport 330.
• MTP – Most Traveled People list – total 866
• DEET – Defintie Exhaustive Exploring Proportion (NM regions to UN Countries ratio).
• SLOW – Measures the slowness of travel.
• WHS – World Heritage Sites – total 2023
• KYE – Know Your Earth, Geographic based list – total 448
• TBT – The Biggest Travelers based on all rankings. It reflects both the quantity and quality of travel as it is a composite of the Masterlist 25%, TCC 10%, MTP 10%, KYE 10%, SISO 2.5%, CHAD 7.55%, WHS 15%, Top of the Top 10%
SERIES
Has several general groups:
• Geographic Masters: Master list, Islands, borders, XL
• Urban: Cities, World Capitals
• Transport: Airports, Airlines and Routes, Railways, Metros, Funiculars and Cable cars, Roads, bridges and tunnels.
• Intellectual: Museums, Castles, palaces and forts, Religious temples, Modern Architecture buildings.
• Outdoors: World of Nature, Festivals, Experiences, TTD
• Miniseries
Access individual series divided by country and type.
Offers statistical ranking for each category by total and home country.
Click on any sight and a pop-up box appears that allow comments about that site. The comments following each are my personal feelings.
Top of the Top 620
General Ranking 41,345
World Heritage Sites 1,196 – My most favourite series. Almost all worthwhile destinations. I want to be #1 in the world.
Tentative WHS 1,712 – One of my favourite series as most are also interesting places to visit. Each year some will migrate onto the main WHS list.
Sights – This has been discontinued as of August 2019 as many (90%) were in other series. I liked it as it often highlighted the best places to see and included some places that did not fit into other series.
World Capitals 201 – The capital of each country and usually the most visited place by tourists (exceptions would be the USA, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, South Africa, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Myanmar, India). Have national museums, usually the best in the country, the best modern architecture and the greatest variety of churches and other sites.
Islands 1281 – These are often not of much interest other than remote places to see and another NM tick. Not many have more interesting coastlines than the mainland. They require a lot of effort to get to by ferries and/or planes.
Borders 851 – Every border of a region with another country, both land and sea. To count, one must have stood on the other side of the demarcation line.
XL 1,281 – Lists out-of-the-way or remote places often along border areas. Can take a lot of effort to see. They often have little of interest but this is variable.
Cities: Americas 881, Europe 881, Africa 651, Asia & Oceania 881. Several have no sights listed for them. This is of variable quality and requires research to determine the mains points of interest.
Villages and Small Towns 881 – One of my least favourite series, as most have little to see. Few countries are like the British Isles, Provence or Italy with many cute villages. There is no information in Nomad Mania as to their attraction and one must research to determine the sites to see. Often it is just a church. But some are real gems.
World Cities & Popular Towns 801 – Often very busy with tourists, the places almost everyone goes to.
Airports 1,891 – Must fly into or out of to count and travel beyond the airport.
Airlines & Routes 681
Railway, Metro, Funiculars, Cable Cars 1,558
Roads, Road Bridges & Tunnels 1400 – A great series usually with epic scenery.
Museums 7,681. The biggest series, the most expensive to see and with a huge variability in quality. Go to the post Museums, Castles, Palaces and Other Attractions in my web site to get the most out of these and spend the least money.
House Museums/Plantations 951. Usually homes to famous people, often poets, authors, artists and politicians. These may be of minor interest to foreigners.
Castles, Palaces, Forts 2,021. Another large series, this has variable value. Many are ruins of little value. Palaces must have the most variability of any site – many can’t be visited as they are private, government or royal buildings or abandoned and derelict. Some have museums, hotels and restaurants and are easy to visit. Another expensive category to see as many are private and have an entrance fee.
Religious Temples 3,071 – Includes Christian churches, mosques, synagogues, Buddhist temples and others. Can get very redundant as they start to all look the same, but many have an interesting history and architecture. Most are free and generally open, especially Roman Catholic churches and mosques.
Sicily has the best concentration of Christian churches in the world – almost all in Palermo. Go to my Travel Page to see the post Best Christian Churches in the World.
Modern Architecture Buildings 1180 – One of my favourite series as there are many fantastic buildings with interesting architecture built since 1900. But few can be entered past the lobby as most skyscrapers are office buildings or apartments.
World of Nature 2,102. Up to 2019, this listing included only national parks. I have had many personal communications with Harry about enlarging this series. My point is that some places in the world have few or none of the other series sites but spectacular scenery and nature. For example where I am from, British Columbia, has the Rocky Mountains, the interior is full of mountains, lakes, rivers and Provincial Parks (often much better than most national parks in the rest of the world) and Vancouver Island, Haida Gwai and the ocean mainland has some of the best sea kayaking in the world where seeing whales and everyday experience. A similar place is the desert southwest of the USA and Colorado Plateau with 300 canyons emptying into the Colorado River – I think it is the most beautiful general area in the world.
When I see National Parks in Europe, I would like to know what there is to do, primarily what trails are good. I have also recommended that the best trails be included in this series.
Festivals 1.980 – As these are date specific, tickets may not always be available on short notice, tickets are usually for the whole festival and they are expensive, they are one of my least used series.
Experiences 679 – Usually food to try, sports specific to a country or musical instruments to hear or play.
Entertainment/Things to Do 822 – This can range from bars, nightclubs, music venues, escape rooms, concert halls, theatres (most have plays in the local language and are of little value to see a performance), cinemas (English availability variable) and sometimes amusement parks or open-air museums.
Religious Monuments 208
Hospitality Legends. Includes iconic hotels and restaurants that have existed for at least 80 years and continue to operate. Staying or dining is not a requirement.
These last two do not count towards your series ranking and basically list all municipalities in any region. They do not appear in the region list of sights but must be accessed from the main Series list. I have not been keeping track of them negatively impacting my TBT score.
SISO 3978
CHAD (Country Hybrid Administrative Divisions) 4,211
MINI SERIES
Zoos 611 – I find these very redundant. I have seen most of the animals in the wild and most zoos have the same critters. Zoos are prisons for animals and many zoos use outdated inhumane caging. They can get depressing. Most zoos are for children.
Botanical Gardens 601 – Most are administered by the local university. They would be of much more value if the common names, rather than just the scientific name were listed. Their excuse is that too many languages would be required. Interest depends on the time of the year visited as flowers, often the main interest, are seasonal. Trees only have scientific names, a real negative.
Aquariums 311 – I have had 97 dives and seeing fish in aquariums does not compare. Many have small tanks with similar fish, labeling variable and all aquariums are full of screaming kids. Some are excellent.
Planetariums 201 – All have domes with exotic projector systems but these most often simply show constellations, which get redundant. Most commentaries are in the local language. The best have displays on planets, galaxies and tell about the creation of the universe using the great photos of the Hubble and Webb telescopes.
Theme Parks 411 – I enter many but never go on the rides. These have expensive rides and are generally places for kids, teenagers and young adults.
Lighthouses 451 – Some have fantastic architecture but the main reason for seeing them is the seascape. Few can be entered.
Windmills 241. Of all Nomad Mania sights, I have the most difficulty finding windmills as there are not often listed in Google Maps. Google is also of little help as the listings are usually for Instagram with only photos and no info. Most look the same inside and get redundant, but I have also seen some very unusual ones (Crete).
Beaches 671 – I personally rarely swim in the ocean (except in West Africa) and then only on hot days. I never sun tan. Can be nice places to walk. Full of people.
Waterfalls 451 – One of the best series as part of nature, but can be in out of the way places.
Caves 531 – Another good series with nature. Often seen on tours.
Ski Resorts 211 – Available only in the winter and expensive.
Malls/Department Stores 321 – These get very redundant with all the same stores. Some have great architecture and design.
Markets 621 – Great places to buy vegetables, fruit, meat, cheese and often other products. They are often a pleasure to walk around. Some have classic architecture.
Monuments 631 – One of my favourite series, as they are sculpturally interesting and often have a good story to tell and learn local and country history. And they are almost always free and open 24-hours per day.
Pedestrian Bridges 342 – One of my favourite series, they often have great design, cross nice bodies of water, are free and open 24 hours/day.
Maritime/Ship Museums 442 – Most maritime museums have a lot of ship models, portraits and vignettes about ships and are of variable quality. The best relate life on ships.
Open-Air Museums 281. They usually contain houses and buildings relocated from the region or the entire country. The better ones give the providence of each building and are hosted by locals in traditional dress. Often many buildings are closed. The architecture of old buildings can be interesting but they also get redundant. The crafts, often demonstrated by people actually performing them, can be very interesting.
Aviation Museums 281 – These are of variable quality and usually not very interesting with redundant planes. The worst are the ones in Eastern Europe with Soviet military planes.
Railway Museums 261 – Often very redundant with a lot of locomotives and other cars. The best have royal trains and passenger cars with great stories.
Vehicle Museums 272 – Some are spectacular (the Ferrari Museum in Italy, Mercedes racing cars), some only have locally produced cars (Eastern Europe and are not so interesting) and are of variable quality. It is always interesting to see all the classic North American cars like the ’57 Chevy, T-birds, muscle cars and wild fins and designs plus many British sports cars.
The Dark Side 383 – One of my favourites as the history is often interesting. Many show the holocaust and other genocides.
Bizzarium 351 – One of my favourites, usually very interesting places to visit.
Vintage 255 – The series I have seen the least of.
Religious Monuments 207 –
Hospitality Legends 471 – Iconic hotels and restaurants that have existed for at least 80 years and continue to operate, thereby being legends. Staying or dining is not a requirement. These are easy “ticks” but most are not interesting – often a lobby, facades often not that interesting, a menu to look at.
Indigenous Peoples (Tribes) 245
FEATURES IN NOMAD MANIA
Regular newsletters. Brings you up to date with changes in the website and lists. Gives most recent interview. Tells about recent meetings held regularly around the world. Relates trips organized by Nomad Mania to often difficult to see places.
Links to Facebook, Instagram,
Photographs of trips
Stories. Each region has a link to blogs about the region. Many members of Nomad Mania have blogs.
Podcasts. Started in 2019, has interviews by the author of Untamed Borders with travellers he thinks have something to offer especially advice about difficult places to travel in: the youngest traveller to have seen all UN 193 countries (a 27-year-old Dane), Afghanistan, and southern Russia around the Caucasus are the first three.
LIKES
1. Ease of Use. Easy to register and free. Write your profile to tell as much as you want to. No ads.
2. Keep track of your travels in one convenient place. Nomad Mania is extremely well-designed. Log in and easily navigate to what you want to do. Use Quick Enter to add your regions. Post your trip to tell others about your destinations. Go to the home page, click on the map where you can also enter the region, and enter your series. Easily check to see your rankings. Most “big” travellers use Nomad Mania.
3. Provides statistical analysis of everything: your general ranking, the ranking in your home country, ranking in series, both total and by the individual series, the biggest travellers etc.
4. Accomplishing goals is made very convenient – UN 193, regions, series, country ranking, World Heritage Sites.
5. Gain at least a basic understanding of the history and culture of individual countries. If one has visited the majority of NM sites in a country and done a modicum of reading, they leave a country with a fair understanding of what the place is all about. I read the Wikipedia write-up on every country and visit many museums that increase my knowledge. The best would be to read about the present geopolitical situation using resources like The Economist. For some of my destinations, I have collected recent Economist articles and have added them to my posts.
Nature is well represented in NM: Wonders of Nature lists mostly national parks. Other categories are Mountains, Waterfalls, Rivers, Lakes, Caves & Sinkholes, Trails 1 Treks and Trails 2 Hikes.
6. Create a travel community. I rarely meet other members of Nomad Mania Many members take trips organized by Nomad Mania to go to “difficult to see” places and have developed a travel community.
7. Get Rid of Your Guidebooks? Instead of using guidebooks (Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and many others), one can use Nomad Mania to give you a complete list of ideas of things to see – what my primary interest as a traveller is. With writing and publishing delays, guidebooks are out of date when published. They are bulky and one more heavy object to carry in your pack. And they get very expensive. I find the information unreliable (everything is wonderful as if the book was getting a kickback from saying only positive things). There are many other sources including apps that list restaurants and entertainment.
Guide books have too much extraneous information – I never used guidebooks to tell me:
Where to stay – I use hostelworld.com or booking.com with objective reviews by current fellow travellers, list amenities, have accurate prices and have the ability to book the accommodation immediately and conveniently, often with no or small cancellation fees.
Restaurants change owners and staff frequently so who knows what the food is like when you visit? I always eat where it is convenient or on the recommendation of other travellers. And I rarely eat in expensive places.
Entertainment – again one wants to go to places that suit them now, not what was fashionable 3 years previously.
With the Internet and apps for everything (especially maps), one gets much more reliable information about transportation, airports and how to get around.
History, geography, demographics, political structure and culture are easy to find elsewhere (for example Wikipedia or Wikitravel). The best lists electric plugs necessary for each country.
DISLIKES
Many of these are not specific faults of the design of Nomad Mania which is excellent but by being so extensive in its lists has facilitated by personal habits.
1. Poor or Mediocre Destinations. One would like to think that every site in Nomad Mania is a worthwhile destination. With 65,000 places to see in the series, at least 10,000 of the ones in Nomad Mania could be dropped – nobody would miss them and the worthwhileness of the website would improve considerably. The goal of the series is to produce balance for each region. This results in poor destinations being listed.
The series with many of these include islands, many cities, most small towns, regional museums (ask yourself on leaving what you learned about the city), other museums (contemporary with universally bad art, religious with too much of the same thing (see below). One would have to do a lot of research to get the most out of every destination. This takes a lot of energy, time and a good internet connection.
3. Repeating places in some series. Most zoos, aquariums, open-air museums, aviation museums, railway museums, maritime museums, malls/shopping centers, windmills, beaches and planetariums all start to look the same. There is little satisfaction in seeing more, except to get one more Nomad Mania tick.
4. Cost. Seeing many sites in some series gets very expensive, especially museums, castles and palaces.
5. Fatigue. As a Nomad Maniac, especially as one who is in to the Series and going everywhere possible and not missing anything, I get exhausted. Seeing many museums in one day gets very tiring. By the time I finish the posts on my blog and do the research and bookmarking destinations for the next day, I usually will have put in an 18-hour day. As a medical doctor for 30 years, I never worked this hard. I virtually never take a day off. I go home for vacations.
This to a great extent reflects my age. I still have excellent health and physical ability, but at 66 when I am writing this, I could die tomorrow, or come down with some illness that prevents mobility or travel at all. As a result, I am in a hurry to see as much as I can and achieve my Nomad Goals (below) while I can.
Of course this is my own fault and I take full responsibility for my behavior. But I don’t think I will ever travel any other way. It suits my personality. And Nomad Mania facilitates this behavior.
6. Makes travel and life competitive (this comment maybe should be in Likes, it depends on your personality). If you are a competitive person, you have found nirvana in Nomad Mania. Where else, unless you are professional tennis player, can you see how important you are. It is an adrenaline rush to watch you climb up the rankings. And a downer when you are not traveling and seeing people pass you. The only other place I am aware of where you can be competitive as a normal citizen is the American Contract Bridge League that I also belong to.
7. Travel can become a “blur”. I see so many sites and attractions, that frankly my 2 years in Europe has become one big “blur”. I have a relatively high IQ and used to have a great memory but it is not what it used to be. I never take a photograph and thus look at things for visual memory. I think this is better. How many people look at their photographs anyway?
8. Lack of authentic experiences. We could get into a long discussion about philosophy of travel and how we all make personal choices about how we want to experience the world – what travel means to us as individuals. But I believe that having truly authentic experiences are uncommon for most travelers. This is not a Nomad Mania problem but one engendered by seeing so many different places in a short time, again a choice I have made about how I travel. Simply getting more NM ticks does not necessarily add to authentic experience. The experiences series may be the best to use to improve authentic experiences.
To get to “know” or understand a culture well, one needs to spend a long time, usually working or volunteering, needs to be relatively fluent in the language and needs to be outgoing enough to search out the locals and make friends. I have poor language learning ability and would have to have learned at least 30 languages during my 2 years in Europe. I frankly don’t have the time, interest or ability to do that. I don’t even bother learning to greet people, say hi or thank-you. English is fortunately the international language of travel and allows some basic communication – usually no more than “where is X?”.
MY PERSONAL NOMAD MANIA GOALS
Note that trying to accomplish goals involving both regions and series is much more challenging. Seeing all these series destinations takes a lot of time.
1. Be #1 in Canada in the Primary Series. Stewart Shepherd has held this spot forever but he is over 80 and not likely to add much to his list. His totals are very reachable. I am currently (August 2019) #3 in this list. The #2 man is young and has to work so I should have no problem passing him this year, but he is a very determined young man who will be difficult to stay ahead of forever.
2. Lead the world in the Series. As the Nomad Mania series began when I started my most intensive travel spending 2 continuous years in Europe and driving everywhere, this is a reasonable goal. The capital cities of each country are very good places to add a lot to Series totals as they have a tremendous number of concentrated sites. Most have museum cards making seeing all their museums and attractions inexpensive and I usually walk these cities. But these are also the regions I take the longest to see.
I try to see everything possible in each series but still miss at least 20% – some places are too difficult to see (islands, XL, festivals, most of some big places like Russia, airports as I rarely fly, internal railways) or have inconvenient opening hours (many museums are closed on Mondays or open late and close early) and I am getting bored with many of the series. It also gets expensive to see all these attractions.
One must travel with their own vehicle to see all these sites. It would be almost impossible to see many using public transportation, unless one had a lot of time and energy. Once World of Nature is expanded, my numbers will increase a great deal as that has been the thrust of much of my past travel.
I have a difficult time understanding the immense numbers of the people ahead of me in the series, especially as the Series did not exist when they did most of their travel. They must have been very intense travelers to see all these small towns, islands, XL areas, obscure museums, regional museums and palaces.
3. Be the third Canadian to see all 193 UN countries. I originally had no desire to do this but if I keep up with my future travel plans (see my web site for details), I think I have a chance to do this by the time I am 71. My last year of travel will be a Round the World Trip to collect my last places. Countries with wars or extremely unstable governments (Syria, Yemen, Libya), dangerous countries (Somalia, most of Sub Saharan Africa), difficult visas (Saudi Arabia) and hard to get to places (Kiribati, South Pacific) will be my most difficult countries. It is harder to travel everywhere now with Islamic insurgencies than ever before.
4. Lead the world in World Heritage Sites.
5. Be the biggest traveler in 2019. I see a new region every 2-3 days. Some, like Moldova, I saw 3 in less than two days. I took a quick spin through northern Finland, Norway and Sweden and saw 7 new regions in 9 days as I ignored the series and was more region orientated, had long drive days and then spent 4 intense days in Stockholm, missing little in that series. Some countries are large with big driving distances and take much more time – Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Romania, Ukraine, Turkey to name a few.
HOW I ORGANIZE MY TRAVEL to MAXIMIZE the SERIES and REGIONS
One needs great motivation and the energy to see as much as possible.
1. For each region, I copy the Nomad Mania web page for the geographical region. As it is listed by series, I reorganize and format the region by city and small town.
2. I then use Google Maps to transcribe this list by bookmarking every region with all the sights. Doing this online is the most efficient way. It the sight can’t be found, I use Google to investigate the location. Google Maps has 3 types of bookmarks: Favourites, Want to go and Starred places and I used to differentiate the sights using the different bookmarks. I used Favourites for places I had a definite address: Want to go includes places I was uncertain of; Starred places were for cities, towns, villages, national parks and general areas with no specific address. But combining bookmarks of different types caused my “favourites” bookmark to disappear completely. I could not recover them or figure out a solution so now only use Starred Places, the yellow star.
3. The day before, I will go through each area and plan my route, trying to see as many bookmarked sites as I can in the most efficient way. I put them in order in Word on my computer.
4. If I have time and data access on my phone, I like to do some research on each sight and add that. I download free Lonely Planets and other guidebooks from the web site www.gen.lib.rus.ec and sometimes use that or more often use Google for information.
5. I bring my computer with me and write as much as possible about each site as I see them.
6. At the end of the day, I construct the post using all the information I have obtained that day and use Google search and guidebooks for research. When I have wifi access, I post the region on my web site, including the dates of the visit. I like to also add photographs at this time.
7. I then return to Nomad Mania and tick off all the places I have seen. It is important to keep this up on a daily basis and not fall behind. In this way, my web site is usually up to date within the last 2-3 days.
