This is my slightly obsessive, joyfully impractical mission: to visit a country for every letter of the alphabet. To keep things fair (and to stop me inventing countries that don’t exist), I’m using the countries list as defined by The Lonely Planet Guide to The World. Rules matter. Even on adventures.
This has been a lifelong project, long before it had a name. I’ve kept travel diaries for years, though the earliest entries are paired with wobbly, pre-digital photos and the kind of handwriting that suggests enthusiasm over accuracy. In 2013, to celebrate turning 40, I travelled to Ecuador and finally gave the whole thing some structure. From that point on, the quest became more deliberate: not just travelling, but actively tracking the alphabet, the places, the details, and the moments that tend to blur with time. It’s part travel log, part memory bank, and part alphabet-fuelled excuse to keep exploring.
This site isn’t a guidebook and it isn’t a complete record. Some entries are detailed; others are brief: a photo, a note, a remembered moment. Earlier trips lean on diaries and hindsight; later ones are better documented. Read it alphabetically, jump around, or follow whatever catches your eye. There’s no correct order.
Realistically, the alphabet has limits. X is unlikely ever to be completed, and Y—Yemen—is currently out of reach. I’ll do the rest where I can and leave the gaps visible.
When this quest runs out of road, there’s another one waiting much closer to home: cities, and the lifeboat stations of the UK and Ireland. Fewer flights, more trains, more coastlines. Same instinct, smaller radius. The point was never the alphabet itself—it was having a reason to go.