How many countries have you visited?

How many countries outside South Africa have you visited?

  • I have never left South Africa

    Votes: 38 10.8%

  • 1

    Votes: 19 5.4%

  • 2-3

    Votes: 41 11.7%

  • 4-5

    Votes: 52 14.8%

  • 6-10

    Votes: 85 24.2%

  • 11-20

    Votes: 74 21.1%

  • 21-30

    Votes: 22 6.3%

  • 31-50

    Votes: 12 3.4%

  • 51+

    Votes: 8 2.3%
  • Total voters
    351
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
nobody visited at st Helena?
North Korea,
Kiribati’s?

Somewhere off the beaten path?
Click to expand...
I had an overnight yacht re-fuel on Bermuda and then again at Gibraltar during an Atlantic crossing. Those are slightly off the beaten path I think.

The rest of my travels are pretty much on par with the rest here.

Going to Poland in June to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau out of Krakow and then also 2 days in Warschau (Warsaw).
 
10 in total. 5 of those touch a border with SA (only Botswana I have missed). Others are England, France, Netherlands, Denmark, USA.
 
TheMightyQuin said:
I had an overnight yacht re-fuel on Bermuda and then again at Gibraltar during an Atlantic crossing. Those are slightly off the beaten path I think.

The rest of my travels are pretty much on par with the rest here.

Going to Poland in June to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau out of Krakow and then also 2 days in Warschau (Warsaw).
Click to expand...

Eish. That’s a tough place to visit but one I think everyone should do.
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
thats what I figured, nobody here went anywhere slightly dangerous or tricky to get to,
I mean St helena has a weekly flight from JHB, nobody gone on it?
Click to expand...

Middle of the Borneo rainforest? About a two hour mud track ride from the end of the last town where the tarred road ended, which in turn was about 8 hours north of the nearest airport at the south end of the island.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Wut
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
nobody visited at st Helena?
North Korea,
Kiribati’s?

Somewhere off the beaten path?
Click to expand...
East Timor in 2007, just after their elections. I was on contract for six months, but nobody knew WTF to do about visas and permits, so my company ended up buying us all Timor-Leste passports which I still use to this day when travelling to Europe.
 
Wut said:
East Timor in 2007, just after their elections. I was on contract for six months, but nobody knew WTF to do about visas and permits, so my company ended up buying us all Timor-Leste passports which I still use to this day when travelling to Europe.
Click to expand...
thats pretty much off the beaten path, remember East Timor always being a dangerous place,
sure you needed armed guards and special insurance to go there.
 
Wut said:
East Timor in 2007, just after their elections. I was on contract for six months, but nobody knew WTF to do about visas and permits, so my company ended up buying us all Timor-Leste passports which I still use to this day when travelling to Europe.
Click to expand...

Haha. Probably cheaper and quicker than a visa.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Wut
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
thats pretty much off the beaten path, remember East Timor always being a dangerous place,
sure you needed armed guards and special insurance to go there.
Click to expand...
We didn't have armed guards, but we were housed in what seemed like a pretty secure compound. I used to joke that it seemed like a converted prison. The money was good because of the extra danger pay, but the place never really seemed that dangerous to me. I could walk around quite freely and the locals were very friendly and found it extra confusing that I was white and from South Africa.
 
Spizz said:
Haha. Probably cheaper and quicker than a visa.
Click to expand...
Yep :thumbsup: A brown envelope passed under a table, some documents stamped and signed and we were in the system. Most difficult part was getting our pictures taken and printed at the time. Recently had to do biometrics for passport renewal, so they seem to be much more on the ball nowadays.
 
Wut said:
Yep :thumbsup: A brown envelope passed under a table, some documents stamped and signed and we were in the system. Most difficult part was getting our pictures taken and printed at the time. Recently had to do biometrics for passport renewal, so they seem to be much more on the ball nowadays.
Click to expand...

So effectively you’re a citizen? 🤣
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
thats what I figured, nobody here went anywhere slightly dangerous or tricky to get to,
I mean St helena has a weekly flight from JHB, nobody gone on it?
Click to expand...

Tried to have a look. Flights not too bad. You can get there for under 10k return but accomodation is pretty pricy so you can probably just get the same experience for cheaper by visiting another island. It does not seem too exciting either.
 
Bill Clitnon said:
Also discovered how insane the security at Ben Gurion airport is. You get interviewed even before getting to the check-in counter and every single person's carry-on gets thoroughly searched and swabbed. Took us 1 hour just to get through security.
Click to expand...
This ....

I did some work in Tel Aviv about 10 years ago, on an armor project. Bullet resistant fabric made in SA was failing in Israel.
Turns out, it was a problem their side, and we got it sorted.
Plenty of shooting range tests across different calibers.
With BRVs we look for the number of layers a round will penetrate over a standard distance, at different velocities. This is called the V50. ... the velocity required to penetrate 50% of the layers. There is velocity spec, and if the velocity of the tests exceeds the minimum without penetrating more than 50% of the layers ... good to go, as long the blunt face trauma is below 4.4mm, against a standard hardness clay. Their clay was the issue.

Now, I am used to the security at Ben Gurion .... but this one time ... one time .... I was traveling with another Saffer who happened to have a stamp for Iraq or Iran in his passport.
He got pulled aside, and pointed to me as his travel buddy.

We were pulled aside, suitcases emptied on the floor. It was k#k.
I had a little digital camera ... about the size of a bic lighter, that caused all sorts of concern. That camera was a gift from a company in Belgium .... but that's a whole nother story.

Of course, when they did the sniffer scan, the gunpowder residue went off like I had won the lotto.

Off to a small room and the questions started.

After about an hour of strip search and interrogation, I was frog marched to the check in. Got an upgrade to business and was the first passenger on the plane. Was told not to chat to my pal during the flight. I kind of dropped the hint we were no longer buddies ...... think I described my travel partner as a groot poo esss, Afrikaans for great guy ......

Anyhow, he was the last guy on the plane and was seated so far back, the k#khuis at the back could have been his seat.
 
Wut said:
Click to expand...
ROLFL they did something like this to us, El al or Ben Gurion airport security is no joke,
even here locally in SA they quite extreme, even speaking fluent Hebrew with an Israeli accent wont help you.
they get the rubber glove and get the sniffer dogs out.

can only imagine what its like for some people not lucky enough to be born there or speak the language since birth
must be quite an ordeal, no wonder afterwards were known as that country that makes North Korea look like Hawaii.
 
JuliusSeizure said:
Tried to have a look. Flights not too bad. You can get there for under 10k return but accomodation is pretty pricy so you can probably just get the same experience for cheaper by visiting another island. It does not seem too exciting either.
Click to expand...
sure its a rock in the middle of the ocean, but wasn't Napoleon imprisoned there?
also being so isolated does make it seem like a unique place away from the rest of the world sometimes.
especially as its a UK colony, one of their last.

one airline reviewer went on the Flight from JHB and got stranded there when the runway wasn't safe to land on it,
fascinating seeing such a tiny Country
 
Johnatan56 said:
But it's a bit of an odd one for most South Africans, e.g. going Johannesburg to Cape Town is the same as Budapest to Paris.
Click to expand...
Or the same as living in Johannesburg (Berlin) and Putin firing missiles on Cape Town (Kiev)
 
6: Mozambique, Mauritius, Tanzania, UAE, Thailand and Italy. Only once except Italy which has been twice.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X