Travelers' Century Club Explained

Travelers' Century Club
Founded Date:	1954
Location:	Los Angeles, California, United States^[1]
Num Members:	1,400+

The Travelers' Century Club, or TCC, is a club for people who have visited 100 or more of the world's countries and territories.

The organization was founded in California in 1954 and now has more than 1,400 members throughout the world.^[2] The club has twenty-one regional chapters in the United States, and one each in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom.^[3] It holds regular meetings and provides other tools for social networking.^[4]

Membership eligibility and the list

The TCC maintains a list of countries and territories by which initial membership and milestone recognition is determined. The list includes not only sovereign states but also certain territories, exclaves and island groups. As of January 2022, the list contains 330 such countries and territories. The club literature notes that "although some are not actually countries in their own right, they have been included because they are removed from the parent country",^[5] based on rules established in 1970.^[6] The designation of what qualifies to be on the list is very roughly based on the amateur radio DXCC award criteria for working 100 "entities."

The club has no requirements as to how long the traveler must have stayed in a country to qualify. Anyone who has visited 100 or more of the places on the list is eligible to join.

Records

• By 2018, twenty-four members had visited every place on the list. John Clouse, from Evansville, Indiana, was the first to travel to all of the organization's listed countries and was recognized by the 1995 Guinness World Records as "the world's most traveled man" taking the title from another TCC Club member Parke G. Thompson.^{[1] [7] [8]}
• The youngest to join the club was Lani Shea, whose parents Jeff and Novita from Novato, California, reported that she reached her 100th country at an age of two years and eight months. She also set a new Guinness World Record under the category of "Youngest person to travel to all seven continents", accomplished in December 2003 when she was two years and 307 days. The record is currently held by Vaidehi Thirrupathy.^[9]
• Indy Nelson from Hayward, California in 2017 became the youngest person, at 24, to visit all sovereign countries, having visited all 193 UN member states in 539 days.^[10]

Controversies

In 2004, club member Charles Veley was featured in the UK's The Daily Telegraph^[11] as the new holder of the Guinness world record for World's Most Travelled Man, but this was never reflected in the Guinness Book of World Records. Instead Guinness retired the category citing lack of an objective standard for the title.^{[12] [13]} Some world travelers dispute Veley's claim to be the new World's Most Traveled Man.^{[7] [14]}

Notable members

• Babis Bizas, Greek travel writer and tour operator
• David L. Cunningham, international filmmaker
• Richard Foltz, Canadian scholar
• Don Parrish, American adventurer

Further reading

• Web site: In this Club, Countries are Collectors' Items . Block . Lawrence . 18 May 2003 . The New York Times .
• Web site: A Club Only For Those Who Get Around . . 27 December 1987 . The Philadelphia Inquirer . subscription . .
• Web site: Billie . Ellis . Travelers' Club . . 12 September 2002 . Lakeland Ledger . Google News.
• News: Norma . Libman . How To Join Travelers' Century Club . 19 June 1994 . Chicago Tribune .
• Web site: 100 Countries and Counting . Poisson . Jayme . 22 September 2010 . Toronto Star .
• Web site: World's most traveled gather for the Travelers' Century Club . Rinicella . Alana . 8 October 2014 . Southern California Public Radio .
• News: The 100-notch explorer Travelers' Century Club members are hard-core adventurers, not tourists. You must visit 100 countries just to join. . Scavuzzo . Sam Fran . Oskowitz . Jenna . 3 May 2009 . The Philadelphia Inquirer .
• Book: The Banana Sculptor, the Purple Lady, and the All-night Swimmer: Hobbies, Collecting, and Other Passionate Pursuits . Sheehan . Susan . Means . Howard B. . 2002 . Simon and Schuster . 9780743201223 . .
• News: Traveling Club requires that you've visited 100 countries. . . St. Petersburg Independent . .
• News: Travel Notes: A Club For Globetrotters . . 10 June 2012 . . subscription .
• News: Travel Q and A . . 18 February 2001 . The Seattle Times .

External links

• • Travelhotnews.com: Five minutes with the Travelers' Century Club - Canada – interview with the founder of the Canadian chapter of the club
• The Vienna Review: Travel as a Way of Life – article about the club, its history, and some of its Austrian members

Notes and References

1. Web site: History of the Travelers' Century Club . Travelers' Century Club . 26 October 2017.
2. Web site: Checking off your bucket list may help you earn membership in the Travelers' Century Club . Stachiew . Mark . 5 December 2012 . . https://web.archive.org/web/20150215103508/http://o.canada.com/2012/12/05/checking-off-your-bucket-list-may-help-you-earn-membership-in-the-travelers-century-club/ . dead . 15 February 2015.
3. Web site: TCC Chapters . Travelers' Century Club.
4. Web site: TCC Forum. Travelers' Century Club.
5. Web site: List of TCC Countries . Travelers' Century Club.
6. Web site: TCC Rules for Determining Country & Territory Status . Travelers' Century Club.
7. News: David . Page . September 2009 . The Battle to be the World's Most Traveled Man . Men's Journal . 14 February 2015.
8. • News: Michael . McCarthy . June 2004 . The Man Who Has Been Everywhere . International Travel News . 14 February 2015.
   • News: The Century Club Turns Travel Collecting Into A High Art Form . . 14 February 2015.
9. Web site: Youngest Person to Visit all Seven Continents . Guinness Records . 17 March 2013.
10. Web site: Thomas. Gregory. 2020-08-01. Bay Area 'speed travelers' are in a fight to claim their Guinness world records. 2021-02-01. San Francisco Chronicle. en-US.
11. News: The one million dollar travelling man . The Daily Telegraph . London . Ben . Fogle . 8 March 2004 . 26 May 2010.
12. News: Stein. Eliot. 5 June 2013. Charles Veley: The World's Most Traveled Man?. Washintonian. 14 February 2015.
13. Book: Guinness Book of World Records - all years up to and including 2007.
14. • News: I've Been Everywhere, Man / The title, 'World's Most Traveled Man' may be contested, but covering 518 countries in five years should put Charles Veley on the map . San Francisco Chronicle . John . Flinn . 29 August 2010.
    • News: Ken . Jennings . 22 September 2011 . The World's Most Traveled Man: How wanderlust turned into a competitive sport . . 14 February 2015.