One In A Billion

French military engineer, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, designed and built the world's first true "automobile" in 1769. Cugnot's huge, heavy,  steam powered tricycle was intended for hauling artillery, had a single front wheel which both steered and propelled. In 1863 Belgian inventor, Étienne Lenoir built the first automobile with an internal combustion engine. His two-stroke vehicle made a 10 kilometre trip that took over two hours to complete. German, Karl Benz designed and in 1885 built the world's first practical automobile to be powered by an internal combustion engine, it had three wheels. A special two wheeled vehicle was designed to test that vehicle's engine and became the first two wheeled vehicle or motorcycle. Since 1769 mankind has produced over a billion self-propulsion machines in an amazing variety of mobile technology that has been adopted all over the world, in every country. Harley-Davidson produced their first motorcycle in 1903 and the company was 91 years old when it produced vehicle number 1HD1DJL14RY502784. Many machines have circumnavigated the globe as aeroplanes, boats, cars and motorcycles. A few individual machines have visited more than half the world's countries but only this one has been to as many as 190 internationally recognised countries, or over 357 countries, states, territories, isolated parcels, islands, atolls and disputed territories as defined using the "Worlds Most Traveled Person" list.
 

The World's Most Traveled Motor Vehicle

 A Harley-Davidson Motorcycle

The 190 Internationally Recognised Countries Already Visited

 
Internationally Recognised Countries (190) plus major entities in brackets (18)
 
Afghanistan , Albania , Algeria , Andorra , Angola , Antigua & Barbuda , Argentina , Armenia , Australia , Austria , Azerbaijan , Bahamas , Bahrain , Bangladesh , Barbados , Belarus , Belgium , Belize , Benin , Bhutan , Bolivia , Bosnia & Herzegovina , Botswana , Brazil , Brunei , Bulgaria , Burkina Faso , Burundi , Cambodia , Cameroon , Canada , (Canary Islands) , Cape Verde , Central African Republic , Chad , Chile , China , Colombia , Comoros , Congo Brazzaville , Congo Democratic Republic , Costa Rica , Cote D'ivoire , Croatia , Cuba , Cyprus , (Cyprus North) , Czech Republic , Denmark , Djibouti , Dominica , Dominican Republic , East Timor , Ecuador , Egypt , El Salvador , Equatorial Guinea , Eritrea , Estonia , Ethiopia , (Faroe Islands) , Fiji , Finland , France , (French Guiana) , Gabon , Gambia , (Gaza Strip) , Georgia , Germany , Ghana , (Gibraltar) , (Golan Heights) , Great Britain , Greece , Grenada , (Guam) , Guatemala , (Guernsey) , Guinea , Guinea Bissau , Guyana , Haiti , Honduras , Hungary , Iceland , India , Indonesia , Iran , Iraq , Irish Republic , (Isle Of Man) , Israel , Italy , Jamaica , Japan , (Jersey) , Jordan , Kazakhstan , Kenya , Kiribati , Korea South , Korea North , (Kosovo) , Kuwait , Kyrgyzstan , Laos , Latvia , Lebanon , Lesotho , Liberia , Libya , Liechtenstein , Lithuania , Luxembourg , Macedonia (FYROM) , Madagascar , Malawi , Malaysia , Maldives , Mali , Malta , Marshall Islands , Mauritania , Mauritius , Mexico , Micronesia , Moldova , Monaco , Mongolia , Montenegro , Morocco , Mozambique , Myanmar (Burma) , Namibia , Nauru , Nepal , Netherlands , Nicaragua , Niger , Nigeria , Norway , Oman , Pakistan , Palau , Panama , Papua New Guinea , Paraguay , Peru , Philippines , Poland , Portugal , (Puerto Rico) , Qatar , (Reunion Island) , Romania , Russia , Rwanda , San Marino , Sao Tome & PrincipeSaudi Arabia , Senegal , Serbia (Yugoslavia) , Seychelles , Sierra Leone , Singapore , Slovakia , Slovenia , Solomon Islands , Somalia (Somaliland) , South Africa , Spain , (Spanish North Africa) , Sri LankaSt Kitts & Nevis , St Lucia , St Vincents , Sudan , Suriname , Swaziland , Sweden , Switzerland , Syria , (Taiwan) , Tajikistan , Tanzania , Thailand , Togo , Trinidad & Tobago , Tunisia , Turkey , Turkmenistan , Tuvalu , Uganda , Ukraine , United Arab Emirates , United States Of America , Uruguay , Uzbekistan , Vanuatu , Vatican City , Venezuela , Vietnam , (West Bank) , (Western Sahara) , Yemen , Zambia , Zimbabwe .

3 Internationally Recognised Countries not yet visited

Samoa , Tonga , New Zealand

What is a Country? also called a Sovereign Country, Independent State or Sovereign State has often been debated. It is generally agreed by the United Nations, The American CIA Factbook, Wikipedia Encyclopedia, and Guinness World Records that there are 193 internationally recognised countries currently in the world.

There are 192 United Nations member nations  plus the Holy See (Vatican City) which is listed as the only non-member state.

The American CIA Factbook (Notes and Definitions under Entities) states there are 194 Independent States. The 192 United Nations members plus the Holy See (The Vatican) and Kosovo (whose statehood is not currently recognised by the United Nations). 

According to Wikipedia there are: "193 states with general international recognition: 192 member states of the United Nations (UN). 1 state with general international recognition but not UN membership, governed by the Holy See (a UN permanent observer): Vatican City".

The Guinness World Records people published a list of 256 places in November 1996 that they used to recognise as countries or territories for record attempts. This was hotly debated as some people had claimed to have visited many more, and today there are over 670 places that some organisations recognise as places used to define the "most travelled person". By July 2004 the endless debate on what was or was not a country had not been  resolved to the extent that Guinness World Records sent out the following information. “Unfortunately we no longer maintain such a (country) list ourselves because there is so little agreement on this subject internationally that virtually everyone disagreed with our list anyway!.....Rather than become involved in endless debates on this subject we've decided to 'freeze' the records in this category. At present when we refer to countries we mean the member states of the United Nations (i.e. sovereign countries), but do not get involved in the 'territories' debate.”

As Guinness World Records stated there is little agreement on what constitutes a territory, let alone islands, states, colonies, atolls or non independent countries and as such we have not added these to our total of countries visited but have listed some of them for interest.

The world's newest country, Montenegro, was accepted by the United Nations as a member on the 28/6/06. As our motorcycle had already visited Yugoslavia, which changed its name to Serbia and Montenegro in 2003 and retained its United Nations membership as Serbia, it didn't need to be revisited, however as Montenegro, the new United Nations member and a new Sovereign State, now an "internationally recognised country", required  revisiting. Our motorcycle visited Montenegro , the Sovereign State on 31/10/06. It would seem illogical to claim to have visited a country if it did not exist at the time of the visit!! 

The UN protectorate, and province of Serbia, Kosovo, recently declared itself an independent country. As the United Nations has not recognised this claim, and it is unlikely it will be recognised in the near future due to both Russian and Chinese opposition, and their UN veto powers, it is not currently internationally recognised as a sovereign country. Although we visited Kosovo prior to its claim of independence if it becomes internationally recognised we will need to revisit.

To support our claim that this Harley-Davidson motorcycle is the World's Most Travelled Vehicle (ie it has visited the most places on earth), we have included the following. The motorcycle has visited 357 places using the Most Traveled Peoples List. The Travelers' Century Club publishes its own list it accepts as places its members can count for a visit. The motorcycle has visited 223 places according to that list. Emil and Liliana Schmidt, for their world record of the Longest Driven Journey use the pre 1996 Guinness World Record List, adjusted, of 259 places. The motorcycle has visited 197 places using that list. Other travellers like Emilio Scotto's motorcycle trip have not indicated what list they have used to calculate their claims to places visited nor a list of places visited to permit a comparison. Should anyone wish to discuss our claim to "The World's Most Travelled Vehicle" we would greatly appreciate correspondence on the subject by email to:    



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Story and photos copyright Peter and Kay Forwood, 1996-
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