I've been to 50 countries — there's only one I'll never return to

I’ve been to 50 countries — there’s only one I’ll never return to

Posted by Admin November 18, 2024 Travel

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Travelling 50 countries has taught me that there are wonderful people everywhere you go

Growing up an only child, my favourite toy was a cerulean globe that spoke to me about our vast and wondrous world.

With the touch of a button, my prized possession sprang to life and demanded I locate far-flung cities with an interactive pen, my stubby seven-year-old fingers feverishly flitting across the Earth to stab Antananarivo (Madagascar’s capital) and Mongolia’s Ulaanbataar before the timer ran out.

It cost my parents the present-day equivalent of £30, but that globe sparked a passion for travel that would enrich my life in ways money cannot buy. Before I could spell many of their names, I vowed that I would visit every country in the world.

I haven’t won the lottery in the intervening years. And so, allowing for budget constraints and having just turned 31, my tally sits at 50 of the 195 currently recognised countries. My addiction to exploration has taken me to extraordinary places, from the turquoise-domed mosques of Uzbekistan to Australia’s red centre. Along this journey, there’s only one country I have no desire to return to: Qatar.

Why I’ll never go back to Qatar

Silence was the first hint that Doha was not my kind of city. Or rather, the particular kind of silence that hangs in the air of an empty street. Running down the broad boulevards of the Gulf state’s capital are lines of luxury cars, custom Rolls Royces and cherry red Maseratis gleaming under the Arabian sun. But beside them the pavements are empty, because nobody walks on the streets of Qatar.

A path along the port of Doha in Qatar, with high-rise apartment building and palm trees in the background — Doha’s streets were deserted when we explored the city in May 2024

A girl in a long white dress stands in between two rows of palm trees — Metro’s Alice Murphy is on a mission (a most time-consuming and expensive one) to visit every country in the world

Except for us, that is, my 6’5 Devon-born boyfriend and I, who attracted incredulous glances through tinted car windows as we ambled along in +30°C early summer temperatures. Walking in Doha happens only in shopping malls and hotels, where I asked a waiter if anyone ever heads out for a stroll. ‘If you can drive, why walk?’ he replied.

I couldn’t help feeling that this driving-centric culture makes an aesthetically impressive metropolis seem cold and clinical, a desert sea of skyscrapers with little life around them. The only people on the streets are construction workers, their heads covered with cloth to fend off the sun.