Is Charles Veley, a 58-year-old Californian, the most well-traveled person in the country? Turns out, it's a near-impossible question to answer definitively. But the answer is yes according to metrics Veley himself created when he formed the "Most Traveled People" group, which now has more than 30,000 online members, writes Tim Neville for Outside Online. For the record, Veley has logged more than 1,200 distinct destinations on MTP's list of 1,500. For his story, Neville tagged along as Veley and some of the group's more hard-core members traveled to Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan near the Armenian border that has been the source of conflict for generations. As Neville notes, "Step off the road and a land mine might do you in."
But the deep dive isn't a travel piece about this particular locale (though that's a part of it). It's one that wrestles with the larger question of whether this type of travel—MTP members are often derided as "country collectors"—is worthwhile. Neville himself finds great solace in travel, and he comes to the trip skeptical about "the idea of reducing something so meaningful and transformative—and increasingly exclusive—to a collector's game." He discovers, however, that "these weren't obsessive box-checkers who'd reduced the planet to rankings and badges, but mesmerizing, deeply curious people who carried on conversations with zero one-upmanship or braggadocio." Nor were all of them wealthy—just supremely adept at navigating frequent-flier and hotel points. Read the full story. (Or, check out other Longform recaps.)
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