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StephanieDaily / Travel / Feature
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Travel · StephanieDaily Original

Meet Jessica Nabongo – the first black woman to travel to every country in the world

Travel lovers, get in here!

Have you heard about Jessica Nabongo?

On October 6, 2019 – 35 year old Jessica touched down in Seychelles. This destination marked her record as the first black woman to travel to every country in the world!

The daughter of Ugandan immigrants, Nabongo live-streamed her accomplishment on Instagram to her 130,000 followers, at the time, from six continents.

It is important to note that there are less than 500 people who have travelled to every country, which makes Nabongo worthy of attention, especially as she is the only documented black woman to have achieved this.

Her feat came with some priceless lessons you should know:

“Most people are good,” she says.

“We have more similarities as humans than we have differences,” she adds.

Nabongo emphasizes the need for every race to experience the world, first-hand, because seeing the world through the eyes of the “white man” may not be accurate.

Achieving this exploit, Nabongo states on her Instagram page: “I will never forget swimming with whales in Tonga, a late night road trip to Guinea, drinking fermented horse milk in Kyrgyzstan, all the late nights in the streets of London, walking across the bridge into Afghanistan, seeing the pyramids in Sudan, the cattle camp in South Sudan, roads trips through eastern Europe and southern Africa. There are just so many fun memories!!”

We think Nabongo has lived an incredible life even before hitting 40!

For every black woman out there contemplating whether to make 2023 more colourful by fulfilling a bucket list, this is the motivation you need. You may not travel the entire world, but let this inspire you to do something interesting in 2023.

Jessica Nabongo captures her incredibly rich and meaningful experience in her book, ‘The Catch Me If You Can’, published by National Geographic.

PS: Dear readers, what exploits do you plan to do this year?

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