In his mid-fifties Hardie Karges suddenly finds himself at a crossroads in his life, career, and relationship, so decides to do (again) the one thing that he does better than anything else-travel. That means cashing in some frequent-flyer miles and heading to South America, specifically the four southernmost countries that he has yet to visit. 'Ah, that felt good.' So two months later, that crossroads is still there, but there is no obvious path, indeed more like a half-dozen of them, one for each continent. So he decides to finally put into action a plan he's had for some time, to go to every country in the world. The result some two years later is a hundred countries visited for a personal total of 139, almost three-fourths of the world total. These are the tales of Karges's travels in that intense period of "hyper-travel," a combination guide and narrative, with only one qualification-he doesn't tell how to do it. That's your job. He tells how it's done, by someone who's done it for most of his life. This is a guide for people who hate travel guides. This is the one-stop guide that will give you both glimpse and insight into half the world's countries, all recently visited, all applied to the same criteria of critique. This is the guide that tells you the cultural, geo-political and historical context of a country, not where to eat or where to stay. This is the guide that tells you which countries just plain suck. The happy ending is right around the next corner.