I was the first black woman to travel to all 195 countries

By the time Jessica Nabongo turns 35, she plans to visit all over the world instead of having her own birthday party.

A.D. October 6, 2019 Starring on the Seychelles Islands Nabongo, now 38, became the first black woman and one of less than 250 people to travel to 195 countries, becoming one of 193 UN-recognized nations and two non-member states. See and Territories of Palestine.

A native of Detroit, as a Ugandan, she used her dual citizenship to explore countries that most Americans, including Turkmenistan, Cuba, and North Korea, would never see. With her photos and stories in National Geography, she has written a new book, “If You Can, Hold A Woman’s Journey to the World.”

“The best thing about my trip was the kindness of the guests,” Nabongo told the post.

In October 2018, Nabongo, a remote travel agent for the luxury travel agency, used a Ugandan passport to enter North Korea as a United Nations adviser. (US government bans citizens from visiting the country.) She was shocked by what she saw.

“I thought North Korea was a place where the sun never shines, the sky is blue, and everyone wears gray,” she wrote in a one-party government.

But Nabongo told the Post that she was surprised by the “normal mood”.

A five-day “highly ordered government tour” exploring the capital of Pyongyang with Nabongo’s private tour team found on Google.

“I follow the kids on the field trip. I saw couples in parks and groceries [which were small but stocked with food] And people are riding their bikes or taking the subway, ”she said.

One night the group went to a bar full of music and people – mostly men – had a beer after work. She said she could not speak to many North Koreans because of language barriers and their “expected” and “quiet” behavior, but she was surprised to find an American.

Nabongo said people often ask her about North Korea’s labor camps and prisons, which she has not seen but she has never seen in her projects or in the United States.

“There are terrible things happening all over the world,” she said.

However, she described how safe the country is. “Once you enter a city, you know that the country is not exposed to the rest of the world. There are no advertisements, colorful clothes or jeans, or any Western trademark in the supermarket. ” North Korea was among the only countries with no Wi-Fi, along with Cuba and Turkmenistan.

However, the city wrote that skyscrapers, large residential buildings, government buildings, and public squares “died, as you can see in other major cities.”

In her book, Nabongo says that Pyongyang “feels like a capsule of time” and is clearly a common expression for many communist countries and a green and red subway in the 1970s.

Despite the city’s “retro” feeling, in 2012, leader Kim Jong Un announced that the skyline was too gray and ordered the buildings to be painted “surprisingly bright” in pink, green and yellow.

As an experienced traveler from the age of 4 – when she received her first passport stamp to travel to Canada with her parents – Nabongo said people should try to open their minds when they think of globalization.

For example, when Machu Pichu arrived, she saw a million photos and said, “I’m worried.”

Nabongo recommends talking to locals to see what they can see, do and eat.

“People in the country know more about the country than Google does,” she said.