Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Bulgaria, Canada, Canary Islands: Madeira, Tenerife, Lanzarote, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Martinique, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vatican City, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
It starts in Antigua, where the sun burns holes through your skin and the rum spills faster than the boats can dock. You think you’ll stay, but you don’t. You never do. You drift to Aruba, then Barbados, and the Bahamas, chasing the heat, the salt, the haze of people who’ve given up looking for anything but the next drink. Brazil hits you like a fist—loud, sweaty, alive—while in Argentina, the streets whisper tango steps you’ll never bother to learn. You stumble through Austria, Belgium, Germany. The beer’s good, the people are stiff, and the mornings come too soon. Bosnia and Herzegovina feels like a scar, Croatia like a postcard someone forgot to mail. In Morocco, the air smells of spice and sand, and in Egypt, it’s heavier, like time pressing down on your chest. You wake up in Turkey, then Greece, then Italy, wondering how many churches one man can see before he starts praying for a bar. In the Canary Islands—Madeira, Tenerife, Lanzarote—you find the kind of isolation that tastes like freedom. Then it’s Curacao, St. Lucia, St. Croix, St. Kitts, St. Martin, and St. Thomas, each one blurring into the other, a carousel of beaches and empty promises. Cuba makes you pause. Havana is crumbling, but it’s alive, more alive than you’ve felt in years. You keep moving. Iceland is cold and sharp, the kind of place that cuts you open. New Zealand feels like the edge of the world, and maybe it is. In Nepal, the mountains make you feel small, and in India, the chaos swallows you whole. Thailand is sticky, Vietnam is electric, and in Bangladesh, the river seems to carry everything—life, death, and whatever’s left in between. France is wine and cigarettes; Spain is late nights and louder mornings. Ireland and Scotland are soaked in rain and whiskey, while Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary feel like ghosts you can’t quite shake. You lose yourself in Portugal, then again in Montenegro, then again in Uruguay. By the time you hit the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Russia, you’re not sure who’s chasing who anymore—you or the road. Canada feels clean, Sweden feels quiet, and Denmark feels like a place you’d stay if you weren’t so bad at staying. The United Kingdom feels like a bad hangover you can’t quite sleep off, while Ukraine is a reminder that the world doesn’t stop breaking just because you’re tired of watching. You end in Puerto Rico, or maybe Chile, or maybe back where you started.
