Why to count countries?

Why to count how many countries you've been to? Earlier on I wrote about country bagging, the art of traveling to as many countries as possible. The idea was met with a some criticism from bores who either think it's

a) stupid because the important thing is to experience another culture and thus learn valuable lessons or

b) useless as the only place where country count matters is in a backpacker reunion for the class of Goa, spring 1971, or

c) pompous to count countries since they haven't been to as many countries

as I have.

As the argument c is perfectly valid, I'm not going to argue against that, and anyway, I made it up, so it doesn't really count. The argument b has more truth to it, but as there indeed are places like the Old Hippies Forum on the internet where old hippies can boast about Goa in the seventies, I take argument b as stillborn.

Which leaves me to tackle with the argument a. Is it stupid to count countries when really, you should be observing, experiencing and learning?

No. And here's why:

1. Learning and experiencing? You might as well book a cheap holiday in Bulgaria, experiment with Rakia, the local brandy and learn that it does give you a nasty hangover. Who would have thought.

2. Counting countries gives you a reason to keep traveling after you've been to the My Sons of the world (My Son, in Hoi An, Vietnam, is the single most boring Unesco World Heritage site in the world, have a look at the picture on the left) in case you haven't come up with anything more fun to do in your life and collecting stamps is not an option.

3. It's actually fun to see how people react to hearing about your country bagging project by starting to count how many countries they've been to.

4. Begging the question: Aren't most things we do stupid in one way or

another aside from helping the starving children of Africa - and even that has been questioned by militant Darwinists.

5. Country bagging and the more mighty reasons for travel are hardly mutually exclusive. You can have both, it just takes a little time, that's all. Bummer!