National Geographic publishes Jessica Nabongo’s travel memoir 

As it stands, the UN recognizes 195 countries on planet earth. Jessica Nabongo has been to them all! The first Black woman to accomplish this feat.

I interviewed Nabongo after reading her remarkable travel memoir entitled, The Catch Me If You Can: One Woman’s Journey to Every Country in the World, published by National Geographic in early 2022. She was kind enough to have the publisher send me a copy of this beautiful book before our interview.

Nabongo, a Ugandan-American woman from the city of Detroit, USA, dedicates her book to her parents, Rose and Ephraim. She lovingly acknowledges their bravery in coming to the United States of America, a country that offers its citizens visa- free entry into 186 countries, including several European Union member states. A small fact that would prove pivotal later in her life.

Armed with both Ugandan and American passports, the governments of the world’s countries granted Nabongo access, with one special exception. Amid the large, beautiful and lavish photos in this book is a riveting story. Her experience as a Ugandan- American prepared her for embracing and blending into different cultures.

Nabongo recommends for her readers to read the sections in order to follow her unfolding journey of radical self-acceptance and the bravery to explore the world. Nabongo writes of quick jaunts to foreign beach resorts that are all Instagram-worthy, but it is her expat experiences that truly expose the risks and racism faced by dark-skinned African travellers.

Her first trip as an expatriate was to Japan as an English teacher. She was photographed and watched like a minor celebrity, a rare exotic treat to those looking to welcome a visitor. Her second tour as an expat was in Italy as a United Nations consultant. It was there that Nabongo daily went up and down in perceived status.

Dismissed as a lowly migrant worker on her morning commute, honoured as an expert the moment she entered the office building, then getting harassed as if she were a sex worker while out to dinner with friends. Nabongo’s third time working abroad was as an intern and trailing partner to her Italian boyfriend at the time, to the tiny West African nation of Benin.

Luckily, she speaks French, which as she has discovered, is very helpful and even necessary for travel around West Africa. She enjoyed being able to blend in with the locals and was not pestered by panhandlers like her white colleagues were.

However, she would sometimes be completely ignored while her white colleagues were greeted with curtsies and afforded accommodations. She found herself wanting to scream “I am American!” just to gain an ounce of respect.

“I don’t think of Africa as a monolith,” Nabongo said during our interview. “West Africans feel close to the African diaspora because of the historical and cultural context. (In Uganda) There’s no idea of a unifying blackness. My mum knew of Blacks in America but not their story, nor how they got there.”

Millions of the slaves that were shipped to the Americas originated from the west coast of the African continent, especially from present-day Ghana, The Gambia and Nigeria. Even though Nabongo cannot peel matooke nor mingle posho, she is proudly Ugandan. From a Catholic family, she grew up observing Uganda Martyrs day at home in America. While in Kampala, she recommends the pork joints on Entebbe Road along with the chapatis and mandazi.

One of the most jealousy-inducing and Instagram-worthy sections of the book is on Brazil.

“For me, I feel very much at home in Brazil. The food, the kinship with people, the landscape…No matter where I am, I experience a place through the people and their connection with their culture,” Nabongo mused during our conversation.

In Brazil, she has revelled in Carnival festival street parties, slayed photo shoots with her circle of creatives and witnessed a herd of wild horses cross the beach of a tiny island. Her friend, the well-known TV personality Chef Roblé, cooked for the group when they were not savouring the local seafood stew called moqueca.

About both Cuba and Brazil, Nabongo writes, “Something about the African spirit has stood the test of time and continues to permeate the cultures of my favourite places around the world.”

During our interview, I asked her which countries did not get their fair share of attention from travellers. Of the countries that punch above their weight she mentioned two that her home country of America is boycotting and blacklisting: Iran and Venezuela.

“Governments and people are on two separate tracks. Nobody looks at me and assumes I am American,” Nabongo states matter-of-factly.

In Venezuela, she basked, bespectacled and bikinied, on the purest white sand beach by baby blue water. Because of the sanctions, the travel industry media ignores these islands which are still so natural and pristine.

A warm and welcoming mother and son gave Nabongo a nighttime tour of the capital, Caracas. After touring the historical monuments, they invited her to their home for fresh-picked mango smoothies. So deeply embraced, she now refers to them as family.

One small critique of her claim to have visited every country is her supposed claim to be in Syria while sitting on a sunny fence in the Golan Heights. In this territory held by Israel for more than 50 years and annexed by the country, Israeli road signs are posted and Israeli currency is legal tender. All of the residents pay Israeli taxes and depend on the Israeli electricity grid and water system.

Looking at her short dress, exposed knees and entirely uncovered head, one just might get the impression that she does not think she is really in Syria, either. When in Sudan, Nabongo writes, “I always err on the side of conservative when in Muslim countries,” referring to her black headscarf.

Whether your own travel wish list has 100 countries or three, this book will open your heart and mind to the natural and cultural wonders of this planet. As Nabongo writes, “Travel allows you to be a lifelong learner, if you let it.”

By the time she was 35 in 2019, Nabongo had fulfilled her dream of visiting all countries in the world, her final destination being Seychelles on October 6, 2019.

She has been to exotic, popular destinations such as Greece and Mexico, as well as little-known corners of the earth, including Nauru, the world’s third smallest country located in Micronesia – according to Adventure.com; it takes 45 minutes to tour the whole island on a motorbike.

Born in 1984 in Detroit to Ugandan parents, Nabongo started travelling at age six and by 2016, she had been to 60 countries. She studied English at St John’s University New York, and London School of Economics for a master’s degree in international development. Now a full-time travel blogger and brand influencer, Nabongo is certainly flying the Ugandan flag high everywhere she goes.

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