Where in the World Is Jessica Nabongo?

Overheard at National Geographic

National Geographic

Science, Society & Culture

4.5 • 10.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2022

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2019 Jessica Nabongo, author of the popular travel blog The Catch Me If You Can, became the first documented Black woman to travel to every country in the world. From swimming with humpback whales near Tonga to eating delicious dumplings in Georgia, the world traveler shares how globe-trotting changed the way she sees the world and humanity. For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard. Want more? Check out Jessica Nabongo’s forthcoming book, The Catch Me If You Can: One Woman’s Journey to Every Country in the World, published by Nat Geo Books. You can learn more about her adventures on her blog, The Catch Me If You Can, and Instagram page. Also explore: Learn more about pangolins, why they are so heavily trafficked, and the ongoing efforts to protect them. Archaeologists have found that humans have been making wine in Georgia for 8,000 years. Talk about vintage. If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	No one knows exactly when humans started traveling, venturing beyond the little corner of the
0:08.1	world they knew to discover new places.
0:11.8	In some ways, it feels like it's always been part of who we are as a species.
0:17.2	Before babies can even walk or talk they're trying to climb out of their cribs to explore,
0:22.0	it's something that we need to see what's out there.
0:26.1	For some of us that means what's across the street or in the next town, for others it's
0:30.9	what's in the next continent.
0:33.2	At National Geographic we meet lots of explorers who've been to lots of places, people who have
0:37.5	a serious travel bug.
0:39.5	But I've never met a more dedicated, more curious traveler than Jessica Nabongo.
0:44.4	So I was in Bali, I was in Rome, I was in Miami, in Afghanistan.
0:48.3	We walked across the bridge from Uzbekistan.
0:50.6	My friend was doing Peace Corps in Biji so I went to see her at this old Chilean guy
0:54.3	and McDonald's in Osaka so I went to Australia and I saw him.
0:58.2	I went on a solo, my first solo trip ever to Costa Rica.
1:01.5	So when I was in Kyrgyzstan with a friend of mine I was like, oh my god, I'm so excited
1:05.4	to sleep in a year.
1:06.4	When I was in Mongolia I stayed in a GERR which is the same thing as a year but in Mongolia
1:12.2	they call it a GERR.
1:13.2	That was like seven days and I went from Indonesia to LA through Sydney to Detroit to Senegal.
1:21.9	We're not like it was so painful.
1:26.6	I'm Peter Gwen, Editor at Large at National Geographic and you're listening to Overheard,
	...

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