MEANDER - Maphead - page 110

Mary next month. There's a reason why we call the travel bug “wander lust, ” not “wander-
whim” or “wanderhobby.” It's an urgent, passionate thing.
These wanderers seek each other out because no one else understands them or wants to
see their vacation slides. “We've all got this crazy obsession,” says Christopher Hudson,
the English-born topic publisher for New York's Museum of Modern Art who is currently
serving as TCC president. “I find that when I talk to my other friends about travel, either
their eyes glaze over or they think, 'Oh God, why's this guy dropping all these names?'”
The club also provides its members what Chris calls “a good source of information for
going to all of these obscure places.” The TCC publishes, at last count, 483 different “info
files” on far-flung destinations containing the kind of travel advice you won't get from
Fodor's. (If you go to the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, get your visa stamp on a
separate piece of paper, or you won't be allowed back into Azerbaijan! Prepare for mud if
you'rehikingtoTakiFalls,thehighestwaterfallintheMicronesiannationofPalau!)Every
luncheon endswithatravelogue lecture fromarecently returned clubmember—right now,
as Chris and I talk at the back of the banquet hall, a slide presentation on Papua New
Guinea is beginning; many members are taking notes. I look up just in time to see the
phrase “Penis gourds” appear on a PowerPoint bullet list. Then comes the photo—yup,
penis gourds are exactly what you think they are. It's a little hard to keep eye contact with
someone when there's a gigantic penis gourd hovering right behind his head.
As a member of the Travelers' Century Club executive board, Chris has a vote on which
destinations will or won't make the official TCC list of destinations. This is trickier than it
sounds: there are only 192 member states of the United Nations, but the TCC recognizes a
whopping 319 different “countries,” including any territory that's somehow removed from
itsparentnation.Thisseemssensibleinsomecases(surelyParisandTahitishouldn'tcount
as the same “country” to world travelers just because one still administers the other) but
leads to absurdity in others (Alaska is a separate country by TCC rules, while Indonesia
somehow counts as eight different countries). “Even though we have these slightly strange
rules,wetakethemveryseriously,”saysChrisand,unbidden,startspatientlyexplainingto
mewhytheboardrecentlyvotedtomakeAbkhazia—butnotSouthOssetia,anotherbreak-
awayGeorgianregion—aTCC“country.”Thisisevidentlynotthefirsttimehe'shadtogo
through this with angry club members. I nod sagely as he runs down the obvious differen-
ces between Abkhazian and South Ossetian infrastructure, a little nervous that there might
be a quiz later.
Many people took up country collecting because they heard about the TCC, but the re-
verse is more often true: these were people who were already obsessive checklist travel-
ers before they knew there was an organization collecting dues for it. Every few years,
someonewritesinto The New York Times 'travelcolumnaskingifthere'saclubforpeople
who count countries, and the editor dutifully runs the TCC's mailing address. The same
process of accretion built the Highpointers Club, whose three thousand members are ded-