The Catch Me If You Can

One Woman's Journey to Every Country in the World

By: Jessica Nabongo

Narrated by: Jessica Nabongo

Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

In this inspiring travelogue, celebrated traveler and photographer Jessica Nabongo—the first Black woman on record to visit all 195 countries in the world—shares her journey around the globe with fascinating stories of adventure, culture, travel musts, and human connections.

It was a daunting task, but Jessica Nabongo, the beloved voice behind the popular website The Catch Me if You Can, made it happen, completing her journey to all 195 UN-recognized countries in the world in October 2019. Now, in this one-of-a-kind memoir, she reveals her top 100 destinations from her global adventure. Beautifully illustrated with many of Nabongo's own photographs, the book documents her remarkable experiences in each country, including:

• A harrowing scooter accident in Nauru, the world's least visited country
• Seeing the life and community swarming around the Hazrat Ali Mazar mosque in Afghanistan
• Horseback riding and learning to lasso with Black cowboys in Oklahoma
• Playing dominoes with men on the streets of Havana
• Learning to make traditional takoyaki (octopus balls) from locals in Japan
• Dog sledding in Norway and swimming with humpback whales in Tonga
• A late night adventure with strangers to cross a border in Guinea Bissau
• And sunbathing on the sandy shores of Los Roques in Venezuela

Along with beloved destinations like Peru and South Africa, you'll also find tales from far-flung corners and seldom visited destinations, including Tuvalu, North Korea, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic. Nabongo's stories are love letters to diversity, beauty, and culture—and most of all, to the people she meets along the way. Throughout, she offers bucket-list experiences for other travel-lovers looking to follow in her footsteps. For armchair travelers or listeners planning a trip around the globe, this arresting collection will awe and inspire!

©2022 Jessica Nabongo (P)2022 National Geographic

Inspiring, Smart, and Fun AF!!!

I purchased this book a couple of months ago, but it took me a long time to start listening. Though I am an avid traveler and spend a good amount of time planning my next trip, I thought a 12 1/2-hour book on traveling would be daunting and boring. Boy was I wrong! Jessica's tales and performance made this the most fun listen of the year for me! I actually wanted more. I loved her spirit, honesty, open-mindedness, and resourcefulness, Jessica is brave, entertaining, and truly inspiring. She makes me long to visit places I have never considered. This book is well-written and beautifully performed. I plan to buy the book as I understand it contains several pictures of her journey.

Fantastic job Jessica!

Loved it

Really enjoyed this. I’m so glad she read it herself. It was a treat to visit these countries with her.

Incredible book, incredible woman!

Wonderful to hear the adventure from Jessica’s viewpoint. How she looks at and experiences cultures is a way we should all live and learn from.

Catch me if you can

I want to meet this woman. Jessica is so fascinating. I definitely felt like I was on an adventure…one that goes remarkably fast. It didn’t feel like it was 12 1/2 hour read. Definitely can’t wait for her next book.

Mixed Bag of Vapid and Deep Reflection

The author is direct and transparent, which is refreshing but also reveals the full extent “Instagram experiences” were at times her key motivation. There are times where the book is compellingly rich with nuanced human experience, and other moments where the author reveals shallowness or ignorance, or less interesting sides of her like little complaints of being hot, tired, or not in acceptably comfortable accommodations. Those traits do not detract too much because she is clearly forthcoming about herself and her motivations, which is laudable. What I appreciate most and what this book is mainly about, is her courage to travel (often alone) to the corners of the earth as a Black woman. From first teaching English in Japan where she stood out in a village who had never seen anyone like her, to crossing into largely untraveled lands like South Sudan or North Korea, her Black identity is often baked into the experience, for better or worse. She writes about being gawked at but having the wherewithal to recognize curiosity in strangers when there is no racist intent. But she also writes about confronting racism multiple times at border crossings, markets, and town squares all over the world. Another thing I really appreciate is her speaking about how human kindness and similarities pervade almost universally throughout all lands and cultures, despite what media images have portrayed about certain countries or their people. Travel has power to connect, and through her ‘flight deal’ strategy, it is easier than you think to take advantage.

Sometimes the author would have prior knowledge of a country or people’s complex history of slavery, war, colonization, or oppression, and thoughtfully explained what navigating that history meant as a traveler. Other times, the author implies she learned these important facts after she visited the country, and then ruminates on them from afar, or sometimes admits she knew very little about the place before entering, and elaborates very little. Those last type of entries are shortest, and perhaps the least interesting. I was also struck at her occasional ignorance of a place’s culture or customs, which challenged my model of travel, as I usually have a frame of reference when I choose a country to vacation in. There were more than few times it felt like she entered a country with a blank slate, and focused on observing the simplest of things, like the color of the leaves, or the daily rhythm of a random town off the tourist beat. This style is a tenant of her travel philosophy. On the darker flip side of this mindset may have been the time she admitted accidentally taking part in a meal where she and her travel partner were offered pangolin before they knew about its threatened nature. She passed, but her partner ate some, and photos of them eating the trafficked, endangered animal blew up online. I appreciated her admitting ignorance and learning about the issue. She demonstrated openness and courage and I empathize with her admitting not knowing everything—how could anyone know everything about every country in the world?

There were moments in the book describing trying to get an Instagram-perfect photo, or speaking about the busy, not-so-glamorous life of an influencer that fell flat for me. The journey of how loving travel turned into a blog, a travel company, and a record-breaking feat *is* interesting. However, when the author speaks about sweet influencer perks, or sponsored luxury resorts assigning her a special liaison, there is only so much I can tolerate of her repeated wispy asseverations of feeling ‘grateful to the universe’ for allowing her to party by a luxury resort’s beachside swimming pool. I also can’t see the photos she references so that element had to be constructed by my imagination in the audio version.

A minor secondary critique is hearing a handful of mispronounced English words, or a few narration stumbles that should have been caught and edited by the producer. In one memorable example the author describes being on a chic Caribbean beach and walking past U2’s Bono, but mispronounces his name. I thought that quite odd since she was name-dropping to begin with.

Despite occasional wavers, I found her travel stories, descriptions of cities, food, history, and speaking often about the magic of the natural world compelling enough to keep going with the book.

Real Experience

It was rare in the 8 hours I listened that I felt the experience of her travels were properly conveyed. As opposed to expressing passionate unique experience with each place traveled, she focused more on describing shallow things with flowery adjectives. She'll describe the sunset with 80 adjectives but then gloss over a near-death experience. In short, I wish she conveyed more of what her soul felt and saw as opposed to what she felt and saw. The one time she nailed this was when talking about Cuba. She writes a love letter to the country where she describes being there feeling similarly to receiving a warm hug. Who cares about the people, food, and pretty streets, I can find those things in America too. But feeling like you're being lovingly embraced by the spirit of the people, food, and pretty streets? That's unique, human, and not just shallow sensory experience. Every time there's something random described with 3 flowery adjectives for no real reason besides the fact that the rule of 3 looks and sounds good, I cringe. You don't travel the world to see a "beautiful," "awe-inspiring," "breath-taking" sunset--you travel to feel it. The 3 adjectives just used don't invoke feeling nearly to the extent these experiences deserve but they're used to describe almost every experience. Nabongo has had so many unbelievable and unique experiences, yet, I don't feel like this book was written with the intent to bringing us on that journey with her as much as it was to give us a brief and shallow tour of her experiences. I leave this book with the impression that Laos is pretty, Finland is pretty, Peru is pretty with good food, Demark is pretty with hot guys, and Cuba is actually worth traveling to.

Amazing

This book was fantastic! Very inspiring!

Listing to this book has opened my mind and eyes to exploring more of the world and all its great people. I may not be able to travel all the countries in the world but I can use this book to choose places outside my normal travels.

If you love to explore, wanna know about different cultures and experience this is the book for all these things.

Exceptional and compelling story telling.

I could not get enough of this book. As an avid traveler myself, the author has provided me with the comfort and confidence that I needed to know that the world is my oyster and it belongs to me!! lt belongs to all of us.

l love her optimism and perseverance even during the difficult times. It is the encouragement that l needed to continue living my best life.
She has managed to make the world feel so much smaller and accessible, with way more good folks than bad!!

Was bored…. 🫤

Book gave good perspective for travelers but just seemed liked she made her journal into a book. Lost interest after 3 hours in. Was not for me.

A wonderful telling of an inspiring story

I loved the honesty, passion, and empathy in the book. The audiobook reading really brought it to life.