Jessica Nabongo: What traveling to every country in the world taught me

(CNN) — As her plane began its descent into the Seychelles on October 6, 2019, Ugandan-American travel influencer Jessica Nabongo peered out of the window, preparing herself for the momentous occasion about to take place.

Not only was she about to become a member of a prestigious club made up of the very few people who’ve traveled to every country in the world, she’d be the first Black woman to have documented doing so.

Nabongo was accompanied by 28 of her friends and family, who had flown in to travel on that last flight with her.

It had taken more than 450 flights and over a million air miles, but she’d made it to all 195 UN-recognized countries on the globe.

The experience was exhausting — Nabongo took more than 170 flights in one year, and says she nearly quit on several occasions.

“There were a number of times where panic set in and I was like, ‘oh my god, is this going to result in public failure?'” she tells CNN Travel.

Epic challenge

Named after her popular blog, it recounts her record-breaking journey, focusing on 100 of the 195 countries she visited.

“I’m a geography nerd,” Nabongo says of her decision to take on the challenge, explaining that it was something she’d been keen to do at least a decade before she actually attempted it.

“In 2017, I sort of made a decision that I wanted to do it by my 35th birthday,” she tells CNN Travel.

So, was she able to meet her deadline?

“I overshot my birthday by five months,” Nabongo explains. “But I ended up finishing on my father’s birthday. He passed [away] just two days after my 19th birthday, so it was nice to be able to bring him into the fold in that way.”

According to Nabongo, who was born in Detroit, one of the key reasons she felt compelled to write “The Catch Me If You Can” was due to the fact that very few Black people are among the 400 or so travelers thought to have visited every country in the world.

“We’re so used to seeing the world through the lens of white men,” says Nabongo, who has used her own photos in the book. “And this is different. There’s obviously some uniqueness in the experiences that we have, as we exist in the world, as very different people.

“But also, just in terms of how I see humanity. My respect for humanity. I see…