Many of us say, “That was the worst place in the world!” But really: How many of us truly have the authority to say that? Lee
Abbamonte does.
He’s the youngest American to visit all 193 member nations of the United Nations, and he’s well on his way to visiting all 324 on The Travelers’ Century Club list, which
includes territories and unique destinations in addition to nations. (Lee expects to have 321 of the 324 countries checked off by the
end of the year).
With all those countries, they can’t all be winners. And Abbamonte, as part of his traveling mission, has to see the losers too. He takes that part of his quest seriously. “I spent time in these places; it’s not like I went to the airport and split ,” he says of
the bottom-tier countries. “I tried to give each place a couple of days.”
Lagos, Nigeria As far as I am concerned, Lagos, Nigeria, is the worst place on planet Earth. I’ve never experienced so much corruption in my life. It was just a horrific experience getting into
the country. Crossing in from Benin, we got shaken down by the border guards.
In addition to the multiple police
shakedowns, the multiple ATM issues were enough for me; three times in two days, the machines dispensed the wrong amount of
money. It was oppressive and hot. I couldn’t tell you one good thing about that place.
