The Current - 52 countries in 52 weeks? What one man saw on a whirlwind trip

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

In the depths of the pandemic, CBC reporter Justin McElroy hatched a plan to see as much of the world as possible. He ended up visiting 52 countries in 52 weeks, and now he’s back to share some of the amazing things he saw — and ate! — and what he learned by stepping out of his comfort zone.

When they predict we'll fall, we rise to the challenge. When they say we're not a country, we stand on guard. This land taught us to be brave and caring, to protect our values, to leave no one behind. Canada is on the line, and it's time to vote as though our country depends on it, because like never before, it does. I'm Jonathan Pedneau, co-leader of the Green Party of Canada.

This election, each vote makes a difference. Authorized by the Registeredleader of the Green Party of Canada. This election, each vote makes a difference. Authorized by the registered agent of the Green Party of Canada. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. Auckland International Airport. Travel the world, climb the hills, chase the dreams, rank the things. Eat the different foods, lean into what makes a place great, push out of your comfort zone, remember how you work best.

Seize the opportunity, don't put up your own roadblocks, decide to spend your 38th year on earth seeing it all, spend your birthday saying goodbye, and be grateful for the gift of life on this planet. That is how Justin McElroy wrapped up his 52-week trip to 52 countries around the world. Justin posted that as he was about to board his flight home from New Zealand.

He actually posted on Instagram every single day of the year, sharing his impressions, some amazing photos, and the quintessential food of the day. We'll get to that in a moment. Justin is a CBC municipal affairs reporter based in Vancouver. He's back, he's in our Vancouver studio. Justin is a CBC municipal affairs reporter based in Vancouver. He's back, he's in our Vancouver studio.

Justin, good morning. Good morning, Matt. Welcome home. It's good to be home. How did this start for you? Where did the idea for 52 places in 52 weeks come from? Well, it was deep 2020, late 2020, I should say, and we were deep in the pandemic,

and I was CBC's pandemic reporter for British Columbia. And so every day I was really right in the middle of everything that was happening and the daily numbers being posted and the new restrictions being put in by governments and the stress and anxiety and tumult that everyone in the world had. So like a lot of people, I was searching for a release. And I asked the question to myself, when this is all over, what do I want to do? And I said to myself, just sort of on a lark,

traveling the world for a year would be fun. I've never traveled outside of Canada and the US in my life, and why not? And it was sort of a joke. But then I started thinking about it, and I realized, well, wait a second, CDC has a program where you can take an unpaid leave for a year and I don't have a partner and kids and I don't really want that and I don't have a pet and I don't have a mortgage and my dad's

in good health. And I realized there were no real giant barriers stopping me from doing something like this. And so the more that I thought about it, the more I realized, you know, if you don't take advantage of this opportunity, you will regret it for the rest of your life. Early 2021, I told my bosses that I wanted to take a sabbatical in three years' time and it began the process of trying to figure out how to make something this big and this amazing actually reality. For people who don't know you outside of British

Columbia, can you just introduce yourself and the work that you do? Yeah. And if you're in British Columbia and of course, CBC follower, a lot of this you might know, but so a few things about me is I like doing big conceptual projects. I've ranked all 269 parks in the city of Vancouver.

I've done six week brackets to determine the best small town in British Columbia. During the pandemic, every single day, I did charts about where the pandemic was in terms of numbers. So doing big repetitive things for long periods of time to create some sort of larger project always appealed to me.

I'm also on the autism spectrum. So repetition, having a sense of something big and conceptual where I can sort of rank things and try and figure out how a puzzle comes together is really appealing for my brain as well. And so when people said, boy, this seems like a really big project, are you sure you're going to be able to pull this off or won't you get tired or won't you get lonely? I sort of went, well, based on other things that I've done in my life and how I think my brain works, this is something that I think I can actually pull off.

And so you have to plan it out. And you said earlier that you've used the word puzzle a couple of times. This involved spreadsheets, right? Oh, so involved spreadsheets, right? Oh, so many spreadsheets. I mean, I spent a year basically, uh, getting inspired and reading every travel book I can and watching constant videos of literally every country in the world and going, would I like to go there?

What is the minimum amount of time that I could spend there without really hating myself? Uh, and what are one or two things time that I could spend there without really hating myself and what are one or two things there that I would absolutely want to do, making sure that I could keep enough of my time there open for wanderlust. And then I added up all the countries and added up all the days and it was like 420 days and I went, oh no, that's much more than a year. And so I spent a little bit of time cutting and trying to figure out how I could

make it all work. I also decided very early on that I wanted to do it by trains as predominantly as possible, both because traveling by train seemed really fun. It would cut down on my carbon emissions and also give me dedicated downtime. So with all of that in mind, I then went, well, how do I go from here to there? And is there an easy way from getting from A to B? Do I need 10 days in Germany or will seven days do? I need a 10. And all of that turned into finding this set piece that by the time that I left on March 11th last year,

you know, there were gaps in it where I didn't know whether I would get a visa or I hadn't booked specific hotels or trains or flights yet and I gave myself flexibility on every single day to do things when I was there. It's not like I had an hourly schedule when I was in these cities, but I had it pretty planned out already. When you talk about a visa, I mean as a a journalist, there are places that you would need a visa that perhaps it could be sticky to get one, right? Yeah, and just bluntly, you know, I live in Vancouver. I report on municipal politics.

I have my name next to stories about allegations of Chinese interference in local politics or the back and forth between the Indian and Canadian governments right now. I was fully aware that all you have to do is have one worker at a visa office who's maybe not in the best mood, Google my name during the application and decide maybe this isn't worth the time. I had to have Plan Bs and Plan Cs.

I had a few family members, maybe half-warrior and I sort of said to them mostly joking, I don't think I'm a big enough target but you know, you have to be aware of these things and the benefit of three years of planning is I was able to really think out all this and take my risk assessment. At the end of the day, I was allowed to go everywhere that I wanted to go and had my visa signed off on and didn't really have any issues in any of the day, I was allowed to go everywhere that I wanted to go and had my visa signed off on and didn't really have any issues in any of the countries that I chose to go to.

So, you know, I continually pinched myself that it worked out as well as I had hoped. How did you pick the first place that you went to? Uh, well, it was Canada, but the first, what I, about Canada, what was special there is doing this trip by train. And so when I decided to do that, I went – well, the Via Canadian from Vancouver to Toronto, yeah, it would take four days and it may seem a little bit silly to say I'm traveling the world and then I'm going to sit in one seat for 96 hours or so.

But I went – what an amazing way to start – you know, the sort of old-timey way that we talk about Canada from time to time and see it in pictures and the transition from the Rockies to the Prairies to the Canadian Shield. You don't really get that experience as a Canadian when you're traveling by plane, certainly, and even by car, it's difficult to see the country in the same way. But to have that for four days, to have it in spring where, you know, I woke up on the first day of this trip and I was in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, part of the Rockies where you can't see any cars or any civilization, just this one train slowly trembling through

at 40 kilometers an hour. How many trains did you take over the course of the trip? 110. You know, 110 different trains. Because I ranked them all. No, it's very easy, you know, in Canada and the United States, our train systems are not in great shape and you would only want to take trips outside of a tourist reason for a very limited number of routes. But throughout Europe and Japan and China and India

and even parts of Southeast Asia, the train systems are incredibly extensive. They're pretty affordable. They go fast up to 200, 300 kilometers an hour. And so it was a great way, like I said, of not only getting around, not only cutting a little bit of carbon emission, so I felt a little less guilty about that part of things, but also just having

this dedicated downtime. And when you're moving around constantly, it can be easy to get tired. But if I knew, all right, I've got 2 and 1 1 this European country to that European country. Uh, and I can't do anything except look out of the side of the window and look at this landscape change from one area to the other and have a nice meal. Uh, that's a pretty good deal. What was the best train that you took? Oh God.

Um, the one from, uh, uh, Cusco to Machu Picchu was amazing, obviously just in terms of the anticipation of that you're nextchu was amazing, obviously, just in terms of the anticipation of that. You're next to a river the entire time. The Canadian was amazing as well, Vancouver, Toronto. One of my final ones in New Zealand, it was right on the east coast of the South Island, literally right next to the ocean for about 100 kilometres of time. What they had, because these were older trains, was a back car that was exposed. There weren't windows on the sides and you could just sit out there for as long as you

wanted and just feel the breeze, feel the ocean and just feel completely removed from everything except what you were seeing in front of you and it was absolutely phenomenal. Okay. So I want to run through, we don't have time to go through every 50, all of the 52 countries, but I want to run through some highlights if you would. And I want just like short impressions of the best memories in each one that I ask you about, okay? Okay.

You'd never traveled outside of Canada and the United States before. Is there anything that you discovered in North America that surprised you? When I traveled through America, I was very cognizant of the fact that – and even though it was March and April last year, that this might be the last time that I'm in the United States again for a good while, given where the conversation was going there. I was so struck when I was in Washington, D.C. and just seeing every single day hundreds of new tour buses come up and people like me just showing in for one day at a time the workings of government, the institutions dedicated to America's sense of itself and you do that for 24 hours and you leave and I was one tiny

part of that. This is an amazing big diverse country and this might be my goodbye to it for a good period of time which it is quickly turning out to probably be the case for me. South America, you mentioned one train trip, but tell me about what else struck you in South America. I mean the bigness of the continent, it's more difficult to get around, but one moment that really sticks out was Atiguazu Falls, which is maybe the most powerful series of waterfalls in the world.

It's right on the Brazil to Argentina border. And they're longer and more powerful than Niagara Falls, and there's like 20 of them. And you can take a boat, and the boat tour goes right up to these waterfalls, like within about five meters. And I remember just being completely overwhelmed by, you know, this is the loudest sound from Earth that I've ever heard. It is the most powerful sound from Earth I've ever heard. It is the wettest sound I've ever heard from Earth and probably never will again. And I could not even think in the moment it was so overpowering, the rush of water surrounding us.

And then after about 30 seconds of time, they back out from that. But it was one of the many times during the trip where, I'm a city geek and I loved going to all these different communities throughout the world. But it was that connection with the natural world that often provided the most awe inspiring moments. When they predict we'll fall, we rise to the challenge.

When they say we're not a country, we stand on guard. This land taught us to be brave and caring, to protect our values, to leave no one behind. Canada is on the line, and it's time to vote as though our country depends on it, because like never before, it does. I'm Jonathan Pedneau, co-leader of the Green Party of Canada. This election, each vote makes a difference. Authorized by the Registered Agent of the Green Party of Canada. This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort.

Journey through the heart of Europe on a Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination-focused dining, and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. With a variety of voyages and sailing dates to choose from, now is the time to explore Europe's waterways. Learn more at Viking.com. Pete In Europe, on the 25th of May, you posted from Lisbon, today I went to a concert. What was the concert? Peter The concert was Taylor Swift. Pete Oh, I've heard of her. Peter Yeah, no, she's pretty big. And the tickets were, because I entered a draw, it

worked slightly different for her European tour than in North America, but it was a straight draw in terms of what tickets you might be able to get and they offered me front row VIP tickets. Come on. And I kid you not, and they were only $600 or so because just she was not quite as big of in Europe about two years ago when I applied for these tickets. And so, Matt, I am not a Swifty. I was not a Swifty before, but first of all,

it was an amazing excuse to get into this community and learn a little bit more about it and put on my journalist hat. And then the concert starts and you have 80,000 people chanting and singing at the top of their lungs for three and a half hours. And you're seeing Taylor Swift, arguably the world's most famous person in the moment,

or most famous entertainer at least, 10 feet in front of you singing and it is just such a wild rush of emotions and sounds around you that even though I'm back to not being a Swiftie, although now there's about 10 songs that I'll regularly listen to, I'll never forget that for sure. Swiftie adjacent I think is what we say. Swifty adjacent, that's fair. You got into China and you wrote that you had dreamed of going to China, in particular to the Great Wall, since you were a kid. What was it like when you were there?

Oh, it was otherworldly. And you know, it's funny where inspiration strikes when you decide to do a trip like this and you read up about everything and you go, why do I want to go to a place or not? Sometimes it's just remembering when you were five years old and looking at an atlas and seeing the Great Wall of China for the first time and going, wow, that seems amazing. I'd like to see that one day and then being there. The thing about the Great Wall that was astounding in person was that the section of the wall that I went to

was only an hour and a half outside of Beijing where there is actually barely anyone around. You're completely exposed. You can see the wall going up and down valleys and hills the entire time. And you can have 10, 20 meters around you where you see no one. And so to stand on that wall, to look around, to place yourself in the moment,

you know, it was probably the one time of this trip more than any that as I was preparing to leave, I went, no, I want another two, three minutes here where I'm just silent and I'm looking and I'm trying to commit this moment to memory as strongly as possible. You ended in Australia and New Zealand. What did you love about that part of the world? Selfishly, I loved being able to transition back a little bit, uh, you know, as fun and lovely as the trip was, it takes a little bit

of energy where you're constantly shifting from country to country and, uh, it's a new language and it's a new culture and your brain is having to figure out things again and again. I really enjoyed that, but finishing in two places where, okay, the language is the same and the accents are similar and the culture, I sort of know, meant that I could relax a little bit more and focus on the transition back. But then the thing that I really enjoyed, particularly in New Zealand, was both how

amazing the geography is. People have seen Lord of the Rings and obviously there's tons of bucolic farms and amazing and dramatic mountain vistas, but also the ocean, the rainforest. There's a lot of similarities between New Zealand and British Columbia and it was lovely to be around that final country and do 90 kilometers of hikes through beaches and mountains and craters and everywhere in between and feel that the journey home was so close now. How did you take in everything that you saw? I would think it would be borderline overwhelming.

I mean, part of the benefit was traveling solo, right? I was able to give myself more time to just take in moments because you don't have a friend with you where you're trying to enjoy the moment, but also you're bantering with them and you're trying to figure out a dinner plan that evening with them or whatever else. So I was able to be very regimental of, all right, this is when I'm taking things in versus this is when I'm planning things at the end of the night for the next place. The other part of it was just I documented constantly and part of that is the journalist brain I think. And part of it was me going, I want to remember this year forever as best that I can. And so I took thousands of photos during the course of the trip.

I got half decent at photographs during it, I think, because people said to me, boy, your photos are getting better. And I thought to myself, wait, that sounds like a compliment, but my photo is bad. But then I looked back at the end and I looked at photos during the first two months and it's like, oh, I was not thinking about lighting or composition or framing nearly the same intuitive way that I'm thinking now. It's the same as any skill. You do it every day.

You get a little bit better. So, you know, I'm sure there were moments where if I had only traveled to one country and given myself lots of time in it, I might have taken in a little bit more than what I did in the whirlwind. But I hope and I truly believe that the way that I try to balance it will give me those memories for a lifetime. Do you ever get lonely traveling by yourself? No, not too much.

It was funny, the two questions people would always ask is, are you tired? Are you lonely? I'm a pretty solitary person. Again, being on the autism spectrum, sort of informal interactions with people really take out a lot of energy for me. And so not having that around me really gave me a boost. The other thing is I had friends and family join me

about every six or eight weeks on the trip because I had such a detailed itinerary, I was able to send itinerary, I was able to send it to them and say, look, is there anywhere on this that you want to visit me? So my dad and brother traveled for the first time really to outside North America as well to Italy where I met them and we did two weeks. I had a friend join me in Japan.

I had another friend do Machu Picchu with me. That was lovely. Tell me about the quintessential food or beverage and how you went. I mean, I'm sure you ranked them, but how you went about picking which in each country or each place that you're in is the quintessential thing to eat or drink. I went, what's a daily thing that I can do that is sort of a fun gimmick that won't cause too much stress? And then second, I went, what's a way to force me to really learn a little bit more

about the cuisines in different places that I go and not just revert to getting a North American thing at the end of the day because I'm lazy? And so I went, that would be super fun and it would force me to add an extra layer about these countries and sometimes cities in terms of what they do. And I always put it as the final photo and the final explanation on my Instagram post. And so it was funny to see a good 20% of people were there for the quintessential food every day.

And you know, I ate larvae and haggis and crickets and guinea pigs, but I also had things that weren't sort of gimmicky in terms of understanding the complex differences between the types of noodles and spices throughout China and all their different regions and finding that I found French food overrated, but I found Indian food underrated. It was again a different way to experience the year and a different way to really enjoy it in a gastronomical way that has expanded my palette forever. And also I now have 30 or 40 things on there where I'm like, all right, I need to like do deep research in Vancouver

to find the one place in this city that has the authentic Colombian thing that serves the one thing that I haven't been able to find so far. What did you learn about us? Like us as all of us in doing a trip like this? I think the thing that I was taken by and gave me optimism on days that you would turn on the

CBC or New York times app and see how the world was going, and you might think, oh, not great right now, is just seeing people in hundreds of places around the world going about their daily lives. And when you live in your own city every single day and you have your routine and you see the same folks and interactions on the street, you take it for granted. But when you go around everywhere and you see people dropping their kids off to school and being in the markets and going to their jobs and enjoying time out in the park and just all these tiny basic little interactions and you start thinking in your brain because

you've now seen this in hundreds of places, in 52 countries, representing more than 70% of the world's population. And you go, there is so much humanity that we don't talk about and don't think about every single day. And yet that is how the overwhelming majority of us live our lives in these small little moments again and again. And to look at those moments across the world and reflect on it gives me hope.

What did you learn about yourself? You said, I didn't change too much, but I deepened. Yeah, well, because people ask, have you changed? And I went, well, the things that I thought about myself and believed about myself and thought about the world may sound the same, but I have so many more experiences now that have made those more powerful and made me think more about why I believe the things that I do and have forced me to examine and give in more context. You know, for the rest of my life, I get to – and the rest of my professional career,

I get to take what I've learned over the last year and apply it to my understanding of myself and understanding of my city And that's a powerful thing and that's the thing to be grateful about where will you go next? I have it was funny. I told myself, you know, I'm not going to think about this for a while I need to decide whether in the future I'm gonna do like just one trip a year for like a month or maybe restart the clock and to take another year off in six years. And I've sort of joked that 12 cities in 12 months has a nice ring to it, do slow travel. But then a friend told me that we met up and she said, I'm moving back to United Kingdom

and my wedding, which you knew about, is going to be in England next May and I'd love you to come." And I went, oh, absolutely, sure, that's great. And then my brain started going, well, wait a second, I have a friend in London, so I can stay there for a week. But could I leave a week or two before or stay a week or two after? And where would I go? I love Scotland.

I love Northern France and Belgium. And I realized, you know what, this is going to be a challenge the rest of my life. And there are so many places that I want to explore deeper and so many places that I didn't get to go to before and it'll be a constant joyous challenge to figure out the next steps going forward. Not a bad challenge to have. It was a real pleasure to follow your travels from a distance through the miracle of social media. And it's great to talk to you about this, Justin. Thank you very much. Thanks so much, Matt. Justin McElroy is the municipal affairs reporter at CBC in Vancouver, back from his 52 week trip

to 52 different countries around the world. You can find him on Instagram, Justin McElroy, M-C-E-L-R-O-Y. He's on Instagram and he's also working on a book about his travels that will be out next spring. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.