Benny Lewis (2025)

20/09/2025

As a geography/geometry nerd, I absolutely had to make this stop in my Wisconsin travels at the Exact Centre of the Northern Half of the Western Hemisphere.🌎🌐🗺️📍

The 45 × 90 Geographical Marker is the only one of its kind you can actually conveniently access, just by walking through a corn field 🌽, instead of being in the middle of an ocean or up in the mountains of China like the other 3.

I've been making it a point in recent years to visit such geometrically interesting points on earth, since I've been to equator monuments both in the Amazon and Borneo, and I've been to the geodesic centre points of Brazil, all of South America and all of Indonesia. In some cases, I've had to walk around a bit near a monument, since plate tectonics has lead to a little drift, but they keep this one in Wisconsin accurate.

It was a convenient quick drive from my base in Wausau and in private property that they just opened the tiny little path to visitors.

20/08/2025

My 45th state visited: Iowa!
As I drove in, I could have taken a diversion to visit the "Field of dreams", but instead opted for the bridge from the Clint Eastwood movie " Bridges of Madison County", which was close to my base in Des Moines.

14/08/2025

Kicking off my final big US road trip to complete visiting all contiguous states!

I've just touched down in Chicago, Illinois, which I had already visited multiple times, but is a good starting and ending point to pick up and drop off a car rental.

Up next is Iowa (45th state), then Minnesota (46th), and a whole month in Wisconsin (47th), and finally in October I'll check out Michigan (48th), and then I'll have visited all of the lower United States!

Then I'll just have Hawaii and Alaska remaining, but those will be flights some other year, rather than road trips.

Eventually I'll be wrapping up my green card and moving back to Europe, so I wanted to finish this grand project while I still could and count myself among the few non-Americans who got to go on this kind of expansive adventure.

Throughout all of this, I'll try to meet as many people as I can in each state, I'll be training for multiple half-marathons and I'll be practising my American Sign Language!

24/07/2025

(Reluctantly) back in the USA! 🦅🇺🇸

I originally moved my official residence to the US about 10 years ago for personal reasons that have since vanished. But it's also a great place to own a business, with relatively little bureaucracy and I've a bunch of friends here, so I kept it as my "base" (even though I don't own a house or any actual stuff to store anywhere) even when I returned to nomadic life.

Basically, I have a green card, but instead of staying the normally required 6-months per year, I can apply for a special travel permit that lets me spend a couple of years outside without needing to cancel my residency.

My first permit just expired, which is why I had to come back. I'll likely apply one more time next year, maintaining some kind of weird status quo in the short term of the next few years.

Even so, daily life is much more expensive than so much of the world. I've actually been putting aside money for the entire last year while I was in cheap places, just to afford four uninterrupted months here now!

And as I get older, the idea of relying on any kind of medical care in the US truly terrifies me because of how quickly prices get out of hand.

And I won't even mention politics! The above are already enough push factors to make it impractical to grow old here. I don't want to dump too much on the US, as there are many aspects of living here that I've truly enjoyed and lots of lovely people, despite going through the most difficult years of my life in this country.

Even so, I'll wrap up my residency at some stage in the next years and spending any time here would ultimately become a true rarity.

With that in mind, I want to take advantage of being able to spend time here while I can! One such project includes finishing visiting all US states, and over the next 4 months, I plan to finally finish visiting the contiguous (lower) 48 states, leaving only Hawaii and Alaska remaining! And I'm actively trying to practise my ASL (American Sign Language) wherever I go.

So, I'll enjoy my "last big US road trip" and even though I'll be back a few more times in the next years, I'll ultimately be wrapping up my time in the US on a positive note!

20/03/2025

My time in Bali has officially concluded!

I don't have loads of photos of this trip, since unlike other foreigners there who were enjoying the sun, exploring nature, partying or networking, I was studying 8 hours a day, 7 days a week for the entire 2 months I was there, so I'd have the Indonesian language skills I'd need for these 4 months travelling the archipelago.

But I did give a talk on learning languages before I left, at .bali that went well! Thanks to for the photos!

Now, it's time to explore Java!

18/02/2025

New phone, who dis?
Also, meet Jude🐰, one of the pet rabbits at my Bali accommodation 🐇.
The very first photo I had taken after picking up my new was at night in bad lighting and it still did a pretty impressive job (it looks like it was well-lit or during the day).
I wanted to upgrade to a slightly better camera for all my upcoming Indonesia travels, and do a general technology upgrade (getting a discount by trading in my last phone that I also bought in Indonesia a couple of years ago) before tariffs domino across the world 😅.

15/01/2025

Hello from Indonesia 🇮🇩; my home for the most of the first half of 2025!

I'm based in Canggu in Bali first, which is very busy and nothing like the idealistic low-key image most people have of Bali, but it's got co-working spaces, loads of restaurants with international very healthy vegetarian food and other creature comforts.

This level of comfort is so that I can buckle down and do two things exclusively for the next 2 months; study Indonesian and write a large chunk of my next book (details to come much later).

After 2 months here then I'll begin my big travel adventure exploring the big islands of Indonesia, definitely needing my Indonesian much more than I would in touristy Bali.

Deep exploring into countries is something I'm thoroughly enjoying (like last year's ~30,000km of buses and boats through South America), and I'm glad the time has finally come to get to know true Indonesia!

But first, it's time to dive into the language! I'll start posting updates on my language progress over on soon enough. Thanks for following along!

11/01/2025

Hello from Bangkok! 🇹🇭
This was my first stop in Asia, since there are lots of things I've gotten into the habit of doing in this city like doctor and dental check ups, vaccines etc. I've been tested for well over two hundred potential ailments and am all clear! 👨‍⚕️🏥🩻🏆🎉
I also get to see some friends, eat well, get over all the jetlag so I arrive in Indonesia fully adjusted and I indulge in multiple cheap Thai massages💆‍♂️.
Ironically though, since this visit was health themed, I've had a rough week health wise, coughing and wheezing the entire time. Rather than some virus, this is actually the really bad air quality in Bangkok this week, which got to a red warning for several days were wearing N95 masks 😷 outside was highly recommended. Just a little walking outside my first days not knowing this, absolutely destroyed my lungs.
In fact, in this photo that I took on my first day, that yellow that you see behind me isn't a sunset, but the smog blanketing the city! 🌆
Such a pity, because I really do enjoy my regular visits here, but I'll have to be much more conscious of air quality warnings in my upcoming travels.
A few expats that I asked if they were having a rough week too either have expensive air filtering systems in their homes, or are smokers and their lungs are already fu**ed so they don't notice 😂.

10/01/2025

My first days of 2025 were in Luxembourg and East Belgium. Luxembourg was my 48th country visited!

I took a nice long while to walk all over the town, drove into the countryside, visited Schengen, and met up with several locals to learn a little more about life in this small interesting country. I was speaking French the entire time.

I needed the car to get to an off-the-grid part of Belgium, but had I just been exploring Luxembourg, the car would have been a waste of money since all public transport throughout the entire country (not just the city); all buses, trains, trams etc. are completely 100% free! I've definitely never seen that before!!

And before this, I was in the snow, near the city of Liège where famous Belgian waffles are from, and I drove through a town called "spa", that spas are named after!

Definitely a nice European experience to completely contrast with the Asian life of the next months!

31/12/2024

As we wrap up 2024, not only am I adding yet another country to my list, with Luxembourg🇱🇺 as my 48th visited, but I'm also adding my THIRD *triple* border of the year!

After Brazil-Paraguay-Argentina and then Brazil-Peru-Colombia, I've just visited the Luxembourg🇱🇺-Germany🇩🇪-France🇫🇷 border. You may have heard the name of the tiny village on this triple border already, because it's where a famous agreement was signed, appropriately (for a triple-border town), to connect different countries for the abolition of checks at borders.

This created the now famous 𝕊𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕟 𝕫𝕠𝕟𝕖!

It spans a vast amount of Europe (both EU and non-EU countries), and is actually expanding to add two NEW countries in just a few hours, with Bulgaria and Romania about to join. This will finally make a satisfying unbroken connection on the map all the way to Greece, where goods and people can flow smoothly.

In the 2nd photo, you can see a funny sign showing that France and Germany are super close. Technically, the sign is wrong since Germany isn't 1km away, as it's literally right across the bridge you can see in that photo, but it makes for a good selfie! It's also funny that the sign as a whole is in no particular language, since "France" is how you write it in French (not German), and "Deutschland" is how you write it in German (not French).

In the final photo, I'm standing right in front of the triple border point, which is in the middle of the river. You can just about make out a dam behind the peace pillar, which is in France, all of the photos having being taken in Luxembourg.

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27/12/2024

The green fields of Cavan, Ireland🌿🌄☘️

I've had a lovely week home for Christmas, seeing all my family (and my new dog-nephews). Lot of lovely chats, relaxing, walks, and meals I've missed from being so far away for so long.

This photo was taken on a walk to "Fleming's Folly", a stone tower built on a hill with dramatic views over the countryside.

But it's only a single week that I came home for! I'm already hitting the road again on Sunday to spend the New Year in Luxembourg and Belgium, and to go onward to Asia from there!

I'll be back, of course!

22/12/2024

On my way back to Europe, I finally stopped in Portugal (my 47th country)🇵🇹.

I went into the city centre and walked around for an afternoon, seeing a few iconic sights, including the famous iconic yellow classic tram.

It was interesting hearing such a different Portuguese after spending so long in Brazil before I ever came to the original Portuguese-speaking country much closer to where I grew up! But despite worries that I might find it hard, I actually understood it fine!

I was especially amazed at how cheap Lisbon was! I was only here for a single day on this visit, but I definitely plan to come back for longer some time, especially since it looks to be surprisingly affordable. I understand now why it's becoming something of a hub for digital nomads (earning from work abroad, but spending locally).

Benny Lewis