Walty Ladder is a retired aviation professional, lifelong traveller, philatelist, and passionate rock-music fan from Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Inspired by his father’s Merchant Navy stories and his own fascination with stamps, history, and geopolitics, Walty spent decades traveling the world and eventually visited 195 countries. Now living in the south of France, he has turned those remarkable journeys into I Just Don’t Get It: Stories from My Travels to 195 Countries of the World—a humorous collection of unforgettable encounters, cultural misunderstandings, border crossings, close calls, and wonderfully quirky moments from a lifetime on the road.
15 Live Interview Questions
- Walty, what first sparked your obsession with visiting every country in the world?
I guess it was a question of sibling rivalry. One day, many years ago, I was chatting with my brother and told him I was more travelled than him. He of course disagreed, so we made a list of countries that we had visited, and both sat around 60 or 70. We decided to settle the matter by racing to 100, which I won in January 2010 landing in Paramaribo, Surinam. I then decided to see how far I could get, and when I reached 150 in October 2014 in Kenya, it struck me that I could possibly reach the magical 195, and that was when it became a real obsession.
- Your father was a Merchant Navy seaman. How much did his travel stories influence the traveller you became?
Hugely. He often talked about his travels when I was young, and there two stories that I remember to this day. One was about when it was so hot passing through the Suez Canal that he fried his eggs on the deck of his ship. The other was going into a sports shop in Freemantle Australia to buy a baggy green cricket cap but they brought him out some trophy cups to look at. “No, a cap”, he said. “Well, these are cups”, they said. They both laughed at the misunderstanding due to the English and Australian accent. And there was of course all the bric-a-brac that he brought back from distant places to fill the family home.
- You eventually visited 195 countries. Did you ever imagine, when you started traveling, that you would complete such an extraordinary mission?
Certainly not in the beginning, no, and it wasn’t even a mission back then, as I mentioned. In any case it was like chasing a horizon. When I was born there were only 110 UN member states, but then decolonisation, the break up of the USSR, the break up of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Sudan, etc kept gradually adding more and more, and probably there will be more to come, so I think the word “complete” is only temporary.
- Why did you choose I Just Don’t Get It as the title of the book? What did your wife mean when she said those words?
She was dropping me off at the airport in deep snow for a journey to Central America, and hates driving in snow, and really didn’t understand my obsession for travel, and simply said “I just don’t get it” to express her displeasure. But now she gets it.
- Of all 195 countries, was there one that completely changed your perception of the world?
Absolutely yes, one in particular, but I would rather not say which one. Anyone who reads my book will probably be able to guess which it is.
- Your book is full of humorous misunderstandings. Which language mishap still makes you laugh whenever you remember it?
There were many that I still smile about like the over-use of the word “yes” in Rwanda, but probably my favourite was the drunken evening in Kitakyushu in Japan. I had been invited for dinner by some Japanese colleagues who had a rather limited command of English, but better than my non-existent Japanese. We ate a fantastic meal cross legged sitting on a cushion at a low table and I was introduced to all the different blends of saki wine, and when my legs finally started to seize up and the jetlag took its toll, I asked them to order a taxi for me back to my hotel. “No, pahdoo”, they replied. Upon asking them to explain what pahdoo meant, I finally understood that pahdwon was the meal and pahdoo the karaoke. Part one and part two. My heart sank, but it was a great karaoke night, where all the sake and whisky turned me into an expert singer. I think.
- You describe some extraordinary border crossings. What was the most tense or unusual border experience you ever had?
Two spring to mind as annoying, Madagascar and Zimbabwe, when they disputed the validity of my visa and requested a fistful of dollars to arrange matters, which they didn’t get after I remained patient and persistent with help from some other local travellers. The tensest one, however, was crossing into Serbia from Bulgaria on the train. It was nightime and we were asleep in the cabin, and the border guard who entered the cabin un-invited insisted that we needed visas. We knew very well that a Serbian visa was not needed for UK passports, but he dragged me off the train to an office, leaving Ma’am in the cabin, and insisted on a $20 fee for each of us before I could get back on the train. I paid, of course, no choice really, and the moment he put me back on the train right at the back, it pulled away, leaving Ma’am in a state of panic before I got back to the cabin.
- You encountered everything from civil war situations to armed soldiers and police searches. Was there ever a moment when you genuinely thought, “What am I doing here?”
I never seriously though “what am I doing here?”, because I always knew why I was there and it was my choice. But I was pretty damn scared sometimes, especially in Equatorial Guinea held at Kalashnikov gunpoint at 2am by some militia or other who kindly stripped me of all my money because they were hungry. Ma’am did of course raise the question “what were you doing there?” often when I recounted some of the close shaves like in Libya and South Sudan. The only time I really thought “What am I doing here?” Ma’am was with me, as we got trapped by Cypriot time-share sellers who kidnapped us for several hours on the promise of a free bottle of wine which ended up being awfully undrinkable.
- You travelled through places that most people would never consider holiday destinations. What motivates someone to travel to the unusual rather than simply the comfortable?
Simply because they are there, and they can be exciting.
- You mention local haircuts in places such as Antigua, Cuba, Hulhumale, and Krabi. What is it about ordinary local experiences that makes travel memorable for you?
Well you can’t get much closer to someone than a razor blade, and hairdressers the world over seem to be the font of all local knowledge. Other local experiences like trying to order chicken in a Vietnamese workers canteen by sign language, or trying to buy flowers on the roadside in Tehran, or being invited into the home of a family in India are so much more memorable for me than a beach on a Pacific island.
- Your career in aviation played a major role in making your travels possible. How did working in aviation shape the way you experienced different countries?
The whole concept of aviation is about connecting people, and business meetings with airline management people often helped me understand what a country’s vision, strategy and mojo was all about. Some of those business relationships extended into friendships, which further allowed deeper experiences in a particular country.
- As a philatelist, you have a special interest in geopolitics and the history of countries. Did collecting stamps change the way you looked at borders and nations?
Certainly. As I just mentioned about the growing number of “countries” over time, borders too only represent a certain snapshot in time. Countries get occupied by others, grow and shrink their borders, change their names, develop their national identities, change their leaders, and so on, and all of this can be traced and documented in stamps over the last 170 years or so.
- You lived in the UK, France, Spain, and India. How did living abroad differ from simply visiting a country?
Mostly because it gives so much more time to discover the hidden corners, develop friendships and feel comfortable in a place to better feel the pulse.
- Your book isn’t intended to be a traditional travel guide. What do you hope readers take away from your stories instead?
All that I hope for is that the stories bring some smiles to some faces and allow people to laugh a bit at some of the ridiculous things our beautiful world has to offer.
- After visiting 195 countries, what does “travel” mean to you today—and is there still anywhere left that you desperately want to explore?
Now that I’ve retired, I’ve become a bit lazy, and of course with much less revenue, but to my delight I’ve discovered that travelling just a few kilometres to the next village can bring as many laughs as to a far point of the globe. So today, “travel” simply means visiting other towns and villages for amusing experiences without having to pass through an airport. Nevertheless, there are other places that I would like to visit, especially places that despite not being officially a “country”, do have a rich philatelic history, like many islands lost in the vast Oceans, most of all the Pitcairns, plus the top and bottom arctics and Greenland before they melt. But I am also happy to keep these places in my dreams.
