I'm conscious when I set quizzes that international topics get far fewer answers than UK^▸ (United Kingdom) ones, though we have some remarkable overseas knowledge with a handful of members.

This came up on my social media feed last night.



Now - I am very conscious that this was "clickbate" encouraging people to add their names, so had a very low suggestion encouraging people to boast, as I suppose I am doing here.   I also suspect that the major target is to reach people in the USA who have fewer countries visited, on the basis that if they travel 1000 kms they may still be in the same country, whereas if we travel 1000 kms we go through several.

Anyway - how many have you visited?  And how many of those have your travelled within on a train?  Personal answer - 17 and 12; bit of a boast, bit of an interest, bit because I've been around for many years!

My personal answer would be 15 and 9.

I've included countries that I've visited for a day from a cruise ship, and I've excluded countries where I've changed planes but stayed airside and not passed through immigration.

5 and 1.  (Unless I can also claim Wales and Scotland as 'other countries') 

5: South Africa, France, Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar (although that's also a bit tenuous). 

1: France.

I did have a very vague memory that we may have travelled on a train in South Africa, back in 2003, but my wife has just mopped my heated brow and assured me that we didn't. 

Some interesting answers ... I answered the original question in the graphic - "of the most popular 25 countries in the world" but then I fuzzed the question in the subject line - there are 193 member states in the UN.   Some of you have answered from the 193 / as I was writing this johnneyw - thank you - has noticed the discrepancy and answered the graphic

I could probably double my original numbers with places from Vatican (no train used) to South Africa (where, yes, I did take a train journey).  Trips around the Baltic and incursions into Eastern Europe soon add to numbers!

Of the 25 listed - 24 with, perhaps surprisingly, Canada as the only escapee. Trains used in 11 of them.

Several years back the Russian visa application form had a section which said something along the lines of, 'List all countries ever visited'. That was a memory-stretching challenge to complete. I must have satisfied them as they let me in on various occasions. 

Visited 13, used the train in 5 (8 if the Singapore, New York / San Francisco and Montreal metros count)

Being a semi retired geologist, I have enjoyed many countries on Earth; some good - some definitely not so good. In many of the good countries I have sought out their railed transport without having actually travelled on it - being the rail nerd that I am in my spare time . I have sat down this afternoon and written them all down, and can see that I have entered 43 different countries in my time and travelled by rail in 15 of them. There are at least 10 others where I have only transited the airport (airside) and may have taken a railed airport inter terminal shuttle at some of them.

11 visited, only used trains in 5.

Will be adding Poland and Slovakia to the list next week