My Around-the-World Journey With Chess.com

Most people probably see me as a chess player, chess teacher, or chess journalist, and those are all true, but I've always thought of myself more as a traveler. Even before my current job, I'd been living on planes and trains for a lot of my adult life. Lucky for me, these past 12 years working at Chess.com and ChessKid have given me a lot of chances to experience many new places. That's one of the great joys of my job.

I recently visited my 100th country (ironically, or perhaps intentionally, there was no chess involved at all in the Cook Islands). But in many of the countries leading up to that milestone, I was "on business."

Below are some of the new countries I've been to either directly for work, or as an add-on to a work trip.

Prologue: While I had been to Europe once as a child and also visited Russia on a university exchange trip my senior year, I had still been to fewer than 10 countries by my mid-20s. Three experiences changed all of that. The first was an impromptu trip to Costa Rica in 2002 to visit a friend, where I learned that some hotels cost less than $5. I honestly had no conception of "budget travel" at the time. A few years later I randomly booked a ticket to Thailand in 2007, and continued on to Laos and Vietnam.

This time I learned that traveling by myself is fantastic. And finally, in 2008-2009, I took the year off to travel around the world, visiting more than 30 countries in the process. I chronicled all of the chess experiences in an article for Chess Life Online -- it turns out that teaching people to play chess is a great icebreaker and useful skill to share with hostel roommates and fellow backpackers.

And now, the Chess.com years:

1) Lesotho. This was the classic "work add-on" that I've come to love. I had been to South Africa once before as a backpacker but returned there about 10 years later, in 2018, for the South African Junior Chess Championship outside of Johannesburg. While that trip still stands out for the outdoor ChessKid booth and all the children in colorful uniforms (and also Hikaru Nakamura playing all comers in a rowdy Joubert Park), what I'll remember even more is a road trip I took afterward to the Drakensberg Mountains. 

Their beauty is probably second only to the Pyrenees in my mind. After one long hike that involved climbing up chain ladders from the 1930s to reach Tugela Falls (which is either the longest or second-longest waterfall in the world), it is possible that I crept over into the Lesotho border.

What was more certain, and more immediate, were the 2m tall Basotho Bushmen waiting for us at the top of the final ascent. I had heard stories about whether they would allow us to pass freely; in the end I did not make friends but also did not meet the sharp point of their spear.

2) Peru/Bolivia. In 2023, I flew down to South America for the ceremonial signing of a deal that my colleague WIM Ivette Garcia made with the Bolivian government. My job was amazingly simple: show up, say some nice things in my limited Spanish, and sign some documents for more than 100,000 kids in Bolivia to use ChessKid. What could be easier?

Things started out well. Ivette had me come to Peru first to do some events there. Her husband GM Jorge Cori graciously showed me around Lima and after that we had a fantastic time at a local school tournament.

But then after an overnight flight to La Paz, it all went south. We had flown from sea level to the world's highest commercial airport outside of China. Now at 14,000 ft in the neighboring town of El Alto, we both came down with severe headaches, but Ivette's condition was much worse. She had dangerous altitude sickness, so we got her some oxygen and I booked the next flight for us to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the only option available but luckily nearly 13,000 ft lower. The bigger issue, besides my headache, was that our local fixer still arranged for me to meet with the minister of education for a quick 10-minute signing ceremony. I had to go without my colleague and translator. To this day I *think* I did not sign away the company.

3) Andorra. This was unexpectedly one of my favorite countries, and it came after visiting the Chess.com/Chessable office in Barcelona for the first time. Andorra is a quirky place. Consider: It is weirdly not Schengen, it was famously left out of the Treaty of Versailles (some historical reports say that someone forgot to invite them), and it is also the trivia answer for "What is the world's largest country without an airport?" This was clearly the kind of country I needed to see.

I rented a car after my time at the Barcelona office had ended. I was headed for Asturias, where I planned to visit some of the places that Anthony Bourdain did for his episode there (which turned out to be one of the last before he died; the episode is rare in that it has many quiet, contemplative moments since Anthony passed before he could do any of the normal voiceover work). In case you are wondering, yes, you should go. It is a magical place. I managed to find the bar he ate at in this small hamlet and had a beer in his honor.

But I digress. On the way to celebrate Anthony, I drove into Andorra, which offered up a quaint capital city and majestic hiking just outside of town.

4) Oman. Of all my 100 countries, this one was clearly the least cultural for me, but that's not Oman's fault (thanks a lot Covid!). At least in Albania I had lunch and in Liechtenstein I got stopped by the border guards. In Oman, I actually did buy a falafel (or was in in UAE? More on that later!), but there wasn't much else to do. The reason was simple -- I wasn't in the main part of Oman; I was in one of its enclaves.

Let me explain, because this is going to get a little technical. Thanks to Magnus Carlsen dominating the 2021 World Championship in Dubai, I found myself with several extra days before my plane ticket home. I tried to drive through the desert to Oman, a country I've always wanted to see (and in which Magnus has gone on holiday). But the land border was closed for Covid. But since many lunches at home are spent watching geography videos on Youtube, I knew about a very rare feature of Eastern UAE -- there is an enclave within an enclave!

It breaks down like this: the village of Madha, which ostensibly should be well within UAE, chose a long time ago to self-aligned with Oman instead. So this means there is a part of Oman wholly within UAE. But...the even smaller village of Nahwa chose to align with UAE, and they are completely surrounded by Madha. This makes Nahwa a "donut hole in the desert."

Getting there was a great drive with no border guards or formalities, just a few flags to mark the crossings. And since I drove all the way through from Dubai, then turned around and went back, that meant my journey was UAE-Oman-UAE-Oman-UAE-U-turn-Oman-UAE-Oman-UAE.

5) Dominican Republic. This one wasn't nearly as complicated. As a company, Chess.com has always been fully remote, but that means that once per year we gather for social and business meetings. I've attended every year since 2013 (there was no meetup in 2020 for Covid) and in about half of those years, the company has chosen Punta Canta. We've also been to New York City, Florida, Mexico, and Jamaica (also in 2012 there was a small one in San Fransisco but it was before my time).

In 2021 we were already on our fourth visit to Punta Cana, and since I wanted to see more than just our resort, I decided to fly into the capital and make a road trip. One of these was a good decision. While Santo Domingo had some delightful cafes and interesting historical spots, the driving might have been the scariest I've ever done. Obviously I made it, but I'd choose driving a scooter in the chaos of Yogyakarta any day.

Once I got out of the city, I found myself on the scorching sands of the Dunes of Bahi. I had not sandboarded since Namibia about 15 years prior and it's just what people always say -- sandboarding is a young man's game.

6) Sri Lanka. Somewhat similar to Dominican Republic, my visit there was a response to repeated visits. I've traveled to India four times in total, and three times on work (twice for ChessKid and once for Chess.com for the 2022 Olympiad). After my second ChessKid visit, in 2019 to the rather forgettable city of Aurangabad (which I'll remember most fondly for getting 1500 kids to sing "Happy Birthday" to Vishy for his 50th), I grabbed a ticket to Colombo.

I would have never guessed this, but scootering around Sri Lanka's south was delightful and not nearly the traffic snarl I was expecting (the country might have been slightly less busy given the Easter attacks in the capital a few months prior). Weligama was a chill surf town while the Dutch fort town of Galle wasn't nearly as crowded as many UNESCO World Heritage Sites. One thing is for sure -- whenever I am sent back to India, I'm going to re-engineer the Sri Lanka add-on since I have so much more to see.

7) Kazakhstan. Look, I'm not going to lie. As I get older, I like to travel better. While I used to be able to camp in the Kalihari and sleep in 24-bed dorms with drunken kids on their gap year, I've grown to appreciate slightly nicer lodgings. And sometimes that's enough to make the entire trip. 

Take Kazakhstan, my home for three weeks for the 2023 World Championship. This trip began with some hotel tactics. When the dates and city had been announced by FIDE, but the host hotel had not, I did a little digging and found the three nicest hotels in Astana. I booked refundable reservations at all of them, and when one was announced, I had already secured room at a healthy discount since the rates went up significantly after the announcement (all the FIDE workers and delegates needed rooms too).

That meant I enjoyed the splendor of one of my favorite hotel brands -- the St. Regis -- for nearly a month. While the St. Regis in Bangkok offers a 24-hour butler that will bring you an oat milk latte whenever you want, the property in Astana was no less impressive with its perfect service and facilities. I give very high marks to the warmth of nearly all of the locals in Astana, both inside the hotel and in the city itself. If Astana wasn't so flat and mall-obsessed, I'd consider going back simply as a tourist.

8) Solomon Islands/Vanuatu. I'm going to make this a two-for-one since I visited both as a work add-on to the 2020 Australian Junior Championship. Before heading to the Gold Coast to meet our power users from Down Under, I decided to make the most of my long flight and visit more new places. While I'm a big fan of Polynesian life (I chose a solo trip to Easter Island for my 40th birthday), this was my only my second trip to Melanesia (I had been to Fiji as the final country of my around-the-world trip).

My time on both islands was quite short. While both are archipelagoes, I only visited the main island of each. Vanuatu was vastly more set up for tourism, while Solomon Islands was about as remote as I've been. You don't have to travel too many kilometers outside of the capital Honiara to be completely off the grid.

In Vanuatu I especially appreciated the kava bars, a mellowing root I had not sampled since my Fijian travels. In the Solomon Islands, my days were spent in search of World War II relics (the main island was the site of the famous Battle of Guadalcanal, which was a fight over a key airstrip that the Japanese needed to be close enough to attack Australia).

Of course after the play time was over, it was on to Brisbane and then the Gold Coast to host a ChessKid booth and events at their national junior championship.

9) Malta. This trip you are not supposed to know about. Well, sort of. In 2015, a production crew set up a private tournament on Gozo, Malta's second island, with the aim to film the event and sell the packaged footage to UK television. This reboot of BBC's "The Master Game" from the 1970s and 1980s came a full 10 years before the version you've heard about recently which was a reality show format (they are not related).

In the 2015 version, called "Checkmate", professional chess players competed. The format pitted five men and five women in a round-robin. GM Simon Williams was the main chess host, with GM Nigel Short being the one player who took part in both 2015 and in the predecessor series some 25 years earlier.

So with these GMs there, and with a goal to make the results a secret until production and airing, you might wonder how I found myself there? It turns out the producers paid for each player to invite a "second" and the coach of longtime friend GM Irina Krush wasn't available. Irina asked me to join, and when I politely pointed out the obvious problem that I'm not strong enough to be her second, nor am I any sort of openings theoretician, she assured me that my only job was to plan out our daily walks. 

It was the easiest gig in chess, so I accepted.

I actually did get put to work when the producers found out I was a chess journalist. Before I knew it, I had a microphone in hand, I was learning how to pronounce "Rapport" (he was still a teenager then), and I nabbed an IMDB credit. I did not, however, make Irina play any better. But I did my job and got us to the famous Azure Window, luckily two years before it collapsed into the sea.

10) Tunisia. This country was the epitome of how I like to travel. Three days before entering Tunisia, I didn't even know I was going. It breaks down like this: I flew to Baden-Baden, Germany in 2024 to play in the chess and tennis world championship. A side note that complicated middlegames vs GMs are more in my wheelhouse than playing on red clay -- you can read about that here.  

After that I caught a train to Switzerland to meet up with my friend/tennis coach who was living in Annecy, France for the summer. 

The town is charming but in August it got packed, and I needed out. I checked online and before I could finish my Pernod I had booked a plane ticket from Geneva to Tunis. And for this I can directly thank Chess.com -- I have a colleague from there who was home for the summer. I landed in Tunis and within an hour I was being treated to the best local meal I've ever had. Her mom cooked for me all morning, and even catered to my pescatarianism.

After Tunis I rented a car and drove to the desert, picking off Star Wars filming sites along the way. Pro-tip: if you arrive in the midday sun of August, you often have the entire place to yourself!

While exploring the south, I got to stay in a troglodyte house owned by a local family. Then I went to a kitschy troglodyte hotel, formerly the Lars Homestead, that Ewan McGregor got a kick out of visiting himself.

I love quirky things and Tunisia offered it all. I visited desert oases, Roman amphitheaters, and in the southern city of Tozeur, the airport even hosts Saddam Hussein's personal 747. The plane has been parked since he flew it there for safety in advance of the Gulf War in 1991. I only caught a glimpse of it from the road (my French is not good so when my driver starting talking about "747" and "Saddam Hussein" I still needed to google it afterward to ensure I heard him correctly). Do you have half a million dollars lying around? You could have bought it!

My Chess.com travels have also taken me to Gibraltar, Zurich, Romania, Batumi, Sochi, Madrid, Stockholm, Riga, Zagreb, Qatar, Singapore, Toronto, Baku, Oslo, and many other places.

Most chess players prefer an active position. For me, I really enjoy my active job.

And yes, I know that I still owe Nigeria a visit!

If I get 1000 likes, I'll go to Nigeria to give a simul. https://t.co/im9XARi8rw

— Mike Klein (@ChessMike) December 19, 2023