Jagannathan Srinivasaraghavan, from Carbondale, IL, reached his 300th TCC country (Diamond status) on March 12 when he visited Isla Robinson Crusoe (Juan Fernandez Islands). He was in South Sudan and Libya in February and visited the South Pole in December for the 100th anniversary of Roald Amundsen’s discovery of the Pole. Better known as Dr. Van, he is Immediate Past President of the Illinois Psychiatric Society and Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine.
Rainer Kallenberger, from Melbourne, Australia, who joined TCC in January of this year, has now reached the Silver level of 150 countries. He says he and his wife have crossed all oceans and put a foot on all continents, including circumnavigating Antarctica on the icebreaker Capitan Khlebnikov. During 2009-10 they traveled for 17 months without a break, covering 57 countries with 58 flights and numerous ships, trains and automobiles. Their most recent trips were to Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and North Korea.
“No amount of information can prepare one for what -50 C and belowis in Yakutsk, Siberia, as we have experienced, nor living out of suitcases for months on end, being on the move constantly and out of one’s comfort zone repeatedly as we have been doing,” he writes. “The end is nowhere in sight, with the intention to travel to every country of the world.”
