Jessica Nabongo – modern nomad in the world without borders
It seems that there is nothing impossible today regarding the connectivity among the continents, peoples, cultures and mentalities. The just must-have is the mind openness for other way of life and courage to make the idea reality. Really, Jessica Nabongo has all this character traits in full.
One, who trace her nomadic life in social media such as Instagram, can assert the distant corners of the globe is more closer than other could imagine. Jessica is called in press a globetrotter, but after get learned her story, it’s better to name her messenger of universal friendship and understanding.
With a numerous geographical place-names and locations behind her back, the tireless traveler Jessica aims to bring the number of trips in her collection to 195 countries – members and observers to UN. To achieve a bold plan, Nabongo plans to visit the next 13 months 89 countries and return home in USA on her thirty-five birthday, that is, by May next year.
She is going to stay in each destination several days rather than weeks, but more important what Jessica desires is making inter-cultural connections and making communications with local people. “There’s no point in going to a country taking a picture at the biggest tourist site and then leaving. For me the biggest part of traveling is talking to the people there”, traveler says.
Jessica, having dual American and Ugandan citizenship, started her path to the global travelling at age of 23, when she left her stable life and job in Detroit for Japan. She hadn’t before the experience of solo travelling, and it was more than tourism. Living near Kyoto, Nabongo found a job of English language teacher, vividly interesting in Japanese culture and even passed exam on basic Japanese.
Urban sights of Kyoto, featured by houses with curved roof edges and pagodas, has been changed to European urban landscapes of London, Rome, Italy. Finally, after eleven years of nomadic life around the globe she collected the impressions and vast knowledge about 108 countries and territories.
For example in 2017, Jessica Nabongo spent only two and a half months at home and visited 53 countries, 38 of which for the first time. Geographically, it was bouncing between South Asian and southeastern edges of African continent. Mathematically, the travel took over 300,000 kilometers on 131 flights.
Craving for learning new places and people inspired Jessica to start her own business. She is a founder of Global Jet Black travel agency, which in the second year of activity has over 100 clients and deals with arranging personal and group tours. The advantage of Jessica’s company is that she offers the clients her personal valuable experience of staying in one or another place.
And even it is too uneasy, Nabongo is managed to combine her work with journeys. The exclusion will be made for the upcoming touring around 89 countries.
Jessica is a bright example of personality when the idea shapes the reality regardless of obstacles. Now, she has to find sponsors and funds for her next tour, to solve some visa issues and to find the way in proceeding via conflict zones and hot spots.
Undoubtedly, she will succeed in her enterprise with her life’s credo – “You can’t let the mere possibility of what happen to deter you”. Hopefully, one day, as part of her new journey, Jessica Nabongo will descend the ladder of the plane at the international airport of Ashgabat and her “baggage”, making up of dozens of countries and hundreds of peoples, will added with a piece of Turkmen hospitality and cultural richness.
Based on stories, published in Forbes.
