Jessica Nambowa Damarie Nassaka Nabongo is a Ugandan-American travel blogger and author who gained public attention in 2019 after having visited every country in the world.
Her assertion she was the first Black woman to have done so was disputed.
Early life and education
Nabongo was born in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
,
Michigan
Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...
to Rose Mary Namubiru and Ephraim Mukasa Nabongo, Ugandans who settled in the United States in 1969;
she has dual citizenship.
Her mother is from
Mbale
Mbale is a city in the Eastern Region of Uganda. It is the main municipal, administrative, and commercial center of Mbale District and the surrounding sub-region.
Location
Mbale is approximately northeast of Kampala, Uganda's capital city, on ...
, in Eastern
Uganda
Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...
and her father grew up on the outskirts of the Ugandan capital,
Kampala
Kampala (, ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,875,834 (2024) and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kampala, Kawempe Division, Kawempe, Makindy ...
.
According to Nabongo, she received her first passport at the age of four or five.
[
]
She attended
St. John's University in New York City
where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and then the
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...
,
where she acquired a social sciences Master's degree
in international development.
Career
After completing college, she worked at a
pharmaceutical
Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the ...
company for two years, taught English in
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
and worked for the United Nations'
Food and Agriculture Organization
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; . (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security. Its Latin motto, , translates ...
.
As of 2016, she had already visited 60 countries. In February, 2017 she decided to visit all 193 UN member countries and the two nonmember observing states of the world.
She arrived at the 195th country on her list, the Seychelles, on 6 October 2019, at the age of 35.
She documented each of her visits to a new country on her blog.
The informal certification group Nomad Mania accepted her claim through their random spot checks.
Nabongo notes that there is some controversy over her record as she was unable to enter
Syria
Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
and instead chose to visit the
Golan Heights
The Golan Heights, or simply the Golan, is a basaltic plateau at the southwest corner of Syria. It is bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valley in the west, the Anti-Lebanon mountains with Mount Hermon in t ...
, which the United Nations Security Council considers to be Syrian territory occupied by Israel. An assertion made by Nabongo of being the first Black woman to visit every country was also disputed by
Woni Spotts, an African-American woman who completed her own full country count in 2018.
Nabongo founded a travel agency called Jet Black, which created itineraries for small group trips to Africa.
She has also worked with hospitality businesses as a brand influencer.
She wrote a book detailing her travels, ''The Catch Me If You Can''.
See also
*
Black Travel Movement The Black Travel Movement is a socioentrepreneurial phenomenon that pursues social change by developing travel-related businesses that encourage Black people to travel. The movement emerged in the 2010s, but in the United States its historical root ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nabongo, Jessica
Living people
American people of Ugandan descent
Alumni of the London School of Economics
1984 births
Women travel writers
21st-century American travel writers