Fourth Time Is The Charm, My Journey To Nauru

FIRST TIME – MARCH 2024

I shuffled down the staircase attached to the 737-800, one of just four planes in the entire Nauru Airlines passenger fleet. Night had already fallen. I tried to get my bearings as I walked toward the terminal—a journey of less than 200 feet.

To my right, the runway lights glowed in the darkness. For a fleeting moment, an absurd thought crossed my mind: Could I just run for it? Evade security. Slip past the perimeter. Escape the confines of this impossibly simple airport.

I had about 90 minutes before my connecting flight to Brisbane boarded.

I sat inside the airport—one room, one gate—as frustration washed over me. Eventually, I wandered to the bathroom. As I washed my hands, another irrational idea took shape: What if I hid in a stall and deliberately missed my flight?

Two weeks earlier, I had been sprinting across the international runway in Tuvalu at sunset, soaking in the local scene, when I learned I wouldn’t be visiting my final country in Central Asia. Denied. Again.  The visa was not issued. For the umpteenth time. There was no reason to leave the Pacific.

I needed to reverse course.

Since I was already here, I decided to finish the Pacific region: the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and Nauru (visiting my last 3 countries in the Pacific). Nauru Airlines runs the route like a bus—stop, stop, stop—ending in Brisbane.

There was just one problem.

Nauru requires a visa. It’s the only country in the Pacific that does—for many nationalities. And in the extreme travel world, there’s exactly one person you contact: Cramer Cain. Actor. Fixer. Official liaison for Nauru Tourism, based at the consulate in Brisbane.

I emailed him with enthusiasm, explaining my imminent arrival.

His reply was swift and decisive.  There wasn’t enough time to process a visa.

I would visit the Marshall Islands. I would visit Kiribati. I would connect through Nauru—but I wouldn’t be allowed to leave the airport. I would have to come back another time, at great financial and temporal cost, just to set foot in my final Pacific country.

Back in the bathroom, I slowly rinsed my hands under the cool Nauruan water. I could hide in the stall. Lift my feet. Ignore the final boarding calls. If discovered, I could claim illness.

I dried my hands.  I walked out. I didn’t have the courage to pull it off.

I boarded the flight to Brisbane—dejected and defeated.

 

SECOND TIME – JUNE 2024

It was late on a Friday afternoon when I fired off a string of emails to Cramer Cain.

Where is my visa?

It had been six weeks since I applied.

At the time, I was in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea—a place not exactly known for blazing internet speeds. The Wi-Fi at the “hotel” didn’t work. Honestly, I considered it a good day when we had electricity or running water. I did have a local SIM card, but that was hardly a dependable solution. If I stood in just the right spot and held my phone at the correct angle, I could sometimes coax enough signal to send an email.  Sometimes.

The plan was simple. Leave the Highlands on Sunday for Port Moresby. Fly to Brisbane on Monday. Fly to Nauru on Wednesday.

Except now I was panicking.

I had exactly two business days left to get the visa, and the Nauru Consulate would be closed for the weekend. As emails trickled back and forth, one finally arrived with an attachment.

My Nauru visa.  My pleading and begging had worked.

I immediately went to the Nauru Airlines website to buy my tickets.

SOLD. OUT.

If this were the BOS–LGA shuttle, no problem. Two airlines, hourly flights. But this was Brisbane to Nauru (BNE–INU). The question isn’t what time does the flight leave—it’s how many flights are there this week?

With my intended flights sold out, I would have to wait five additional days in Brisbane for the next available seat.

I turned to Skype and called Nauru Airlines reservations. The call disconnected. I tried again. Disconnected. Again. Eventually, the office closed for the weekend.

I now had a visa—but no way to get to Nauru.

I decided to continue to Port Moresby as planned, extending my stay by a day. Maybe someone would cancel. Maybe they’d find a creative routing via Kiribati or Fiji. I didn’t want to fly to Brisbane and stack on even more costs for a trip that might never happen.

Early Monday morning, I called the Nauru Airlines office again—from my hotel room in Port Moresby. I asked every question I could think of. Explored every permutation. Searched online. Called again.  Nothing.

There were no options that didn’t involve five nights of waiting in Brisbane.

I crunched the numbers. Thought about the time. The money. The sitting around.

Reluctantly, I booked a flight the next day from Port Moresby to Bangkok, my home.

This visa would go unused.

 

THIRD TIME – AUGUST 2024

Third time’s the charm. At least, that is the well-known theory. There was no way I was getting thwarted on my third attempt.

I was in the U.S. for my annual summer visit and preparing to return to my home base in Bangkok. So naturally, I decided to take the daily Chicago–Bangkok flight via Nauru.

Yes. That daily shuttle.  I trust you detect the sarcasm.

This was going to be a brutal and expensive routing: Chicago–Los Angeles–Nadi (Fiji)–Nauru, and then home via Nauru–Nadi–Melbourne–Bangkok. Absolutely punishing. But no one forced me to Chase 193 except me.

This time, I was prepared. I started the visa process two months in advance. Nothing was going to stop me. I contacted Cramer—again—to initiate the paperwork and purchase my second Nauru visa.

I waited. And then, after a couple of weeks, it arrived: the magical email with my approved visa.

I immediately booked all six flight segments.

Now all I had to do was wait for my long, convoluted journey to the elusive Nauru.

Ten days before departure, I received an email from Nauru Airlines. My round-trip flights from Fiji to Nauru had been… canceled.

But don’t worry—they had kindly rebooked me.

The problem? My carefully planned two-night stay had suddenly become five nights. Flights to Nauru aren’t daily. They’re sporadic, unpredictable, and entirely indifferent to your plans.

I had zero interest in doubling my time in Nauru. Worse, my other flights to and from Fiji were now useless. Four segments—completely worthless.

So now I faced the question: do I buy four new flights, double the time commitment, and throw even more money at this problem?

After some thought, I did the unthinkable.  I canceled my third attempt.

Then came the slow, painful process of canceling flights and hotels and absorbing yet another financial hit.

Third time, it turns out, was not the charm.

 

FOURTH TIME – FEBRUAY 2026

OK, this was officially getting ridiculous.

I contacted Cramer Cain again in November 2025, and by December 1, all required documents had finally been received by the Nauru Consulate. One of the more absurd hurdles in the visa process is accommodation. Nauru has very few places to stay, and making a reservation is an adventure in itself.

Most accommodations aren’t online. When I checked the usual suspects—Booking.com, Agoda, etc. —I found exactly two options. One was an overpriced apartment listed on Priceline. The other was the GoodWorks Hotel on Booking.com. The apartment offered instant confirmation at a painful 500 AUD per night. GoodWorks required a 50% bank wire deposit. I chose the apartment.

This attempt had me flying Boston–Dallas–Brisbane–Nauru, then returning Nauru–Brisbane–Bangkok. I still hadn’t purchased my Brisbane–Nauru round-trip on Nauru Airlines. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place: wait for the visa and risk the flight selling out—like Attempt #2—or buy the ticket and risk the visa not being approved in time.

I did, however, book my long-haul flight: BOS–DFW–BNE. Five and a half hours to Dallas, followed by a brutal 15.5-hour haul to Brisbane. While researching flights, I stumbled upon a unicorn: 95,000 American Airlines miles for Business Class. A lifesaver.

There was just one problem. I had 6,000 AA miles.

I called my friend and points wizard Andy Hicks and walked him through several wildly optimistic strategies for generating 89,000 miles in a very short period of time. Andy gently explained that my plans bordered on fantasy. Then he did something incredibly generous: he offered to book the ticket using his miles.

The deal was simple. I’d open an AA credit card, earn 100,000 miles, and transfer them to Andy at a later date. Done.

Days passed.  Then weeks passed. Still no visa. My anxiety steadily climbed.

By mid-January, I reached out to my good friend Mike Safo, an NYPD detective—and fellow Chasing 193 traveler—who also works in diplomatic support at the UN. No crimes were involved, but Mike had contacts. He reached out to his Nauru connections, opening another front, while I increased the frequency of my increasingly desperate nudges to Cramer.

On Thursday, January 22, I still didn’t have my visa. My journey was scheduled to begin Wednesday, January 28.  And of course their office would close over the weekend.

On Friday, January 23, while flying from Haiti (country #189) to Miami, I checked my email. There it was. The Nauru visa. The trip was officially on.

And then—of course—Stormageddon.

A massive snowstorm impacted over 200 million Americans, with more than 20,000 flight cancellations. I was supposed to fly Miami to Boston on Sunday, January 25, before departing Boston for Brisbane on Wednesday. On Saturday, as I enjoyed Miami’s warmth, my phone buzzed. My Sunday flight had been canceled.

I was rebooked for Tuesday morning. I had the visa. I had the Nauru flights. Now I just needed to escape the U.S.

I arrived at MIA before 6 a.m. for my 8:30 a.m. flight. Delayed. Hour after hour, the departure time slid. Finally, at 2:30 p.m., the flight was confirmed. I boarded, exhaled, and headed to Boston.

While stuck at MIA, I begged American Airlines to reroute me directly MIA–DFW–BNE, bypassing Boston entirely. Logical. Efficient. Denied. I was forced to fly to Boston and hope the storm gods were merciful.

Boston greeted me with subzero temperatures and gray skies. The next 24 hours were a blur of weather alerts, flight status checks, and quiet panic. At 11 a.m. on Wedneday, I headed to Logan for my flight to Dallas.

When I reached the gate, our plane wasn’t there. With a 90-minute connection in Dallas, every minute mattered. The departure time slipped again. We finally left 50 minutes late. I did the math. Tight—but possible.

Several hours later, I was reclined in my business-class pod (thank you, Andy), en route to Brisbane.

Mid-flight, I messaged my Nauru apartment host to arrange airport pickup. Hours later, her reply arrived—confused and alarming. She had no record of my reservation. The apartment had been rented long-term.

I scrambled. GoodWorks still showed one room available. I booked it immediately. The next day, the owner emailed: the room wasn’t actually available. She asked me to cancel but offered a dorm bed with a shared bathroom.

When in Nauru.  I agreed.

After 15.5 hours, I landed in Brisbane. I had two nights to decompress before my Sunday evening flight to Nauru. One last obstacle loomed: a canceled flight to Nauru would end everything.

At 4 a.m. Monday morning, my plane touched down at Nauru International Airport.

The fourth attempt really was the charm.

As I stepped off the plane and walked down the stairs, a smile crept across my face. I had finally made it. Terra firma.  Country number 190.

WHY?

Fewer than 500 people have been to every country in the world. When the denominator is eight billion, that’s an absurdly small and exclusive club. And since 2009, I’ve been chasing my way toward it.

But the real question is: is it worth it?

On the plus side, I’ve been unbelievably fortunate. I’ve had experiences in places many people have never heard of, let alone dreamed of visiting. Watching the sun rise over the Rano Kau crater on Easter Island. Dancing with eligible bachelors at the Gerewol Festival in the Chadian bush. Cheering on horsemen playing buzkashi in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. These moments are vivid, rare, and unforgettable.

But then there’s the blood and the treasure.

I almost don’t want to calculate how much money I’ve spent over the past 15 years pursuing this goal. This is not a casual hobby. It’s a serious financial commitment. And the physical toll? That doesn’t compound in a positive way.

Countless red-eye flights in economy without a minute of sleep. Fifteen-hour drives on brutal West African roads. Thin, soiled mattresses that leave your back screaming. Weeks without anything resembling a healthy routine—no proper food, no exercise, no recovery. Your nights aren’t spent debating spa options at a Maldives resort. They’re spent navigating some of the most remote, uncomfortable, and challenging places on earth.

On my fourth attempt alone, I spent an entire week in transit just to visit Nauru—for two nights. The cost was well over $3,000.

 

NAURU

Nauru receives approximately 10 tourists a week. Just ten.

Think about that for a moment. An entire country welcomes fewer visitors in a year  than a single showing of a blockbuster movie at an IMAX.

So who comes to Nauru?

A handful from the Chasing 193 community. A few travelers searching for something deliberately strange. The occasional birder. There is no Taj Mahal here. No Petra. No Great Wall. No Michelin-starred restaurants or five-star resorts. It’s expensive. And by conventional measures, Nauru offers almost no “tourist value.”

And yet, this is what I’ll remember.

Scrolling Google Maps, I noticed that Bogi Lodge had coffee. I drove past it, paused, reversed, and parked my rental car. This wasn’t a curated café for selfies and oat-milk lattes. It was a small, local place—nothing more, nothing less.

I drank two iced coffees sitting outside with the owner, Richy, two of his friends, and his grandson. I played rock-paper-scissors with the kid while the adults argued cheerfully over a series of intense chess games. I joined in. I asked questions. They asked some back.

For two hours, I did nothing remarkable. I just sat there.

We weren’t quite friends. Barely even acquaintances. But it’s a memory I’ll carry with me.

So yes — it’s worth it.

Only three countries to go.

While in Brisbane I had the opportunity to sit down with Cramer in the Nauru Consulate.

And check out this great video by Pepe.  I met him during my stay and even got to make a cameo.