TOP TRAVELER

Don Parrish

Is A World Champion Of Extreme Travel

BY VALERIE HARDY PHOTOS COURTESY OF DON PARRISH

Downers Grove has been home base for Donald (Don) Maltby Parrish, Jr. for four decades, but he is frequently halfway across the world. For Parrish, travel is not vacation but rather sport, and he is among the world’s most decorated players.

Ranked No. 1 on the Most Traveled People (MTP) list for the first time in 2013 and for much of the past decade, Parrish is part of an elite population of systematic and extreme travelers. The MTP Master List currently has 1,500 distinct regions. This number significantly increased following the recent incorporation of regions of another competitive travel club, NomadMania, into the MTP Master List. Along with the rollout of the enhanced list of destinations, MTP bestowed a new honor - MTP Pioneer - onto Parrish and the nine other top travelers since the organization’s inception 17 years prior.

According to the MTP website, MTP was “founded in 2005 to create a community and standards body for extreme travelers…people who aspire to go ‘Everywhere.’”

“Everywhere” is comprised of all the countries in the United Nations (UN), “…territories, dependencies, island groups, isolated islands, and enclaves and exclaves,” the MTP website documented. Almost all countries are subdivided into regions or political subdivisions, Parrish said.

Parrish has traveled to most locations on the MTP list, including some remote and rarely visited destinations, like islands used solely for military, weather or scientific research, or commercial fishing purposes. In 2016, he visited one such destination: Marion Island, a biological, environmental, and meteorological research site located in the Indian Ocean, over 1,000 miles southeast of Cape Town. The 23 employees on Marion Island “see, at most, one ship per year,” Parrish said.

In 2007, he traveled to Iwo Jima, an island in the Pacific Ocean, about 760 miles south-southeast of Tokyo. Civilian travel to the island is restricted to only one day per year, and Parrish was honored to visit for the annual Reunion of Honor Ceremony, which pays tribute to American and Japanese warriors who fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Another ceremonious trip for Parrish was to the South Pole, which he visited in 2011 for the hundredth anni- versary of Roald Amundsen reaching it, the first human to do so. There he met the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, now Secretary General of NATO.

He has also ventured to destinations many would deem too unappealing or perilous to consider visiting. Parrish and another traveler visited Somalia in 2010, but, Parrish said, “our regular travel agent, who got me to Cuba and North Korea, told us we would get kidnapped and refused to be involved. So we hired four armed guards...”

Parrish also visited Abbottabad, Pakistan in 2011, on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, just months after Osama bin Laden was killed there.

Parrish’s wanderlust originated in his youth, and his extreme travel developed over multiple decades. Born in Washington, D.C. during World War II and raised in Dallas, Parrish, now 78, took his first solo trip when he was 10 years old. He flew to Chicago to visit a family friend, and that is when the world began to open up to him. “I saw my first Thunderbird, first Egyptian mummy, first German submarine,” he said.

Adding fuel to his budding passion for travel, a few months after his Chicago trip, Parrish received Richard Halliburton’s “Complete Book of Marvels,” a book about an explorer who travels all over the world, experiencing notable adventures like swimming through the Panama Canal and climbing the Great Pyramid of Egypt.

Fast forward a few years to 1959, and Alaska and Hawaii were named states. Parrish, a self-proclaimed patriot, decided to visit each of the 50 states, which he accomplished in 1980. This was his first time to travel systematically (to strive to visit every location within a specific category).

At this point, Parrish was well established in his telecommunications career at Bell Laboratories in Naperville. He knew immediately that receiving his job offer from Bell Labs in 1966 was “one of the most important days of [his] life.”

He started his career in software development working on Electronic Switching Systems, including a “two-year tour of duty (1972 – 74) as a second level Switching Manager at Illinois Bell, responsible for Aurora and surrounding towns.” In 1966, he was promoted to Supervisor at Bell Labs. In 1977, he was one of five founding managers in the newly created International Switching organization. As the planning manager, he played a key role in market entry in localities such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Korea, China, the Netherlands, Singapore and Japan. He said, cumulatively, he probably spent five full years on business trips during his 35-year career.

Parrish took his pension in 1996 and fully retired in 2001, but not before logging 60 business trips to Japan. “But that was only one country,” Parrish said. “Business travel is in-depth, focused on winning contracts and technical details of implementation.”

While his travels expanded after his retirement, even before his post-re- tirement trips and his extensive business travel, Parrish had begun filling his passport. For example, after studying German for two years (in addition to one year of Russian), Parrish arrived in Germany for the summer of 1965. Parrish told himself, “Not a word in English!” as a rule for the duration of his stay, and he said immersing himself in the German community and language “was a transformational experience.”

“Germans were pleasantly shocked to meet an American who could speak German and refused to speak English,” Parrish added. Something that struck him was that Germans told him emotional stories about World War II, and he later realized that they might not have told him as much if they had to speak to him in English.

Learning of Parrish’s prior travels, his International Switching colleagues considered him somewhat of an anomaly, as working or studying abroad was not common at the time. “I may have been the only member of the department with a passport when I started,” he said.

As Parrish’s travels for business and pleasure increased in number, more people took notice, including an executive with whom he worked. Parrish said, “One morning, [he] came in and gave me a Tribune article about the Travelers’ Century Club...and said, ‘You’re the only person I know who might qualify for this club.’” other members asked him what his “number was for Cuba,” he said. Confused, he asked what they meant, then

The Travelers’ Century Club (TCC) is the oldest travel club and is focused on systematic travel. Individuals must have visited at least 100 of the countries on the TCC list to qualify for membership. Parrish met the requirements, and soon after the executive had shared the article, Parrish paid $35 for membership and, less than a year later, signed up for his first TCC trip – to Cuba.

Parrish was the most junior member when he joined, but he quickly learned the TCC ropes. On the 2001 Cuba trip, learned of the common extreme travelers’ practice of logging the number of TCC destinations they have visited. for travelers who go everywhere… countries unheard, unrecognized or unreachable.” ETIC functions to allow “country collectors” to connect and exchange travel tips. For admission into ETIC, individuals must have visited a minimum of 100 UN countries.

Parrish now keeps copious travel records, no small feat given he has visited all 330 destinations on the TCC list. He has also traveled to all 193 UN countries, one of only 300 people to have done so. Additionally, he has visited all 266 UN+ countries and 615 of the 1,154 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Parrish explained ETIC is the best place for extreme travelers to meet. Another way he connects with fellow globetrotters is through the Circumnavigators Club. Founded in 1902, per its website, Circumnavigators is for people who have traveled around the world, “crossing every meridian of longitude in the same direction.” The Club’s website also noted that its members “view travel as a way to inform themselves, to learn about

In 2017, Parrish received an award for visiting each of the countries on the TCC list; this was the culmination of a half-century of travel for him. Since then, the TCC continued to expand its list, but due to Parrish’s extensive travels, he had previously visited each of the additions.

On the heels of his TCC recognition, in 2018, Extreme Traveler International Congress (ETIC) named Parrish Champion of the World. According to its website, ETIC was founded in 2008 as “the get-together social issues and to have a good bit of fun in the process.” Based on this definition, Parrish (who joined in 1989, as the 3,582nd member) epitomizes being a Circumnavigator.

Parrish thrives on the challenge of completing competitive travel lists and loves adventure, but a primary driving force for his travel is a desire to learn: about history, wildlife, nature, his ancestry, and local cultures and people. Parrish does not have a favorite destination – “if it’s the best place ever, what’s left?” he commented – but some of the places that stand out most to him are because of the connections he made there.

While Parrish enjoys group travel, he said he meets more people when he travels individually. “If we’re traveling together, we’ll spend most of our time talking to one another, but if you travel alone, you’ll talk to the locals,” he said.

When he visited Romania and Bulgaria in 2014, it was his ideal way of traveling: “just me and a driver guide, someone who knows all about their country.” These drivers taught Parrish so much, he said, “and they also expressed that the unique itinerary developed for my unique travel objectives meant that they had seen things in their own country that they had never seen before.”

As a veteran voyager, Parrish knows what makes for and interferes with enjoyable travel. He cautions against following too many lists with too many entries: “If you list every single this, every single that, then you feel obligated to visit just those things… [and] one of the greatest joys of travel is discovery.”

Parrish appreciates what he discovers on each of his trips, but extreme travel can be quite difficult. It took him five attempts before he successfully completed a visit to the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), the last destination he had left on the TCC list, in 2017. BIOT, a group of islands that are United Kingdom territory, has no permanent civilian residents, and travelers must secure a license to visit.

When he traveled to Marion Island, where it rains 320 days per year and has such strong winds no trees can grow, the trip there took nine days (filled with seasickness) on a small charter ship with only four travelers and four crew members. He said “after three glorious days hiking the island, seeing penguins and conversing with the staff, the return trip was eight days.”

Parrish is no stranger to nautical travel – he said he “may have spent something close to a year on ships” – but he acknowledged the best-laid plans may be foiled if the only way to make land is by sea, and wind or water conditions are uncooperative. For example, he failed to make a landing on Bouvet Island, a sub-Antarctic volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean.

A descendent of five Mayflower passengers, Parrish’s zest for travel may be hereditary. He received his first passport in 1965 and is currently on his 15th, with no travel regrets. While the pandemic briefly interrupted travel, Parrish is back to his usual jet-setting, and he is not excessively worried about his next destination. “But COVID is still an issue, and the war in Europe restricts travel,” he said. “You can think of everything that can go wrong, or you can say, ‘I’m still going to go for it where I can.’”

For additional information about Parrish and his travels as well as about the three scholarships he founded and more, visit donparrish.com. ■

DON PARRISH’S TOP 5 TIPS

to take travel to the next level

1Do area planning. If you go to a region, visit multiple countries and as many World Heritage Sites as possible. For some specific World Heritage Sites in and beyond the United States, visit www.donparrish.com/UNWorldHeritageVisits.html.

2 With a “safe” trip, like a cruise in the Caribbean or visit to Hawaii, try an adventure like ziplining, hang gliding, or taking a hot air balloon ride.

3 Make a trip to a foreign city more adventurous by taking random walks. Challenge yourself by trying to find the way back to your hotel (but always have a card from your hotel to show a taxi driver just in case you get lost).

4Strike up conversation. Try out that foreign language you studied to get directions. Sometimes this will result in making friends and really learning more about that place. Also, ask other travelers what they have enjoyed seeing in that city that you should not miss. “Once, on a plane, I went down the aisle and asked, ‘What should I see here?’”

5Remember, people can get killed taking chances, so just don’t be stupid. “In my early twenties, I did some free rock-climbing, and I had one fall of 8 or 10 feet. I could have missed that ledge and fallen another 60 feet.”