5 Minutes With Lee Abbamonte

For McCool Travel’s 99th travel profile, I am happy to present Lee Abbamonte. Like most of my travel interview subjects, I learned about Lee Abbamonte through Twitter. He is an adventurous and intrepid traveler, bright, friendly, and funny; at least in 140 character messages. I reached out to Lee to learn more about him and was thrilled he took the time to share the following.
Lee Abbamonte’s bio:
“Lee Abbamonte is the youngest American to visit every country in the world. He’s visited 318 total countries plus both geographic poles and is one of the world’s most-traveled people. Lee is a successful entrepreneur, travel television personality, speaker, travel writer, travel expert, and global adventurer. Lee appears regularly on air on Fox News, Bloomberg, HLN, Travel Channel, History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN amongst others. Lee has also been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Conde Nast Traveler, Huffington Post, Yahoo, Today, and many others. Lee is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the Travelers Century Club. He’s also a sports fanatic and loves the New York Yankees.”

Lee Abbamonte travel interview
Lee Abbamonte, youngest American to visit every country

Lee Abbamonte

Hometown…
New York City
Always in my luggage…
iPhone, Macbook, and tabasco sauce
3 favorite home-away-from-home places…

  1. Los Angeles
  2. London
  3. Las Vegas

A favorite travel memory is…
reaching the geographic South Pole

Lee Abbamonte travel interview
Lee Abbamonte at North and South Poles

3 favorite travel brands…

  1. TripIt
  2. TravelSmith
  3. Allianz Travel Insurance

3 money-saving travel tactics I use are…

  1. Google airports to see who flies there
  2. use miles and points accordingly
  3. sign up for price alerts on specific routes

3 ways that I have fun while traveling are …

  1. go to live sporting events when I travel
  2. eat at best restaurants in a place
  3. try the local beer/wine

8 word (or less) travel mantra…
“Life is short, live it up.”

Lee Abbamonte travel interview by Charles McCool of McCool Travel
Lee Abbamonte in New Zealand

favorite non-travel website …
ESPN
most memorable souvenir …
my passport stamps

Lee Abbamonte travel interview
Lee Abbamonte in Greenland

favorite cheap eat …
pizza
recent discovery …
how to use the thumbprint to access my iPhone
I am fortunate to have met …
too many people to count, but Mick Jagger was pretty cool
I would like to meet …
Michael Jordan

Lee Abbamonte travel interview
Lee Abbamonte in Norway

 


Thank you so much, Lee, for taking a few minutes to share your travel inspiration and tips.
Follow Lee Abbamonte on FacebookTwitterInstagram, and his Website.


Check out McCool Travel’s previous profilesMcCool Travel presents tips from travel experts in our 5 Minutes interview series—featuring travel industry giants, super frequent travelers, and adventurous persons. Previous 5 Minutes post: Darley Newman.


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12 thoughts on “5 Minutes With Lee Abbamonte”

  1. Lee is the only person that thinks he’s visited every country — surprised that you didn’t ask him about that. For several countries, he merely flew through the airport and checked it off his list. Nothing mcCOOL about that.

    • Thank you for the note and your viewpoint, Rich. Although my surname is fodder for many topics, this is the first time I have seen it used as a guideline of qualifying travel status (a subjective thing, for sure). Hmmm, perhaps the McCool Award will be the future standard measure.
      I do not think Lee thinks he is the only person to visit every country, thus it is not something I would have asked. He says he is the “youngest American to visit every country in the world” and “one of the world’s most-traveled people.”
      Travel Happy!

  2. Interesting, so Lee visited 318 countries…
    I was under the impression that there are fewer countries in the world. To satisfy my curiosity, I did a quick search. Google came back with 196 countries. According to the US Department of State(http://www.state.gov/s/inr/rls/4250.htm), there are 195 independent states in the world (the term “independent state” refers to a people politically organized into a sovereign state with a definite territory recognized as independent by the US.).
    It would be great if Lee could clarify how did he come with this number?

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