Ric Gazarian: Discovering the World Through Travel

Another example of what is a country or not is the Principality of Islandia, a micronation founded in 2018 by Gareth Johnson and Marshall Mayer that claims Coffee Caye, a small mangrove-covered island off the coast of Belize. I am one of the founding citizens. This is the world first crowd funded country as nearly 100 people financially teamed together to will this country into existence. These places make you realize that the definition of a country is a bit more gray than you might initially think. I’ve actually leaned into that question as I will be speaking at MicroCon 2027, the biennial gathering of micronationalists from around the world — a room full of people who take this exact ambiguity seriously, half as politics and half as art. My own answer, after all these years: the UN’s 193 is the right number to count toward, but the real map of the world has a lot more borders drawn on it than that. 

When I asked Argentine-Armenian photographer and avid traveler Araz Hajian which three parts of the world she would choose to separate from the rest, she named Antarctica, Armenia, and Iran. If you had to choose your own three, which would they be — and why?

Bhutan, Tuvalu, and Madagascar — three places I don’t think have any real equivalent anywhere else. Bhutan is simply unique. There’s no other country in the world quite like it — a nation that has deliberately built its entire identity around Gross National Happiness rather than GDP, that limits tourism by design rather than by accident, and that still feels like it’s operating on its own terms rather than the world’s. Expect to see locals dress in their traditional costume, a lack of development, and a country without a single traffic light.

Tuvalu is unique in a completely different way — a UN member country just north of 10,000 people, sitting in the middle of the Pacific, connected to the rest of the world by just three flights a week from Fiji. It’s one of the starkest reminders I’ve encountered that a “country” can be almost impossibly small and remote and still be entirely its own place.

And Madagascar, for the sheer strangeness of its biology and the richness of its people. It split off from the rest of the world so long ago evolutionarily that something like 90% of its wildlife exists nowhere else on Earth, and on top of that, it’s a genuine blend of African and Southeast Asian cultures and peoples that you don’t quite find anywhere else either.

 Every country has something interesting to offer. But let’s be a little politically incorrect for a moment: which country you have visited did you find the least interesting, and why?

I want to caveat this before I answer, because I think “least interesting” is partly a factor of circumstance rather than a fair verdict on a place itself. Sometimes you don’t have enough time or money to see a country properly. Bad weather, a security situation, or a mediocre guide can color an entire visit and leave you with an impression that isn’t really the country’s fault — it’s the trip’s fault. With that caveat, I’ll pick on Cabo Verde, the small island chain off the coast of Senegal in the Atlantic. I spent time in the capital and visited two other islands, and came away finding it bland and uninteresting. Nothing I encountered there really stood out — no monuments on the order of Angkor Wat or Petra, no landscapes that stopped me in my tracks the way the Danakil Depression or the fjords of Norway have. It’s entirely possible a different route, a different season, or more time would have shown me a different Cabo Verde. But going purely off my own visit, it’s the country that left a faint impression on me.

It would be fascinating to learn more about the odyssey of your Armenian ancestors. What do you know about your family’s roots, and how, if at all, have they influenced your passion for travel? 

Three of my grandparents survived the Armenian Genocide and eventually made their way to Boston, where I grew up. My fourth grandparent, also Armenian, was born in the US. My forefathers hailed from Maden, Marash, and Kharpert.

Growing up, I was very aware of my Armenian identity, but it didn’t shape me in any deep way — it was more a fact about myself than a lived experience. That changed with my first visit with my father in 2003, and even more so during my four-month stint as a volunteer in 2004. Growing up, I knew maybe 25 words of Armenian. During that stay, I picked up a basic working level of the language, interacted daily with Armenians from every corner of the diaspora, and traveled through multiple regions of the country as well as Artsakh. That trip was my real Armenian education — the one no amount of holiday dinners or family stories back in Boston could have given me.

That volunteer trip ended up shaping every trip I’ve taken since, in a way that had nothing to do with Armenian identity specifically. Before it, I only thought of traveling in one-week increments — the standard American vacation. Living in Yerevan for four months was the first time I understood that travel could be slower, deeper, and open-ended. It’s the template I’ve used for the rest of my life.

You have described both Yerevan and Bangkok as places you particularly enjoy. What did Armenia reveal to you as a traveler that you had not expected to find there?

I’ve had nearly a 25-year window visiting Yerevan since 2003, and the changes I’ve witnessed are dramatic. Walking the streets back then, the city had a gloomy, Soviet feel to it and was economically depressed. It felt like there were no foreigners there at all, except for other Armenians visiting from the diaspora.

Today I find it to be the polar opposite. Money is pouring into Yerevan, and the development seems endless. There are infinite options now — restaurants, cafés, bars, live music, and so much more. The city is eminently walkable. And Yerevan today feels like a genuinely international, cosmopolitan city — not a place defined by its past, but one that’s confidently building its own present.

Do you have any plans to return to Armenia, either with the Extraordinary Travel Festival or as part of a new travel or creative project?

I was incredibly enthused about bringing the Extraordinary Travel Festival — the largest gathering of the world’s top traveled people — to Yerevan. It was my small gesture: bringing 130 mega-travelers and content creators to Armenia and making a small contribution toward promoting the country to an audience that could genuinely spread the word. It would be my personal opportunity to develop deeper roots in the country.

While the event itself was a huge success, the experience behind the scenes unfortunately was not. I booked a restaurant on Abovian Street for 130 participants, agreement in hand, and still caught them twice trying to financially cheat the event. When I shared that experience online to warn other organizers, the restaurant turned around and sued me — a case the courts ultimately dismissed. On top of that, another large and prominent restaurant group reneged on our agreement shortly before the event, leaving me scrambling to secure two replacement venues for my guests on quick notice. And while many governments make a concerted effort to support events like this, precisely because of the exposure and tourism they generate, the Armenian government chose not to lend any direct support to the festival.

So, as you might imagine, I don’t have plans to promote or work with Armenia in any serious capacity going forward. It’s a strange thing to say about a country I feel so personally connected to, but running an event there taught me that love for a place and confidence and ease in doing business are two very different things.