Last summer, I completed a 50-year mission: I had officially, and legally, visited every recognized country on earth.

去年夏天，我完成了長達五十年的旅行任務：我真正的，在法律認可的情況下，游遍了世界上的所有國家。

I’ve had hundreds of adventures inside these countries, but for certain countries, the adventure started before I could even get in. Here are the five countries for which I had the hardest time obtaining visas.

在這些國家里我經歷了許許多多的事情，可是有些困難在沒踏入這些的國家之前就已經開始了。這里是我總結的5個最不容易拿到簽證的國家。

Saudi Arabia

沙特阿拉伯

Saudi Arabia was truly tough. I tried, from 2000 to 2009, without success, or even explanation for my failure, to secure a tourist visa to the Desert Kingdom—though at the time the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities had no history of granting tourist visas to non-Muslims. Because I had to get in to complete my quest, I worried that I might have to convert to Islam, memorize the Koran, study with a mullah, attend a mosque, and forget I was an ultra-liberal Jewish atheist.

沙特阿拉伯真的很難拿到簽證，為了弄到張去往這個沙漠王國的旅游簽證，我在2000年到2009年之間一直沒有停止過申請，但從來沒有成功過，甚至連拒簽理由都沒有。那時，沙特旅游和文物管理委員會從來沒有給非穆斯林的人給過旅游簽證。但是我必須完成自己的追求，我擔心自己也許怕是要去皈依伊斯蘭教了，熟背《可蘭經》，向毛拉(伊斯蘭教神學家)學習，去清真寺，忘記我曾是個極端自由主義的猶太無神論者。

Chad

乍得

Chad required, and still requires, the visa applicant to submit a letter from a sponsor or hotel in the country’s capital, N’Djamena, inviting him or her to visit, and setting forth the relationship and the purpose of the trip. When I went in 2012, only two or three hotels there were issuing such a letter.

申請乍得的簽證，你(仍然)需要提供出自贊助人或者旅館的邀請證明，而且必須來自首都恩賈梅納。除此之外還要提供此行目的以及同行人關系的相關材料。我2012年去的時候，只有兩到三個旅店可以出具這些證明。

Russia

俄羅斯

Russia wouldn’t have made this list but for my fourth visit there in 2010, when I discovered the liability of being an American seeking to enter Putin’s land: While most of the rest of the world’s peoples can apply for a visa to Russia using a simple single-page form of 21 questions, U.S. citizens must use an arduous “new form implemented on the basis of reciprocity” that has 41 often-intrusive questions.

俄羅斯其實沒有必要進入這張排名表，但是在我2010年第四次去的時候，我發(fā)現(xiàn)了作為一個美國人踏入普京領地是有多么的困難：世界上的其他國家申請俄羅斯簽證只需要完成印滿單頁的21題申請表。而美國人必須費盡心力完成一張“全新的的表格，所有問題都建立在互惠的基礎上”并有41題具有很強干擾性的問題。

Sudan

蘇丹

Sudan was a hard nut to crack. From 2004 to 2007, whenever I asked the Sudanese Embassy in Washington about the status of my application, I got the same terse reply: “It is being considered in Khartoum.”

蘇丹真的是難啃的骨頭。在2004年到2007年之間，每當我詢問位于華盛頓的蘇丹領事館我的簽證進程，我總是得到同樣簡潔的答復："喀土穆還在考慮中。"

Angola

安哥拉

Angola was the most difficult of all the countries I visited. Its stingy visa policy perhaps reflected a widely held belief that foreign visitors only want to steal the country’s diamonds. Furthermore, Angola’s government granted Americans almost no tourist visas for years because of American support for Angolan rebels in a 27-year civil war that began in 1975 and killed more than half a million people.

安哥拉是我去過的國家中最難獲得簽證的，他們不肯放開簽證辦理政策，也許正反映了他們小氣狹隘的想法：外國游客來到這個國家只是想來盜取鉆石的。此外，安哥拉也禁止了來自美國的一切旅游簽證，因為美國支持了1975年的安哥拉反叛軍，這場戰(zhàn)爭維持了27年，近50萬的人犧牲了。