AND IT IS DONE !! March 19 – March 22, 2018 VAL visited the last of the 196 independent states !!
Right now (December, 2015) there are 196 independent countries on Earth. My brother has visited 193 of them so far.
As a small boy he already dreamed about traveling. His dream is to visit all independent countries in the world, and the number of the not yet visited ones keeps going lower and lower.