Round-the-world traveler? There's a club for that — and it's recruiting in St. Augustine
An obscure group with elite status is hoping to form a chapter in Northeast Florida.
There's just one rule to get into the Circumnavigators Club: Members must have been around the world in one continuous trip crossing every meridian of longitude in the same direction.
The international organization traces its origins to 1902 when two American men sailed around the globe and decided to start the club to share their experiences with others. Early members included President William Howard Taft, Harry Houdini, William Jennings Bryan and John Phillip Sousa.
Circumnavigator Fred Seely, a Jacksonville resident, figured there were probably enough people locally with the ways and means to qualify and therefore is working to create a local chapter.
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Though Seely — a former editor for the Jacksonville Times-Union and Jax Daily Record — had both the ways and means, it was his wife's last wish that encouraged him to plan their trip circling the world in 2012.
As the story goes, in 1997, Roxana Seely was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. After undergoing surgery to remove one diseased lung, Roxana managed to keep many of the more debilitating effects of the condition at bay for many years.
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Still, there were doubts about how long her good luck might last.
"She had always talked about seeing the top of the world, the highest point, which is in Nepal," Seely said in a recent sit-down interview with The Record.
When he began looking into flight itineraries, Seely found that with connecting flights, the trip to Nepal would take about 13 hours.
"So I said, if we're going 13 hours, why don't we just go the rest of the way around the world," said Seely with a laugh.
His wife, then 67 and still in reasonably good health, agreed.
"She would end up traveling to 35 countries with one lung," said Seely. "People had no clue, even close to when she died [two years ago]. … she didn't give up."
For their round-the-globe tour in spring 2012, the couple flew from Jacksonville to Atlanta then connected with an international flight to Shanghai. From there, it was Hanoi, Bangkok, Kathmandu, Nepal, Dubai, Munich, and then home.
The entire journey took 23 days.
"I guess the quickest way to do a true circumnavigators' trip would be to go to the North Pole and just walk around it," said Seely.
Two of the highlights, Seely said, were Roxana's longed-for Nepal with its rugged, rural countryside, and ultra-modern, cosmopolitan Dubai which Seely called "unreal."
"I think these two [locations] are probably the two extremes of the world, in my opinion," he added.
In March 2020, Roxana got sick with a virus (likely, COVID-19, Seely believes) and was admitted to the ICU of a local hospital.
"She said, this may be it," Seely recalled.
Eleven days after contracting the illness, Seely's longtime traveling partner was gone.
He still gets around these days, though.
"I think in sickness and in health, you should always have something to look forward to," Seely said.
He's swam in the Dead Sea and been to the top of Mount Everest in his visits to a total of 47 countries. But Seely wants to take time to explore more of his own nation, putting the Grand Canyon on the top of his domestic bucket list.
He is also planning a trip to Oxford University in London for July, where the 82-year-old will take college courses.
'Encourage global fellowship and understanding'
Seely is hoping one positive that could come out of establishing a Circumnavigators Club chapter in the Jacksonville/St. Johns County region is it would allow himself and other world travelers to share their experiences, tips and stories with each other.
According to the club's website, its purpose "is to encourage global fellowship and understanding. It strives to inspire people to see and absorb as much as they can about the world in which we live. It is devoted to providing those who have circumnavigated the globe with a forum for intellectual exchange."
The website also notes that "All of the club’s worldwide members have a unique story to tell about how they circumnavigated the globe – by balloon, space ship, sailboat, cruise ship, motorcycle, bicycle, private and commercial planes and on foot."
Seely, for one, wants to hear more of those kinds of stories, in this case from local globetrotters.
Seely is planning an informational meeting in Ponte Vedra for sometime in April. For information, email him at fs4569@comcast.net.
This article originally appeared on St. Augustine Record: Circumnavigators Club looks to recruit St. Augustine world travelers
