Yeah my flightmemory.com lists 34 countries but then i have transitted through some countries i didn't visit and trained/bussed through some countried i didn't fly to...
In terms of rules, yes it doesn't have to get overly restrictive which is why when i initially posted i said i didn't want to rain on anyone's parade if they desperately wanted to count something or somehow self identify with the number of places visited and like a nice long list (i suppose if you want it even longer you could list your cities instead and then we could get into what is a city/town etc)...
But if you are going to make something of the number of places you have visited in a knowledgeable forum like this i think it will have more credibility if they conform to a reasonable set of standards or at least you put a comment in about why you think counting certain unusal places conform.. Of course there are a bunch of places that no longer exist that younger travellers will have no hope of reaching, where as places like Yugoslavia/USSR have unravelled and are open to everyone to now visit... But anyway, i can see a certain logic for people being proud of visiting certain old places and its not worth losing any sleep over, each to their own...
And yes some people will have visited few places, but those few very often, which at the end of the day suits their way of travelling and they also should lose no sleep.. I have talked to people before about the way i travel of constantly exploring and being on the on the move and they have said they wouldn't like it and its not for them... I had a friend who went to the US for the first time last year and spent 5 weeks in just NYC 'experiencing it"... I also had a friend who went to just Japan last year for 5 weeks and did it comprehensively... Me personally i wouldn't travel to one city for 5 weeks although i have gone to the US a couple of times and spent 3 and 4 weeks doing it from West to East...
But these days i tend to travel to see the amazing places of the world rather than just a few amazing diners/restaurants/landmarks of a particular city... Part of how i choose some of these places is i found a site with the 100 most amazing places in the world (according to the guy who runs it) and that along with a few other ideas is partly how i plan where i might go next (
Hillman Wonders of the World)... I've done 32 of the 100 so far...
I am also becoming a little hooked on things like flightmemory.com and getting my map of flights taken to look a bit more interesting compared to some others i have seen (i am a bit at a disadvantage flying out from Perth to do this and also comparing my map of personally paid travel to those of people whose work may have been paying for the last 20 years of their flights)
... But what i need to remind myself in my inclination to now pick different routes every time to get to places is to not pick dud airlines or dud older aircraft types just to make that map look more interesting... Just the same as people shouldn't change to a different way of travelling, or feel their travels are underwhelming compared to some of the lists of people here, if at the end of the day its not what makes them happy...
