After traveling to all 193 United Nation-recognized countries, UNC professor Jim Kitchen has his sights set on the final frontier — space.

Kitchen’s journey to all the countries in the world began over 30 years ago, when started his travel business as a student at UNC in Chapel Hill.

“I never said no to a trip that came across my desk,” Kitchen told 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck.

His job took him all over the world and Kitchen said when he finally sat down to look at a map, he had about 100 countries left to travel to. The next years were spent completing the map, traveling to a half-dozen countries at a time. His journey was finally completed in 2019 when Kitchen traveled to Syria.

“I had planned to finish it somewhere glamorous or somewhere where the family and friends could go and celebrate, but it ended up being in Syria when Lebanon was in full revolution. So it was a fitting end to that global expedition.”

With all 193 countries down, Kitchen has his sights set on space through the Inspiration 4 Contest.

The contest was started by Jared Isaacman — billionare and CEO for the payment processor company Shift4 Payment — and will send four private citizens to low-Earth orbit via a SpaceX flight. Two of the four crew have been chosen: Isaacman and 29-year-old physician Hayley Arceneaux.

The final two seats on the trip have yet to be selected. One of the seats will be chosen via social media — the category that Kitchen is vying for.

For Kitchen, a trip to space would complete the journey he began years ago at UNC.

“Funny enough, my junior year in college prior to starting my travel business, I met a guy that was selling space travel,” he said. “So I flew out to Seattle, Washington, met with him, and I started selling his trips called Project Space Voyage back in 1985. So I began my entrepreneurial journey selling space travel, started this travel business, went to every country, and now my dream is to see it all from space.”

In addition to his potential journey to space, Kitchen is publishing a book that details the lessons he’s learned from his years of travel. Kitchen said he never planned to publish “A Bigger World,” but found time during the pandemic to organize all of his notes.

“During the pandemic, I had all of these lessons that I had learned along the way and I began organizing them into this book. Really, the story is about a guy trying to figure his life out.”

Want to help Kitchen get to space? He’s competing against some of the biggest influencers on social media and needs retweets on his tweet (posted above). Liking and retweeting Kitchen’s post goes a long way in helping him get to space.

“The odds are stacked against me,” Kitchen said, but I’m optimistic that maybe the story will shine through.”

Jim Kitchen is a co-owner of Chapel Hill Media Group, which owns 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.

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