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Woni Spotts (born January 6, 1964) is an American musician, traveler, businesswoman and animator. As of May 2019, she has made a public claim to be recognised as the first black woman to travel to every country and continent in the world.

By September 2018, Woni Spotts claims to have visited 197 countries, 7 continents and many territories of interest including Greenland, Easter Island, the Galápagos Islands, Socotra, and Antarctica. Public verification of the achievement has yet to be published, as of October 2019.

World travels
Media coverage of Woni Spotts travels began appearing in May 2019 following the release of her own PR announcement on April 26, 2019. A blog article titled Woni Spotts May be the First Black Woman to Travel to Every Country in the World was published on May 12, 2019 featuring one of her first interviews about the claim, though it noted that “when we enquired about passport stamps for that period, Woni informed us that she, unfortunately, no longer had her passports from the ’70s and ’80s.”

Her claim to have visited every country is based initially on her participation in a travel documentary titled Passing Through, the production of which was halted after 3 years. Filming began when she was age 15 in 1979, and ended in 1982. In an interview, Spotts states that “it started out doing like notes, field notes, and it wasn’t very glamorous.” “I wasn’t responsible for getting the visas and I don’t really remember. The way we did it was that we went to the countries that we wanted to stay at for the least amount of time, with some exceptions.” According to IMDB for the project, “after 162+ locations, the budget and enthusiasm began to run low, ending filming.” Spotts herself has stated that “the bulk of the travel happened from high school (1979) to 1982, and then on from that point everyone kind of broke down and was tired.”

The project is credited solely to writer and producer Nolan Davis, who Woni has described as the best friend of her father, though no record of it appears in biographies of Nolan Davis’ own work. In an interview Spotts explains that the videos were not kept and she has been unable to find them. Spotts has also stated that she is unaware of what happened to the project after 1982, though the IMDB record of Passing Through suggests a limited release in South Africa in 1989.

Woni decided in 2013 to visit the remaining countries of the world to which she had not yet been, and traveled extensively between 2014 and 2018 with travel companies Jacada Travel, Abercrombie and Kent, Steppes Travel, Kensington Tours, Enchanting Travels, and TCS World Travel Around the World by Private Jet. Her desire to complete the last 15 countries was spurred on by the public mission of travel blogger Jessica Nabongo to become the first black woman to visit every country in the world; “I said I only have 15 countries to go and she had quite a bit to go and at that point, I just said well, ‘I am going to go to these places, it was something I always wanted to complete. So I wasn’t country counting I was going to places I wanted to go.”

Nabongo has disputed the claim on the basis that since the UN officially recognised only 167 sovereign states in 1981, and the some such as Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union no longer exist, that “between 1983 and 2018, the United Nations gained thirty-five (35) new member countries. Based on Spotts’ press release, she only visited four of these new member countries as part of her last 30.”

Spotts claims to have collected 400 pieces of supporting evidence including passport stamps, photos, letters, receipts, plane tickets, and tour guide company contacts as proof of her claims. Full official publication of the evidence of her claim has yet to be made public as of October 2019, though in an article titled Unpacking the controversy of Woni Spotts the author states that “she has a very strong case at being the first black woman to visit every country in the world. One can only anxiously await the official publications to be made public”.

Woni launching her Twitter account in May 2013 as @WoniSpotts and in August 2019 she further launched @WoniSpotts on instagram to publicly provide information about her travels.

Spotts is also a part of Travelers' Century Club which is a club for travelers across the world. She funded her entire travel journey with an eCommerce business she formed in 1999. Spotts is also a life-long vegan and an animal defender.