Jere Longman of Havertown always wanted to see the world while growing up in a small Louisiana Cajun prairie town in the 1950s and 60s, he writes in The New York Times.

Now he’s had that wish fulfilled as a world-traveling sports reporter.

When he arrived in New Zealand this month to cover part of the Women’s World Cup, he will have reported from 56 countries during his career. For thirty of those years, he worked for The New York Times.

“My parents wanted me to be a doctor. I wanted to travel. Sports writing seemed like the perfect passport,” he said

Longman has covered 13 Olympic Games, eight Men’s World Cups, and six Women’s World World Cups.

He’s taken a 15-hour boat trip up the Amazon and a 27-hour train ride from Moscow to the Urals.

“Along the way, I crossed the Berlin Wall, stood on the Great Wall of China, joined elite runners atop a 13,000-foot volcano in Mexico, and descended a mile underground into a South African mine,” he wrote.

Longman has been drawn to places from the Cold War, isolated and once or still forbidden.

Read more about Jere Longman’s world travels as a sports reporter in The New York Times.

Jere Longman is asked about the Iranian national football team’s protests in an interview from nine months ago.