Countries Most-Visited By Queen Elizabeth II

What a great and well travelled queen she has been!!

I'm better traveled than her and I've done just as much for the UK while spending less money doing it.

Id rather have an expensive but powerless figurehead than anyone with executive power.

I'm not sure to be honest, history teaches us that too much power in one place never ends well. Best to dilute it with pomp and ceremony and consensus.

Oh yeah, nobody is interested in the staunchly republican countries like France, Italy or Austria now that no monarch lives in Versailles or Schönbrunn anymore ...

The British royals are part of the product we sell to tourists, impossible to say how much money it generates though. They do cost a lot of money.

I genuinely prefer the parliamentary monarchy system to that of a presidential one though, no one individual has the right to veto parliament or pardon people without consensus. Turkey and to some extent the US over the last 3 presidents has seen increased power of the executive, I can honestly only see it ending badly.

kapulani: the main problem with that oft-repeated argument is that it is utter bollocks. Noone is visiting the UK solely because Prince Charles or Lizzy Windsor live there. They might go to see the castles and palaces, the changing of the guard, the tower, the crown jewels... but those things won't go away without mandatory worship of a bunch of inbred parasites.

The only possible exception to this rule might be when there is a royal wedding. But if you add up all the revenue generated by tourism during one of these events then subtract the amount of money wasted by supporting the royal family's lavish lifestyle during that and intervening years (not to mention the cost of the wedding itself) and I'm pretty sure you're still in the red.

Kal: You can claim to be "better traveled", but certainly she has visited more countries. Her official state visits alone account for 70+, not even mentioning the Commonwealth and private visits (your count on JetPunk says 61). She's surely a great deal older and will have had time to visit plenty more. Still don't understand your need to make those kind of statements....

She's been to over 120 different countries, sometimes on state visits, sometimes on commonwealth visits, and probably a few personal vacations as well that we don't know about. She is the head of state of 16 of these countries, and used to be for several more countries, and this doesn't even include dozens of overseas territories. Like it or not (and that goes for her too), visiting countries is part of her job, and she has been doing it for decades before most people alive today were born, all without even owning a passport. If one thinks they are impressive simply because they've been able to go to certain places on Earth that others haven't, she is proof that one is not.

@kalbahamut, I understand that you have a valid opposition to ceremonial monarchies. You don't need to make false statements like that there is "mandatory worship of a bunch of inbred parasites". I don't worship the monarchy, I never have and I never will. Nor do the vast majority of other British people. None of us has been arrested or otherwise mandated to change. The argument about tourism isn't correct, but I do agree that the cost of monarchy is fairly insignificant compared to other stuff that money is wasted on in the UK. And some of it is fairly earned because Queen Elizabeth actually does work harder than most 90+-year-olds I know. I am pretty sure you haven't done more for the UK than the Queen. Even if the net impact of the Queen on the UK is negative, she is much more influential in the UK than the majority of people, so unless you have done significantly more than visiting the UK for a few weeks I would be inclined to disagree.

Pjotr: because she and all monarchs are a blight on humanity. Why do you *not* feel the need to make such statements? I suppose you're right about her traveling to more countries than me, though. I was only looking at the countries on this quiz.

TMW: I don't believe you. There are laws, which are enforced, that require special reverence for the royal family that is not afforded other British citizens. And more beyond that by tradition if not law. For example the queen's consent is required for all laws and prime ministers to serve, she is immune to prosecution, and she is protected from certain kinds of criticism or mockery. I know keeping portraits of the queen on your desk like I've seen many of my coworkers do is not mandated, but it is still repugnant.

If the net impact of the royal family on the country is negative, and you admit that it may be, then my never having done anything for the UK is, in effect, doing more. 0 is less than a negative number.

For the record, I feel this way about all monarchs, not just the British ones. I am appalled at how much people in Thailand openly worship the late King Bhumibol, who by some estimates died as the wealthiest man in the world while sitting on the throne of a country full of the abjectly poor. People are in prison for criticizing this man. This is obscene and repellent, and it's offensive that monarchy still exists anywhere regardless of how pared down or neutered it may be. Arguably the monarchs that don't actually serve any executive function are even more useless than those that have real power.

And just this Friday gone, one of the more obscure royals, Princess Eugenie (no, me neither), got hitched and it cost the British taxpayers around £2m for the security bill and a further £250,000 for the cleanup afterwards. Madness!

The queen doesn't get to choose who the Prime Minister is because of she didn't choose who the accepted rules state then there would be a revolution. Or she would have to abdicate. The last monarch to veto a law was Queen Anne. There are no laws that are enforced making anyone do anything close to worshipping the monarchy. Can you show me one law that is enforced regarding criticism of the monarchy? The Queen is immune from prosecution officially, but if she committed a crime then we would just prosecute her anyway (maybe after changing the law). It is possible for the government to make the queen do things differently. In 1993 they made her start paying income tax. In 2013 they changed the succession rules for the throne so that there was no preference for men over women.

If by "for" you mean "in favour of" then you have a point.

Clearly it is not good that people are in prison for criticising Bhumibol. However there is no one in prison for criticising Elizabeth II.

@quizwhizz, the security bill was paid by the taxpayer but the wedding itself was not. When very well-known people take part in events where it is possible for people to get in, security is required. There is security for politicians. And this security is paid by the taxpayer because it is the wage of workers in the public sector. It's like how the police are played for with tax, not just by the people who have crimes committed against them.

Anything other than a toothless head of state is asking for trouble, parliament is sovereign. I'm all for the parliamentary monarchy, but think we should trim the perks and responsibilities of being a monarch.

@kalbahamut you won't really understand why we worship our monarchs, one of the plain reasons is because we feel lucky having a long lasting monarch as they represent how long our country can last for. Many British people disagree with it, although we keep it as it would be a sign of disrespect to our ancestors and our country to remove the monarch.

Indeed. A great, well-travelled and hardworking queen.

I bombed this one. Looks like she's taken a few Caribbean cruises.

A lot of these are British Commonwealth countries, which explains her visits. I wonder why Cyprus got such a priority?

The UK controls two small portions of the island, known as Akrotiri and Dhekelia. They are considered British Overseas Territories. They have a military base there I believe.

And Cyprus is a Commonwealth country.

And it got independent 8 years after her accession, not sure when the visits happened though.

yes according to the wiki page for her state visits, she has not been there on a state visit, so it must have been as commonwealth representative.

Because, like the others, it is a popular holiday destination. Strange that there are fewer visits to India, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc.

There has been no such thing as the "British Commonwealth" since the 1940s.

Her Majesty does enjoy a nice island vacation, does she not?

Yes, a lot to tourist spots globally. Maybe those visits show her political priorities in the ex-British empire - little regard for India and the sub-continent, and in Africa. Might be too much unwashed, unclean riff-raff in those places for Her Majesty to tolerate, eh what. But lots of visits to Anglo and European countries. Surprising to see Canada at no 1.

Wow she must really like us in Canada.

"When you really want to visit the USA but must go to a place instead with your own face on the money"

Well, you're so polite. How can she refuse when you ask her over for Boxing Day?

I get that these are commonwealth countries, but it still seems weird that the queen has prioritized these countries over nations of high political significance like China or Germany

It's not weird that she has been many times to countries she officially is Queen of (or was in two cases on the list - one of which she lived in for a year). The other 4 in this quiz are, a large commonwealth country that's en-route to Oceania and her frequently-visited realms there (you're going to have to stop en-route, so why not there?), one of the closest Commonwealth countries to the UK with links to her husband, the global superpower that often needs a bit of charm for the UK to get something off them, and a close ally that is also place where her husband grew up. The non-Commonwealth two also have horse racing, and I guess while you have the Queen visiting for her hobby you might want to have her to your presidential palace for dinner as an official sign of friendship between two nations - helping boost their numbers.