Lindsey Graham was remembered this week for his military service, his long Senate career, and his unusually influential role in American foreign policy. But another part of his life also deserves recognition: he traveled relentlessly, believing that elected leaders should see the world and its conflicts with their own eyes.

Lindsey Graham Traveled The World To See It For Himself

President Donald Trump and other national and international leaders gathered at Washington National Cathedral yesterday to remember Senator Lindsey Graham, who died suddenly on July 11, 2026, at age 71.

(service leaflet here if you care to follow along)

A second service is being held today in South Carolina before his private burial.

Much has been said about Graham’s 23 years in the Senate, his military career, his friendship with the late John McCain, and his role as an unofficial diplomatic envoy around the world. But one portion of the eulogies particularly resonated with me: Lindsey Graham traveled.

He traveled constantly because he believed that foreign policy should be informed by seeing people and places firsthand. I concur!

A Senator Who Rarely Stayed Home

I have seen Graham described as the most-traveled member of the Senate, though I have not found a comprehensive public database that proves that claim. But few senators traveled abroad as frequently, broadly, or consistently as Graham.

Richard Fontaine, who served as a foreign policy adviser to John McCain, recalled traveling with Graham to approximately 40 countries. That represents only the journeys on which Fontaine accompanied him, not Graham’s entire congressional travel record.

For years, Graham traveled with McCain and Senator Joe Lieberman as part of the foreign policy trio nicknamed the “Three Amigos.” Their destinations were rarely relaxing:

Afghanistan
Iraq
Ukraine
Israel
Syria
Turkey
Saudi Arabia

(and all across Africa, Asia, and Europe)

His views were frequently controversial. Graham was an unapologetic advocate of American military power, and his critics accused him of being too eager to involve the United States in foreign conflicts.

But whether you agreed with him or not, he generally did not form those opinions exclusively from a Senate hearing room or what he was told by others.

He went.

He met soldiers, diplomats, presidents, dissidents, and ordinary citizens. He visited war zones and returned to countries repeatedly as circumstances changed.

That deserves respect, regardless of the complicated legacy he leaves behind.

His Final Journey Was To Ukraine

Travel remained central to Graham’s public service until the final hours of his life.

He spent his 71st birthday abroad and visited Kyiv on July 10, meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and continuing his push for stronger sanctions against Russia (the picture above was taken on that day). It was Graham’s 10th visit to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, reportedly more than any other U.S. senator during that period.

He returned to Washington and died the following evening.

There is something poignant about that final journey. Graham did not spend his last days resting at home or merely speaking about Ukraine from afar. At 71, he crossed the Atlantic and traveled into a country at war because he believed the outcome mattered to the United States and the free world, a point in which I fully concur.

One day later, he was gone.

The sanctions legislation he had championed advanced in the Senate during the week of his funeral, with Zelenskyy watching from the gallery.

Travel Is More Than Recreation

I travel for different reasons than Lindsey Graham did, of course.

Most of my journeys involve airlines, hotels, lounges, churches, cities, and the pleasure of discovering how people live in parts of the world different from my own.

But the underlying motivation is similar.

I want to see it with my own eyes.

There is value in books, briefings, news reports, and expert analysis, but none can fully replace standing in a place, speaking with the people who live there, and observing details that never make it into an official report.

Travel rarely makes the world simpler. It often makes it more complicated.

That is precisely its value.

You may return home with your original beliefs reinforced, or you may return humbled by how much you misunderstood. Either outcome is better than confidently reaching conclusions about people and places you have never encountered.

Graham’s extensive travel reflected the best characteristic of a true traveler: curiosity combined with the willingness to go.

A Life Of Public Service

Graham served more than three decades in Congress and spent over 30 years in the United States Air Force, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve, retiring as a colonel.

His political legacy will be debated, as it should be. He was a consequential and polarizing figure whose positions inspired both deep loyalty and fierce opposition. But today, I commend his service in uniform and in the Senate.

I also commend the way he traveled the world, often to difficult and dangerous places, in an effort to understand events firsthand and advocate for what he believed was right.

I got to meet Graham when I was an intern on the Hill…20 years ago (oh, how time flies) while attending the confirmation hearing for Chief Justice John Roberts. A nice man.

CONCLUSION

Lindsey Graham was one of the most prolific travelers in the United States Senate, visiting scores of countries over a congressional career that lasted more than three decades.

His final international journey took him to Kyiv, where he spent his 71st birthday and met President Zelenskyy one day before returning to Washington and suddenly dying.

Whatever you thought of his politics, Graham understood you cannot fully understand the world from behind a desk.

Sometimes you have to go and see it for yourself…something we should all do more of.

image: The Presidential Office of Ukraine