I’ve been everywhere, man
I’ve been everywhere, man
Crossed the desert’s bare, man
I’ve breathed the mountain air, man
Of travel I’ve a-had my share, man
I’ve been everywhere
— “I’ve been everywhere” as sung by Johnny Cash
If you ask Stigler, OK, native Hershel Prentice where in the world he’s been lately, he’ll gladly tell you.
Dubai? Check. Oman? Check? Poland? Check. Austria? Check. Germany? Check, Newfoundland? Check? Labrador? Check. Check. Check.
Whew! And that’s just this year.
“I was in Croatia, Albania, Bosnia and Montenegro about a year ago,” he told me.
I listened with awe as Hershel recounted some of his travel experiences as I sat down with him at the home of our mutual friend, Ed Godfrey. Ed, with whom I worked for many years at The Oklahoman newspaper, is also a Stigler native and has known Hershel for even longer.
“I’ve been to about 90 countries so far,” Hershel said. “I’ve stood in Red Square in Moscow. I stood in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and I’ve been on the Great Wall of China.”
Did you catch that? Hershel has visited 90 — 90!– countries around the world. He told me that he lives out of hotels about half the time.
How does this happen, a country boy from rural Oklahoma literally traveling across the nation and the world virtually nonstop for decades?
A couple of things to note: Hershel is retired after 29 years of service with the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. A graduate of Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, he has no living immediate family.
Hershel said he often made road trips with his grandparents as a child, which sparked his love of travel, seeing new places and meeting interesting people.
“And I like maps, globes, far away names, Budapest, Istanbul,” he said. “I’d hear those names and knew I would go someday.”
His parents, who owned a trucking firm, are deceased, as well as a sister, his only sibling. He lives in the Stigler house that belonged to his parents, although it seems to be only for temporary respite between trips.
Hershel has a philanthropic side, too, in support of his hometown. He funds a scholarship for Stigler high school graduates to support their college education. And he’s a regular at Shelly’s Cafe whenever he’s in town.
“I’m the first customer,” he said. “5 a.m.”
When I asked Hershel how old he was, he was reluctant to reveal his age.
“I don’t do chronological things, I do situations,” said this International Man of Mystery.
So, what year were you born in?
“Just pick a number.”
All right, 1950. “OK,” Hershel said to the random number that I pulled out of the air. I’ll go with it. That would make him 75 years old, or somewhere in that neighborhood.
Never married, Hershel said he prefers to travel alone.
“Fast and free that way, when you’re alone,” he said.
Yeah, but don’t you get lonely?
“Not really.”
Hershel’s travel is arranged by a Fort Smith, Ark., travel agent. Most of his world travel is done as part of group tours with a set itinerary. That ensures he’s not totally alone on his sojourns, although he said he uses free time to explore on his own.
How has he been treated as an American tourist in all these foreign lands? He says he’s been treated well everywhere and never feared for his safety, including in Cuba, where he went as part of a program arranged by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Here are some fun facts about the International Man of Mystery’s travels both here and abroad:
Hershel has visited all 50 states, visiting famous and little known museums, national parks, Civil War battlegrounds and much more. He’s seen baseball games in all but eight Major League parks, along with dozens of minor leagues parks across the country. He’s been to NBA, NFL and college football games, NASCAR events, toured multiple halls of fame, every presidential library and points of interest like the site of Custer’s Last Stand in Montana or the big ball-of-yarn museum in Kansas. He’s visited every county seat in Oklahoma, as well as in Arkansas.
He’s made friends and met many interesting people along the way. Sometimes, he’s run into fellow Oklahomans in, say, Europe or Asia.
“People that you meet who are visiting Auschwitz, people that would go pay money and time to go do that, they’re gonna be pretty interesting,” he says. “Or you’ll have a common factor. If I meet someone on a trip, I tell them I’ve been by their house, because wherever someone is from, i’ve been by there or near there.”
The most interesting country Hershel has visited?
“Probably Cuba,” he said. “It’s just amazing how they live there, how it was for a long time and how it is now. They don’t have Internet, you couldn’t use a credit card; they didn’t have that infrastructure. We had to use pesos or American money or Euros. They like the Euro more than the dollar.”
He visited Havana, along with the infamous Bay of Pigs, Hemingway’s home, and coastal areas along the island.
I became acquainted with Hershel Prentice a few years ago through Ed when we all went to an OKC Dodgers (now Comets) game together. Hershel’s also a big fan of the OKC Thunder, and sent me a photo of himself at a recent game at Paycom Center. He has called Ed from many museums, ballparks and foreign cities. He often brings him souvenirs from his travels.
Hershel showed me a set of refrigerator magnets decorated to represent the flags of about a half dozen Scandinavian countries. Of course, he’s been to all of them.
So, what’s on Hershel’s travel itinerary for 2026? For now, he’s looking at traveling to Uzbekistan and Kaspiysk, located in former Soviet Union territories and now independent Russian states.
Still, I wanted to know what compels him to stay on the move. His answer was about modes of travel as much as about locations. He likes planes, trains, trolleys, subways.
“Anything that moves,” he said. “I like it when it takes off, that little thrust, the movement. Here we go to a new place, new time, new day, new people. Being free.”
Hershel, you really are the International Man of Mystery.
Jim Stafford's BlogOKC 