Only two countries in the world are double landlocked, meaning every country around them is landlocked too: Liechtenstein in Europe and Uzbekistan in Central Asia. From either one, you have to cross at least two borders to reach the ocean. Both are easy to visit, and they make a satisfying pair for anyone who collects geographic oddities.
What "double landlocked" means
A landlocked country has no coast on the ocean or on a sea that opens into it. There are dozens, from Switzerland to Bolivia. Most landlocked countries have at least one neighbor with a coast, so the sea is one border away. Mongolia, for example, is landlocked, but it borders only Russia and China, and both reach the ocean.
A double-landlocked country is surrounded entirely by other landlocked countries. Only two fit.
Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein is a small principality in the Rhine valley between Switzerland and Austria. Neither neighbor has a coast, so the nearest open sea is at least two borders away, whether you head for the Adriatic or the North Sea.
It hasn't always been this way. Before the First World War, Austria was part of Austria-Hungary, which had a long Adriatic coastline. When the empire broke up, Austria lost its coast, and Liechtenstein became double landlocked.
Visiting. Liechtenstein has no airport. Fly into Zurich, take the train to Sargans or Buchs in Switzerland, and a local bus crosses into the capital, Vaduz. It uses the Swiss franc and there's no passport control at the border. Vaduz Castle, the prince's home, looks down on the town but isn't generally open to visitors. In winter, Malbun is the country's ski resort. More on getting in without a runway in countries without an airport.
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan has five neighbors: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. None of them touches the ocean. Any route to the open sea crosses at least two countries: Turkmenistan and Iran to the Persian Gulf, for example, or Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea.
Visiting. Uzbekistan is the heart of the old Silk Road, and much easier to reach than its neighbors. International flights land in Tashkent, and fast trains link Tashkent with Samarkand and Bukhara. Three of its cities are UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Samarkand, with the tiled madrasas of the Registan; the historic center of Bukhara; and Itchan Kala, the walled inner town of Khiva. In the far west, the dried-out bed of the Aral Sea around Moynaq, with its stranded fishing boats, is one of the starkest sights in Central Asia. Entry rules have eased for many passports in recent years, but check the official rules for yours before you go.
The Caspian question
Uzbekistan's status depends on one body of water. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan both border the Caspian Sea, which despite its name is the world's largest inland body of water, with no natural outlet to the ocean. Because it's closed, geographers count both countries as landlocked, and that's what makes Uzbekistan double landlocked.
Ships can reach the Black Sea from the Caspian through the Volga–Don Canal in Russia, and some people argue that counts as access to the sea. Most geographers don't accept a canal as a coastline, so the usual answer stands: two double-landlocked countries.
Kazakhstan, for its part, is the largest landlocked country in the world.
Visiting both
Collectors who chase geographic records often pair these two with other oddities: the smallest countries, the countries on the equator, or the ones that span two continents. They're a contrast in scale. Liechtenstein is a day trip from Zurich. Uzbekistan deserves a week or two, with long train rides between cities.
By UN Tourism's figures, Liechtenstein received about 98,000 international arrivals in 2019 and Uzbekistan about 6.7 million. In Globestamp, whose stamp finishes get rarer as a country's visitor numbers fall, that makes Liechtenstein's stamp the rarer of the two: Prism, against Uzbekistan's Foil. Every country's stamp is on the stamps page.