The hop count tells you how many routers the packet had to go through to get to
the destination node.
All routers maintain complete routing tables that allow them to determine how
to forward a datagram (packet) on the basis of its destination network number.
RTMP (Routing Table Maintenance Protocol) allows routers to exchange their
routing tables periodically. In this process, a router receiving the routing
table of another router compares and updates its own table to record the
shortest path for each destination network. This exchange process allows the
routers to respond to changes in the connectivity of the Internet (for example,
when a router goes down or a router is installed).
During this process of exchange, routers sometimes lose track of the shortest
path to a particular network, and the packet may go through one or more
additional routers to reach its destination. This is not uncommon and is not
normally anything to be concerned about.