Journey of a Lifetime
In the transition from college to the workforce, it is not uncommon for graduates to spend time traveling abroad. The experience can be liberating, broaden world views and provide time to figure out next steps. Rather than a typical backpacking trip, I wanted to challenge myself to become the youngest and fastest to visit all sovereign states. Setting a high-level objective provided purpose and commitment to avoid scope creep. It was ambitious, so out of the box, so ludicrous, so I attempted it, and I accomplished it. After seventeen months, I entered my final country, Yemen, breaking the world records for youngest (24 years and 3 days) and fastest (539 days).
Growing up, I traveled abroad on a number of occasions. It wasn’t until taking my first overseas trip without my parents that the travel bug set in. That trip was during winter break of senior year, when me and my Delta Upsilon Fraternity Big Brother Kevin Fulgham traveled to Greece to volunteer at a camp for Syrian refugees. The exhilaration of that trip left me inspired. From there, I signed up for a very untraditional spring break – one to North Korea. It was during this trip that I would start to think about visiting every country in the world. After a bit of research, I learned of the current record holder for youngest who was only two years older than I was at the time. This proved that it was possible to visit every country at such a young age’ however, at this point I had only visited 19 countries, so I decided on the lofty goal of setting a milestone of 100 countries, and if reached, would then continue on to visit the rest of the world.
During the journey, I had many interesting – and sometimes dangerous – experiences. In addition to beautiful tourist destinations, I also visited those ravaged by conflict and war, such as the front lines in Iraq. It’s exciting to go into the unknown and not know what was going to happen each day. The environment was fast-paced and intense, constantly analyzing to determine the root cause of given problems. The best way to learn how to solve the most difficult of situations is to be exposed to them – especially those that you can’t even fathom. There is no manual to traversing the world. Handling real world situations on a daily basis helped strengthen a knowledge base of techniques on how to
work through complex problems, which was the most valuable aspect of this post-graduate experience.
During the journey, I had many interesting – and sometimes dangerous – experiences. In addition to beautiful tourist destinations, I also visited those ravaged by conflict and war, such as the front lines in Iraq. It’s exciting to go into the unknown and not know what was going to happen each day. The environment was fast-paced and intense, constantly analyzing to determine the root cause of given problems. The best way to learn how to solve the most difficult of situations is to be exposed to them – especially those that you can’t even fathom. There is no manual to traversing the world. Handling real world situations on a daily basis helped strengthen a knowledge base of techniques on how to
work through complex problems, which was the most valuable aspect of this post-graduate experience.
Travelers of the World
With a membership of 271 people, traveling to every country is one of the most exclusive clubs on Earth.
Even rarer are the 13 who met this feat while under 30:
1. Maurizio Giuliano, 28
2. James Asquith, 24
3. Henrik Jeppesen, 27
4. Cassandra DePecol, 27
5. Eric Nguyen, 24
6. Indy Nelson, 24
7. Sal Lavallo, 27
8. Taylor Demonbreun, 24
9. Bjorn Augestad, 29
10. Lexie Alford, 21
11. Alexander Zhdanov, 26
12. Mikhail Zarubin, 28
