James Asquith, 24, began travelling while he was a student in 2008, and has since accumulated a full range of passport stamps.
Despite his youth, he has been in no rush, with his only goal being to tick off every country before he was 25.
"Vietnam was the first independent country I went to and I spent nearly three months there,” he said.
“I also spent about five months in the US and Canada, getting to 27 states from Hawaii to Alaska.”
He estimates his total expenditure during his voyage at £125,000, which he part-funded by taking jobs in bars and hostels as he traveled.
“I loved the adrenaline that went with it - but I always seemed to pick the worst timing to visit a lot of the countries,” he said.
“I went to Libya three weeks after Gaddafi fell, Afghanistan two weeks after the terrorist bombings in Mazar-i-Sharif, but generally I just found a local and tried to get an insight into each country.
"The longest I spent anywhere was six months in Africa. I traveled overland from Senegal to the Congo and then over back up through the east.
“There were lots of small countries and tricky border crossings, [and I was] putting trust in some people that drove me as much as three countries a time."
Since returning home to Stevenage, James says his wanderlust is far from satisfied. “I haven't finished yet - I'm excited about Tahiti, Easter island, and Antarctica all of which I am hoping to go to next year."
His travels are not currently officially recognized as a record by Guinness World Records.
Last year, Graham Hughes broke the record to become the first person to visit all 201 countries in the world without flying.
The discrepancy in the number of countries cited is due to different interpretations of how many there are.
There are 196 internationally recognized nations, although by other measures there are 201 countries, including several that are not universally recognized.
Watch James Asquith's YouTube video of his travels
No comments:
Post a Comment