Traveling is a great way to experience the world! By visiting countries you get to learn about different cultures, food, history, architecture, and more. As a result, you will become more knowledgable and open to new things. But as much as you like traveling, would you attempt to break a Guinness world record? Lexie Alford is the current world record holder to travel to all the countries and this is her story.
Firstly, let’s talk about this world record she has. Lexie Alford is the first ever person to travel to every country before the age of 21 years old. In addition to that, she is also the first female to do so.
With a little insight to her background, we definitely understand how she decided to take on this challenge. Her mother has her very own travel business and has been bringing Lexie along on her travels. By the time she was 18 years old, Lexie Alford had visited 70 countries.
After being inspired and determined to break the Guinness World Record, she then broke the world down by regions. Once she could tick America off the list, Lexie Alford then made her way to Europe.
Then she had a beautiful trip in Asia traveling from Timor Leste to Mongolia and everywhere in between. Of course she also had to make a quick stop in North Korea! It was literally a 5 minute stop in North Korea, just long enough to get her paperwork as proof.
In fact, she says in the video below that paperwork was actually the hardest part of the journey. There are many guidelines and rules she had to follow such as getting witnesses, passport stamps, receipts of hotels and transportation, photos, visas, and more.
By the end of it all, she submitted nearly 7,000 pages of documentation! It sounds like a very tedious and tiring journey. One setback is that during her trip to Mozambique, she didn’t take a scheduled mode of transportation such as a plane or bus. As a result, she had to travel again to Mozambique and this set her journey back by 100 days.
Moving on, she is also not one to hide the pains and troubles of journey. She has shared pictures on the various spider and mosquito bites one can encounter. Additionally, she had an unfortunate run in with malaria as well.
Nonetheless, the journey is definitely an experience that she holds near and dear to her heart. Future plans include starting an online travel hack course for others who want to learn from her experiences. She also wants to release a book about the life lessons she has from this amazing journey.
