21-Year-Old Woman Is The Youngest Person To Travel To Every Country

On May 31, 2019, a 21-year-old American woman named Lexie Alford stepped foot in North
Korea, becoming — as she claims — the youngest person to travel to every country on earth.
In doing so, she's attempting to break the Guinness World Record held by James Asquith,
who won the title in 2013 at the age of 24, and join the historic ranks of other travelers like
Cassie De Pecol, who broke the Guinness World Record for being the fastest woman to visit
every country. Alford is in the process of having nearly 10,000 pieces of evidence verified
by Guinness.

Traveling to each one of the world's 196 sovereign nations is an achievement that Alford has
been working on since she was a child — though she didn't know it at the time. Alford grew
up in a family that owns a travel agency in California. "Travel has been a part of my life since
before I can remember," says Alford, who describes herself as @LexieLimitless on Instagram.
"My parents would take me out of school and place me on independent study for weeks and
months at a time every year."

While she was growing up, Alford says that her family traveled everywhere from the floating
villages of Cambodia to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, from Ushuaia at the tip of Argentina to the
Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. "My parents placed a lot of importance on exposing me to
every way of life around the world and that had a very profound impact on the person I am
today," she says. "I've always had a curiosity about other people's ways of life and how they
find happiness."

Alford originally wasn't trying to break a record; she was just an intrepid traveler. "Honestly,
in the beginning, I simply wanted to push the limits of what I thought I could do with my life
and see as much of the world as possible in the process," she says. "It wasn't until things
started getting really challenging that I realized I was inspiring people around me, especially
young women. Feeling that support meant that I couldn't give up when things got tough. I was
determined to show everyone that the world isn't as scary as the media portrays it to be and
that there's kindness everywhere."

In 2016, Alford got serious and started working on her mission to travel to every single one of
the world's 196 sovereign nations. What sparked the idea? When she turned 18,
Alford realized that she had traveled to 72 countries. "The very first time I thought about
breaking the world record was in October 2016 in my home, California," says Alford. "I
graduated from high school two years early and had gotten an associate's degree from a local
college. I was ready to start my gap year when I dropped the idea of going back to school and
began to pursue the record full-time."

Alford says that her travels are self-funded. She has done a few brand deals and campaigns
along the way that helped fund her project, but she's never had an official sponsorship. "I
always knew I wanted to take time off to travel so I've been working every job I could find and
saving since I was 12-years-old," says Alford.

The money she saved kept her going for the first year and a half of her travels. From there,
she's been working as a travel consultant in her family's agency when she's at home in Nevada
City, California and also doing photography and blogging while she's traveling. "I do a lot of
research in advance to find the best deals, utilize points and miles for my flights, stay in cheap
accommodation like hostels or create content for hotels in exchange for accommodation,"
says Alford. "I've also made sure to keep my monthly overhead as low as possible by living at
home with my parents, I don't have a car payment or student debt and I don't spend my
money on unnecessary material possessions."

On her Instagram feed, Alford often passes along advice about how to reconnect by
disconnecting. "Some people find it strange, but I've actually never used a foreign SIM card,"
she says. "If I need something, I'll start talking to the people around me. I try to stay as present
as possible when exploring these places because it's such a privilege to get the opportunity to
do so. I never want to miss a second of it."

Alford says the highlight of her travels was going to unexpected — and often dangerous —
countries. "The countries that have such a bad reputation that people don't dare to go are the
places that spark my curiosity," she says. "I experienced so much more kindness and natural
beauty in places like Pakistan and Venezuela than I ever found in typical tourist destinations.
Going somewhere with no expectations and being absolutely blown away by what you find
there has been the most fulfilling part of this project."

She struggled the most in West and Central Africa, due to tricky visas, little infrastructure for
tourism, language barriers and the high cost of traveling safely. "There aren't many flights,
hotels or English-speaking guides so the operators have the market completely cornered," she
explains. "They can pretty much set any outrageous price they want because there aren't
many other options (besides maybe grueling and potentially dangerous bus rides). Traveling
in this area of the world thickened my skin more than anything in my life ever has."

Another extreme challenge was knocking the last country off her list: North Korea. After
months and years of trying to get around the U.S. travel ban, she finally got the opportunity
to go to North Korea in May, thanks to a loophole that allowed her to officially take a step
into the country. According to Guinness World Record's guidelines, visiting the North Korean
side of the conference rooms in the legendary “blue house” in the Joint Security Area on the
DMZ qualifies as a visit to North Korea. "I'm honestly very disappointed that I didn't get to visit
the country properly because of political issues," she says. "But I'll be visiting again as soon as
the U.S. travel ban is lifted."

Alford is still in the process of submitting nearly 10,000 individual pieces of evidence to
Guinness World Record in chronological order, but the record clock stopped the day she
entered country number 196. When she arrived in North Korea, she said she felt one thing:
"Relief. I've been working through extreme anxiety for the past six-plus months overcoming
the obstacles that go along with getting into some of the least accessible places in the world,"
she says. "It wasn't until the moment in that obscure conference room, of all places, that it
really sunk in how far I've come."

Some people criticized Cassie De Pecol — the fastest person to visit every country — for not
experiencing each country deeply enough. While 21-year-old Alford is likely to get
similar feedback for achieving her goal so quickly and young in life, she isn't worried. "At the
end of the day, we all prefer to travel in different ways," says Alford. "Some people prefer to
spend months or years in only a few countries and some want to have a sampler platter of the
world. No matter what you prefer, there's always going to be someone that disagrees."

Alford says that she took her time in most places. "I love getting far away from capital cities,
trying local foods, photographing the culture and nature and staying for as long as I can
afford," she says. But there were countries where Alford felt uncomfortable traveling alone as
a woman. "To be honest, spending weeks in each country wasn't in my budget. The least
amount of time I spent in a country was two to three days. South Sudan, Somalia, CAR, Mali,
Chad and Papua New Guinea are a few of the countries I didn't spend much time in because I
didn't have the means for proper security. I would love to go back and explore more of them
someday," she says. "I still feel like I've only scratched the surface of how much there is to
see."

So what's next? "I'm currently writing a book about my experiences in every country and the
lessons I've learned along the way. I'm also going to start public speaking — my first TEDx talk
is on June 15th. After finally completing this massive life goal, I'll be taking the next few months
to nourish my physical and mental health as I make plans for the future."