At the young age of 21, California-native Lexie Alford has become the youngest recorded person to travel to every country in the world; an extraordinary feat most people can only dream of.
After stepping foot in North Korea on May 31, Alford achieved her lifelong dream by breaking the Guinness World Record for the youngest person to travel to every sovereign nation, an achievement she deemed ‘a 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,” Alford told Fox News. “It wasn’t until the moment in that obscure conference room, of all places, that it really sunk in how far I’ve come.”
Born into a family of travel agents, Alford has been traveling ever since she can remember. By the time she graduated from college at 18, Alford had already visited 72 countries and realized she could visit the remaining 124 with enough time to break a world record.
Boasting over 300,000 followers on Instagram through her handle LexieLimitless, Alford told Fox News that she decided to pursue her lifelong goal not only for personal achievement, but also to inspire her followers.
“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,” Alford told Forbes. “It wasn’t until things started getting really challenging that I realized I was inspiring people around me, especially young women. 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.”
Alford stated that her trips were completely self-funded through her personal savings, the occasional branded partnership, as well as photography and blogging work while abroad.
In 2016, Alford officially left for her journey across the world, prepared to meet the extensive list of challenges along the way, such as obtaining visas and travelling weeks on end by herself. “Obtaining all the visas required for American citizens was one of the most difficult aspects of breaking this record,” Alford told Fox News.
In order to officially secure this world record title, Alford was required to submit approximately 10,000 pieces of evidence documenting her travels to Guinness World Records.
Now that this process is complete, Alford is joining the ranks of U.K.-based traveler James Asquith, who held the title previously at age 24; as well as Cassie De Pecol of Connecticut, who became the first women on record to travel to every country in the world in 2017.
Although she has finally achieved her lifelong dream, Alford told Fox News that she will not stop traveling in the future. For now, Alford is working on a book to share her experiences and lessons she learnt while traveling abroad.
