Drew Binsky: This is what I learned from visiting every country in the world
Lesson from the road
Popular travel YouTuber Drew Binsky visited every country in the world with his entertaining and informative videos getting an incredible five billion views. Now he has written a book called Just Go offering inspirational stories and unique travel advice to aspiring travellers.
Click through the gallery to discover Drew’s unique story, the highs and lows of his incredible journey and the vital lessons he learned along the way…
It all began in Prague
Growing up in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona there was no indication that Drew Binsky would become one of the most famous travel YouTube stars on the planet. He studied economics and entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but it was a semester abroad in the Czech Republic (pictured) that changed everything. “After living in Europe and visiting more than 20 countries, I knew I wanted to make a career out of travelling,” says Drew. Today he has an online community of over 10 million people.
Drew’s first blog was about partying
A month after graduating Drew found himself teaching English in South Korea. “I knew I didn’t want to become a teacher," he says in his book, Just Go, “but I knew it would be a gateway to get myself out there.” During the 18 months he lived in Korea, Drew started his first travel blog, The Hungry Partier. It was a place for him to document his crazy travel and nightlife experiences around the world and soon had more than 150,000 monthly readers.
Time to get serious
As successful as The Hungry Partier undoubtedly was, Drew knew that it didn’t reflect who he was as a person or what he loved about travel. That realisation dawned on him on the rooftop of a hostel in Jaisalmer, India (pictured). “I was looking out across the city’s stunning 860-year-old fortress as I worked and it struck me that the more I created and shared content, the less interested I was in sharing partying tips,” he says. Drew decided there and then to concentrate on the people, cultures and communities he was meeting instead.
The trip that changed everything
It was a three-day guided tour to North Korea in 2017 that set Drew on the road to social media superstardom. The video he made about the trip – filmed on a point-and-shoot camera his girlfriend gave him just before the trip – went viral, garnering nearly 10 million views on Facebook. After seeing the success of the video, Drew decided to create more content for YouTube and Facebook. His mum wasn’t too happy though. When Drew rang to tell her that he’d just been to North Korea she hung up on him.
The idea to visit every country in the world was born
The idea to visit every country in the world came to Drew while he was teaching in South Korea after reading the blogs of other travellers attempting the same thing. “I was particularly inspired by a guy called Lee Abbamonte,” says Drew. “He’s known as the ‘Marco Polo of the Modern World’ and had visited every country by the time he was 31.” Drew was 23 at the time and already had 40 countries under his belt. “I thought: why not?’’ he explains. “It’ll be fun.”
How many countries?
The most pressing issue was deciding on just how many countries there are in the world. It’s a contentious topic and always changing but Drew settled on 197. “I came up with the number by combining the 193 UN member states plus Taiwan, Palestine, Kosovo and Vatican City,” he explains in his book, Just Go. “I chose those four because of all the ‘unrecognised countries’ in the world, they fulfilled the most qualifications for being considered an independent country.” That is, they have their own governments, currencies, passports, flags and cultures.
Not just ticking boxes
Drew wasn’t interested in just stopping over in a country and considering it visited either. “I wanted to spend real time in each of the 197 countries,” says Drew. “I wanted to get to know the culture and people and understand the beauty and complexities of every nation I toured.” It’s something Drew recommends other travellers do too. “Travelling is more than just seeing the world,” he explains. “It’s about being part of it.”
It took Drew a decade to achieve his dream
It took Drew just over 10 years to visit every country on his list. In a YouTube video he shot just after finishing, he recounted the highs and lows he experienced as well as the multitude of journeys it entailed. “Over those 10 years I flew on 1,458 flights, rode on 1,117 buses and trains and created 1,241 videos,” he said. There were plenty of rides on camels, in hot air balloons and in beat-up minivans and tuk-tuks too. Like this one in Pakistan.
It would have been sooner, but for COVID
With 99% of his list done and only six countries to go, Drew’s plans to visit every country in the world hit a major roadblock. The COVID-19 pandemic struck and the world effectively shut down. “After years of hopping on planes and travelling the world, I couldn’t go anywhere,” recounts Drew. “It was the worst part of my travels. I was told ‘No! You can’t travel, you’re blocked'.” As the world gradually opened up between the end of 2020 and throughout 2021, he hit the road again, seen here flying to Iraqi Kurdistan.
He picked up two Guinness World Records along the way
Over the course of his epic travels Drew achieved two Guinness World Records. Neither are related to the number of countries he has visited. The first was for the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites visited within 24 hours, set across Germany and the Netherlands in 2016 and held until 2021. (He managed 12.) Drew is also officially the fastest person on the planet to pack a suitcase, taking just 36.59 seconds to stuff a medium sized bag in Los Angeles in 2017.
There were plenty of hurdles along the way
The biggest obstacle Drew faced was getting visas for Libya, Syria and Venezuela. “I did a lot of begging at embassies,” recalls Drew. "Basically trying to convince consuls that I was going to come back alive!” Even with visas secured, problems ensued. When Drew finally got a Venezuelan visa in the Philippines, COVID hit and Venezuela closed its borders for 11 months. Drew's visa was only valid for 12 months, so when the country opened up again he was on the first commercial flight to capital Caracas, and the only tourist in the country.
And some places made it very hard going
Drew found the countries of Central Africa difficult to travel through. “It's very dangerous,” he told loveEXPLORING. “The people are aggressive, there are no tourist sites, the infrastructure is bad and the very few hotels that exist are super expensive.” It didn’t help matters when he got caught up in a high-speed police chase in Chad either. “It turns out my motorcycle taxi driver had just stolen the bike we were riding on,” he said. “It was the scariest moment of my life.”
So, which country was his favourite?
Drew says that this is the question he gets asked the most and it's the one that he finds the toughest to answer. He found something to love in most countries he visited. But when pushed, he'll list his top five as Afghanistan, Philippines, Vietnam, Mexico and Iran. People may be surprised that he lists troubled nations like Afghanistan and Iran, but Drew is quick to point out that governments are not the same as the local people. “I am always overwhelmed by how kind everyone is in that part of the world.”
And the most surprising?
That’s an easy one, says Drew. It’s Namibia. “It's the only place I've seen sand dunes intersect with the ocean,” he says. “And it’s really empty. It’s the second least densely populated country in the world after Mongolia, I think. It's a great big, wide open, road trip kind of country.”
Achieving the dream
On 29 October 2021, at 1.30am local time, Drew entered his 197th and final country: Saudi Arabia. The moment was live streamed on YouTube, of course, with a beaming Drew declaring “I’m literally shaking now. It’s such a surreal moment.” Drew thanked his family and his followers for their support, before shaking his head and saying “I can’t believe that, right now, I can say that I have been to every single country in the world!” He also suggested he might get a tattoo of the number ‘197’ to mark the event.
More people have been to space
When Drew completed his mission of visiting every country in the world, he was one of only 225 people to have done so. Since then that number has risen closer to 400, but that is still considerably less than the number of people who have been to space: close to 700, according to the Space Foundation. In a recent YouTube Q&A, Drew was asked if he would consider going to space and he said absolutely. “The moment I can get into a spaceship that can take me into space, I’m there.”
A lesson learned is a lesson shared
The day after Drew arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, he spent the day holed up in a hotel room being interviewed. Media outlets from around the world including CNBC, Bloomberg, ABC News and The Morning Show wanted to know what he’d learned from his epic journey. The interest prompted Drew to write a book. Titled Just Go, it features his best travel stories, tips and other amazing things he learned from each country. “It’s a fantastic medium to get my stories out to new audiences,” he says. “It’s also something physical and tangible that I can hold on to forever.”
Lesson 1: Everyone is the same
The number one lesson learned from his epic journey is that there is more that unites humanity than divides it. As he said on YouTube just after he landed in Jeddah, we all cry, we all laugh, we all love. “What really struck me on my journey is that we are basically all the same,” Drew told loveEXPLORING. “Everybody needs to eat and drink, to sleep, to make money to have a roof over their heads and for their kids to go to school and live a happy, healthy life.”
Lesson 2: Money doesn’t equal happiness
Another lesson that Drew learned was that having lots of money doesn’t necessarily bring happiness. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. In his travels he found that the less ‘wealth’ people had by Western standards, the happier people were. “You go to Beverly Hills and you see people walking around super depressed and anxious and even suicidal,” he explained to loveEXPLORING. “But if you go to the slums of Manila, where people make less than a dollar a day, they are super friendly and it's really nice.” This photo, for instance, was taken in Somalia, one of the poorest countries on the planet.
Lesson 3: Safety is largely common sense
In his travels Drew discovered that 99.9% of people are good and that the world is safer than you think. Even so, he says safety while travelling is largely down to common sense. “It’s never a good idea to walk down an alley by yourself at three in the morning,” he says, “Even in a safe country like Japan.” Drew’s other safety tips include knowing the political situation of the country you are visiting and not flashing your wealth. He learned that lesson the hard way when his phone was snatched right out of his hands in Athens, Greece.
Lesson 4: Trust your instincts
Drew also believes that learning to trust your gut is one of the most important skills a traveller can learn. “I’ve been travelling long enough to know that if a place doesn’t feel safe, there is no reason to stay,” he explains. Having said that, he also warns against becoming too paranoid and robbing yourself of incredible travel experiences. In this photo he threw caution to the wind and caught a rickety pirogue (a long narrow canoe) across a river in Africa, making a bunch of new friends in the process.
Lesson 5: Stay calm and carry on
Things don’t always go to plan, particularly in some of the more challenging countries in the world. “There are going to be moments when things will get scary, especially as you go to more remote and unknown places,” explains Drew in Just Go. “But keeping your calm is the best thing you can do, no matter what challenges or threats you may be facing.” Here, in Yemen, one of the most volatile countries Drew visited, he took a moment to share a cup of tea with some locals, diffusing a possibly volatile situation.
Lesson 6: Take twice the money and half the clothes
Unsurprisingly, after visiting 197 countries, Drew has packing down to a fine art, travelling with two small carry-on bags – one for his camera gear, another for clothes and personal things. “I always tell people to pack twice the money and half the clothes,” he told loveEXPLORING. “You can always do laundry on the road. And you're always going to need more money, either for tips or just to do the extra things that help you experience life a little bit more on your travels.”
And the biggest lesson of all: Just go!
It’s always easy to find a reason not to do something, but Drew says that he has never heard of anyone regretting a trip. And when you are on the road, be spontaneous and go with the flow. “Be courageous and dare to go the extra mile,” he says in Just Go. “Meet new people and let adventure lead you. After all, a stranger is just someone you haven’t met yet.”
Read on to discover the most dangerous – and safest – countries in the world...
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