WORLD’S GREATEST TRAVELLERS

This list is adapted from the excellent article on Nomad Mania.

CELEBRITY TRAVELLERS
1. Alexander the Great (356 BC – 323 BC) – NM1301 40, UN 13. His empire stretched from Greece to NW India.

2. Pausanias (2^nd century AD). This Greek traveller and geographer is perhaps considered one of the first travel writers. Through his opus ‘Description of Greece’, he aimed to travel far and wide to complete his findings.

3. Zuanzang (Hsüan-tsang) (602-664)

5. Marco Polo (1254-1324) – NM 1301 70, UN 16. Between 1271 to 1295, he travelled across Asia to China (where he lived for 17 years) and was sent by Kublai Khan to Burma, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

6. Ibn Battuta (1304 – 1368 or 1369) – NM1301 – 113, UN – 37. In 1325, this Muslim Berber Moroccan scholar went on a hajj to Mecca and didn’t see Morocco again for twenty-four years. Over 30 years, he has visited most of the Muslim world, including Central Asia, Southeast Asia, India, China, and West Africa. His travels were more than any other explorer in distance, totalling around 117,000 km.
Marco Polo’s journeys were an estimated 15,000-20,000 miles in total. He was passed by Chinese mariner, explorer and fleet admiral, Zheng He (1371-1435) who across seven voyages travelled 30,000 miles.
Shams al-Din Abu’Abdallah Muhammad ibn’Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Lawati al-Tanji Ibn Battuta. Ibn Battuta was born in 1304 to a family of Islamic legal scholars in Tangier, Morocco. The path of his life seemed predictable: beyond his required holy pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca, Ibn Battuta would follow the family vocation, undertake judicial training and find a comfortable, lucrative position somewhere working as a religious judge.
It’s worth considering the effect of Islam on travel at this time. Then as now, the hajj was required of all Muslims at least once in their lifetimes, and for those living on the outskirts of the Islamic world this could be a journey of thousands of miles, taken without all the modern-day luxuries of cheap flights, plentiful accommodation and clockwork-like border control. For some, it was a journey they would spend most of their life saving up for – but it was a journey they had to make, a mandatory “once-in-a-lifetime adventure”.
He took his pilgrimage early at the age of 21. He then took an astonishing amount of time to come home, covering the territory of 44 modern-day countries and eating up around 75,000 miles enroute, most of it by land. It took a further 29 years, until 1354.
Coming from a relatively wealthy family, embarking on his first hajj in June 1325 didn’t seem to cause many difficulties. Following the African coastline west to Alexandria and Cairo, Ibn Battuta attempted to reach Mecca via a journey up the Nile valley, then east to the Red Sea and beyond – but had to turn back because of threats presented by a local rebellion on the route ahead. His alternate route via Damascus (the capital of Syria) and Medina (Saudi Arabia) got him to Mecca in late 1326, after over a year of travel.
What followed isn’t hard to decipher for someone who has been bitten by the travel bug. Using Mecca as a kind of spiritual base of operations (or an excuse to stop moving for a while), Ibn Battuta took journey after journey in every direction: south to the territory of modern-day Somalia and Tanzania and the Swahili coast, north to Anatolia (Turkey), and further and further east, across Central Asia and through northern India until he’d found a way by land and sea to Beijing. By his fiftieth birthday, he’d achieved the equivalent of circling the world three times – over half a millenia before the first airplane took flight.
In Ibn Battuta’s case, we know about his journey because of a book he wrote. A book with a magnificent title that, like his full name, isn’t destined for modern book covers (but perhaps should be): “A Gift To Those Who Contemplate The Wonders Of Cities And The Marvels Of Travelling” (1354). It was written in the form of a rihla, a travel narrative, a popular form in the Arab world, partly because everyone would undertake one such great journey in their lifetimes.
It’s not Ibn Battuta himself penning the words in the book. Instead, it’s written by Ibn Juzayy, a young writer hired by the Sultan of Morocco and tasked to sit with the great explorer and record his reminiscences – which appear to be without written prompts (there’s no mention of Ibn Battuta keeping notebooks), of journeys taken decades in the past. Either Ibn Battuta had a photographic memory, or the blurry line between his recollections and the young writer’s poetic embellishments and ‘borrowings’ from elsewhere were more numerous than would be comfortable to modern audiences.
Then there’s the intention of the book itself. Perhaps this was something designed for posterity and future generations – but it’s likely it was also an attempt to show the Sultan (a potential sponsor for the explorer’s future sedentary career) just how grandly Ibn Battuta had been treated on his travels, as a demonstration of how the Sultan should now treat the explorer. Exaggeration for career-enhancing purposes? It’s certainly possible – and a lively back-and-forth on the matter has developed around it.
It’s one hell of a story, though, and the Arab world is rightly proud of it. Today, the airport of Tangier is named after him – as is a crater on the Moon (a place Ibn Battuta might never have dreamt would be explorable).

8. Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1506) – NM1301 37, UN18.

9. Ferdinand Magellan (1480 – 1521) – NM1301 44, UN 13. Magellan initially travelled east to reach the Malay Archipelago from 1505 to 1511–1512. From 1519 to 1522, his expedition traveled west around Cape Horn but was killed in the Philippines. One of his surviving ships eventually returned home via the Indian Ocean, completing the first circuit of the globe. Between the two voyages, Magellan achieved a nearly complete personal circumnavigation of the globe for the first time in history.

10. Francis Drake (1540 – 1596) – NM1301 46, UN 20. This English sea captain is most famously known for circumnavigating the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580. He claimed California, previously unexplored by western shipping.

11. Sacagawea (1788-1812?)
Historians debate several facts about this famous Native American woman, including her name and year of death. What is known is that as a teenager and new mother she assisted Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Lt. William Clark on their famous Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase and the Pacific Northwest. She is thought to be the first woman to travel the entire length of the Missouri River.
Sacagawea was a Shosone Indian who was enslaved by the Hidatsa Indians when she was 12 years old. French Canadian fur trader Toussaint Charbonneau bought her from the Hidatsa to become one of his wives. Later, Charbonneau was hired by Lewis and Clark as an interpreter, and Sacagawea was tasked with coming along to help communicate with the Shosone Indians.
She was only about 17 years old and had given birth just a few months before she set out on the journey across thousands of wilderness miles. She helped during crucial moments on the expedition  – finding edible plants, suggesting the best route to travel, and fostering conversation with some Shoshones, who happened to be led by Sacagawea’s brother Cameahwait. With their help, Lewis and Clark got horses and a guide to cross the Rocky Mountains. In return, Clark provided Sacagawea’s son with an education.
To this day, it is still debated when she died. Most historians suggest Sacagawea died young – at age 24. However, some oral traditions say she left her husband to join another Indian tribe and lived to an old age.

12. Charles Darwin (1809 -1882) – NM1301 43, UN 14. After his five-year voyage on HMS Beagle, he never travelled again.

13. Isabella Bird (1831-1904) NM1301 80, UN 16. This nineteenth-century British explorer, writer, photographer, and naturalist started to travel in 1854 to the United States, in 1872, to Australia and Hawaii and from 1878-1897 to Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaya, India (including Ladakh), Persia, Kurdistan, Turkey, Baghdad, Tehran, Baluchistan, Persia, Armenia, up the Yangtze and Han rivers in China and Korea and finally to Morocco6.

14. Nellie Bly (1864 – 1922)
Journalist Elizabeth Cochran Seaman aka Nellie Bly is well-known for staying ten days in a mental institution in New York and exposing the cruelties there. However, she also travelled around the world in 72 days using trains, ships, and horses for transportation. Her inspiration was Jules Verne’s book Around the World in 80 Days, and her goal was to beat the fictional character and complete the trip in less time.
Unbeknownst to Bly, she had competition from another real person. Cosmopolitan writer Elizabeth Bisland set off in the opposite direction to race Bly, but in the end rough seas ruined her chances.
The fact that two women made it around the world undoubtedly surprised Bly’s editor who told her the trip would be impossible for a female. As the Smithsonian magazine reported, Bly’s reply was: “Very well,” she said, “Start the man, and I’ll start the same day for some other newspaper and beat him.”

15. Gertrude Bell(1868 – 1926) – NM1301 41, UN 13 was an English writer, traveller, and political officer who travelled to Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Arabia, Jordan, Arabia, and Iraq.

16. Alma Karlin (1889 -1950) – NM1301 107, UN 31 was a Slovene traveller and polyglot (English, French, Latin, Italian, Norwegian, Danish, Russian, Spanish, Persian, Chinese, and Japanese). In WWI, she was in London, Sweden and Norway. In 1919, she took off on a nine-year journey via South and North America, the Pacific Islands, Australia, and various Asian countries including India. After 1928, she never travelled again.

17. Matthew Henson (1866-1955)
It took some time for African-American explorer Matthew Henson to get his deserved recognition. He is the first person to reach the North Pole, but his travel partner Robert Peary originally got the credit. Later it was realized that Henson was in the lead sled and was the one to plant the American flag.
In his youth, Henson’s parents were regularly targeted by the Ku Klux Klan. Henson found inspiration from Frederick Douglass in his efforts to overcome oppression. When his parents died, Henson got a job on a ship where he learned seafaring skills.
Eventually, he met Peary, who was a U.S. Naval officer who hired Henson. They spent 18 years on expeditions together, exploring places ranging from the jungles of Nicaragua to the frozen landscape of the Arctic. It wasn’t until Henson was 70 though that he received the acknowledgement he deserved for his accomplishments as an explorer. Towards the end of his life, both Presidents Truman and Eisenhower honoured Henson before he died.

18. Jacques Cousteau (1910-1997)
Jacques Cousteau is perhaps the world’s most famous ocean explorer. In 1936 he went swimming underwater with goggles and realized how wondrous the world was beneath the water. He developed with engineer Emile Gagnan the Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus or SCUBA in 1943.
For years afterward, he joined with partners to explore the seas for scientific research and diving expeditions. Cousteau explored the diverse marine environments in the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico in the Atlantic Ocean, and various parts of the Pacific Ocean, including Polynesia and the Great Barrier Reef.
Eventually, he created a nonprofit called The Cousteau Society. The organization has played a major global role in creating awareness about the effects of pollution and coastal development, while also generating an interest in many forms of sea life. Today Costeau is now recognized as the father of underwater exploration.

19. Others
Mahatma Gandhi NM1301 61, UN 3
Amelia Earhart NM1301 43, UN 9
Winston Churchill NM1301 68, UN 28
Ernest Hemingway NM1301 42, UN 19
Che Guevara NM1301 – 149, UN 65
John Kennedy NM1301 57, UN 10
Lyndon Johnson NM1301 94, UN 20
Seve Ballesteros NM1301 60, UN 16

NON-CELEBRITY TRAVELLERS
1. Pierre-Olivier Malherbe (1569–1616). A French explorer on a 27-year world tour, he was the first Frenchman to walk around the world.

2. Jeanne Baret (1740 – 1807) was a member of Louis Antoine de Bougainville’s maritime expedition in 1766–1769 and was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, via maritime transport. Jeanne Baret joined the expedition disguised as a man until Tahiti in 1768. After several years in Mauritius, she returned to France in 1775.

3. René Caillé (1799 – 1838) was a French explorer and the first European to return alive from Timbuktu. He travelled alone disguised as a Muslim, learned Arabic and Islamic customs over 8 months in Mauritania, and took a year to travel from modern Guinea to Timbuktu winning a prize of 9,000 francs for the first person to return with a description of Timbuktu. After two weeks, he crossed the Sahara to Tangier in Morocco.

4. Alexandra David-Neel (1868 – 1969) was a Belgian–French explorer most known for her 1924 visit to Lhasa, Tibet disguised as a beggar and monk), when it was forbidden to foreigners.

5. Gunther Hollberg. This German man travelled to over 200 countries in his Mercedes G named “Otto”. How he got to all these places with the car is somewhat of a mystery but German diplomatic connections for places like N Korea. He told no one about his travels so was “under the radar”. His travels are detailed in English at www.ottosreise,de/en/start.html.

6. Heinz Stücke.This famous bicyclist from Westphalia, Germany visited all 193 countries including an amazing 1105 of The Best Traveler regions by bike over 51 years, about 660,000 km. He must be the greatest traveller of us all. To finance his trip, he sold colour brochures about his incredible journey.

7. Rauli Virtanen. The first person to visit every country in the world finished in 1980. From Finland, he has over the past 50 years, distinguished himself as a renowned journalist specializing in conflict zones. His work uncovers the darker facets of world history. First, he focused on Latin America, and from 1970-71, took a cargo ship from Finland to Rio de Janeiro and embarked on a 10-month backpacking trip to South America and North America. He visited all the Latin American countries very early on, including Caribbean countries.
His first war was in Vietnam where in 1972, he embedded with the US military. In Bucharest, Romania, in 1989, he witnessed the Romanian revolution, in 1979, the Nicaragua revolution, and then met Nelson Mandela. The most important and heartwarming events are just meeting the locals in developing countries – it seems that the poorer they are, the more hospitable they are,
Foreign correspondents don’t stay for long, and their fixers, people who help us stay there are risking their lives 24/7. His most important lesson is to not be cynical. If you become cynical, then you have to leave.
“We’re living in dangerous times, but I like to think that world history has its ups and downs, and we believe we’ll get through this difficult period.”
China has changed the most since the end of the 1980s. He had a chance to travel by car from Hong Kong to Beijing because there was a Hong Kong-Beijing rally, and one of the famous Finnish race drivers, Ari, invited him to join as press. They took detours off the rally route to visit villages where the Chinese people had never seen foreigners before. At that time in Beijing, foreigners could travel only 20 kilometres from the city. The conditions in the countryside and the poverty in China were eye-opening. He’s returned to China many times since then, and the economic growth is amazing, although the political situation is different.
In contrast, North Korea hasn’t changed much except for more dangerous ballistic missiles and weapons. People suffer in the countryside, and there’s no personal freedom. The advent of the Internet and mobile phones has made a big difference in material wealth. At the same time, the gap between rich and poor has been growing in every country.
Some destinations, especially those with people and stories have deeply impacted him, like Afghanistan, where he’s been 13 times. The idea of visiting a newly independent nation intrigues him.

8. Audrey Walsworth (1934 – ). After having 3 children, she took her first trip at 35, her second at 45 to China and was the first woman to complete all 193 countries (Timor Leste) in 2005. Thirty-seven more trips completed the Travelers Century Club (TCC) list in 2009. She then started repeating places that she had enjoyed for 37 more trips until 2020 when Covid 19 stopped travel.
She often travelled alone and found being a solo woman had advantages. Travel in the 8. 1980s and 1990s was quite different. Security is now worse, planes are full, crowds are common and most countries have become commercialized.
Audrey Walsworth – 193 countries … and 324/325 on the TCC List! – GlobalGaz

9. Frank W. Grosse-Oetringhaus(1943- ) From Hamburg, he started travelling at age 15, got a Ph.D. and joined Siemens, a global company, that sent him around the world. His two favourite places are the Dry Valleys of Antarctica (difficult to get to – the M/V Ortelius is the only ship to go there and then you need helicopters. For 3 million years there was no precipitation) and Lake Uyuni in Bolivia at 3660m.
At age 59, in 2002, he retired and started helping small countries access UNESCO WHS lists. The WH list was too complicated with 160 guidelines, so now he only works on the Tentative List because it is simple. About 200 candidates want to go to the list but only about 20 make it – it takes strategy.
In the 1980s, he started making lists based on what tourists are interested in – relevant, objective highlights, the real stuff. There are 1500 categories each with 3 top positions, making 4500, each unique with a rationale why it is on the list – 1000 Mega highlights (superlative on a global scale), 2000 Top highlights and 2000 Normal highlights.

10. André Brugiroux, Described as the Marco Polo of modern times”, at 17, he left Paris with 10 francs in his pocket to tour the world: not as a tourist, but rather as a student of mankind. He speaks five languages. He prefers hitchhiking on every conceivable type of transportation, living usually on a dollar a day for six years, and rarely uses hotels or taxis. He wrote the book “One People, One Planet” and made a film of the Odyssey. He became Baha’i, dedicated to the unity of the human race. In 2004, after 50 years, he finally visited his last territory: Mustang in the Himalayas). “Alone is travel, a couple is a holiday and more is a convention”.

11. Dervla Murphy (1932-2022). On her tenth birthday, she got a second-hand bike and an atlas and thought she could bike to India. She started her long treks at 31 – 4,500 miles from Ireland to Delhi (“Full Tilt”, her first and most famous book), 1,300 miles through the Andes and trips to southern Africa, Madagascar, Cuba, and the Middle East. Her copious diaries grew into 26 books.
She preferred an Armstrong Cadet man’s bike but used a mule in Ethiopia, or occasionally buses. She travelled alone. Why shouldn’t a woman go where she pleased, embracing an unplanned life? She carried a .25 pistol in the pocket of her slacks and used it. Many who met her in the world’s wilder places assumed that she was a man – she was tall, deep-voiced, well-muscled, and could drink like a man, beer being her staple, and preferred to do her research in bars, pubs, and teahouses or at village gatherings. Those were the people she wanted to mix with, ordinary folk. The major conclusion was that wherever you went in this fractious world, people were essentially the same and had to be treated with simple (socialist) fairness.
The more remote the place, the more she was drawn there. Afghanistan on a bike became her special love. She felt she might have stayed forever in the Hindu Kush, living in the sanity of backwardness. She disliked Western ways. Strong political feelings led her to live in squalid, disease-ridden camps among refugees from Tibet and Palestine, becoming a campaigner for them. She travelled among victims of Aids and genocide in Africa.
In old age and subsisting mostly on beer, her regrets were few. She wished she had visited Tibet before the Chinese took over, and wished that remote places might be allowed to stay that way. Mass tourism, motor roads, expanding markets, and capitalism itself, were all near hell to her. Each mobile phone announced the end of a sealed and precious culture.

12. Harry Mitsidis. Born in 1972 in Greece and now living in London, he completed his 193 at age 36 in 2008. He required a website to track travel and started The Best Traveled in 2012. In 2016, the Series was added, and the site was renamed Nomad Mania and to my mind, has become the best travel website and personally runs my travel life. Nomad Mania developed a verification system that has become the standard. It is spectacularly organized.
As of October 2024, Harry led the world in regions with 1294/1301. He is #1 in TBT and perpetually leads the Posted Trips category. He organizes NM trips and hosts an annual awards ceremony for the world’s greatest travellers. Social interaction is assuming a large role in NM.  

 

Harry was the third person to visit every country twice.

13. Wasfia Nazreen (1982- )
You may have never heard of Nazreen, but she is well-known to millions of Bangladeshi people. She is the first person from Bangladesh to climb the so-called “Seven Summits” – which are the seven highest mountains on the seven continents. She also has worked endlessly to raise awareness about animal rights, environmental issues, and women’s rights.
Nazreen launched her summit bid to mark 40 years of progress in women’s rights in the patriarchal society where she was raised. Her mountain climbs were particularly notable since girls have traditionally been discouraged from doing outdoor activities in Bangladesh. Plus, the country’s terrain is pretty flat and often is flooded during typhoons.
Nazreen has said these natural disasters taught her to have an extreme respect for nature since it’s the “real boss.” The floods also have fostered her ongoing desire to promote environmental responsibility.
Her inspirational life led her to be named the National Geographic Adventurer of the Year in 2014. She also was featured in the 2016 short documentary Wasfia.

15. Torbjørn Pedersen (aka Thor, he called the project ‘Once Upon a Saga’) finished his quest to visit 203 countries in May 2023 in an unbroken journey without flying. He spent at least 24 hours in each country, with an average time of 17 days. Although initially planned to take 4 years, this took him almost 10 years, due to unforeseen challenges such as visa issues, political unrest, and the COVID-19 pandemic. During the adventure, he got married and saw his goal slip beyond his grasp due to pandemic travel restrictions when he spent three years in Hong Kong.
He had three cardinal rules: absolutely no flying, staying in each country for a minimum of 24 hours, and not returning home until visiting the final country. The three semi-mandatory sub-rules were not paying any bribes, sticking to a budget of roughly $20 a day, and never eating at McDonalds.
Pedersen set off in October 2013 when the iPhone 5 was the latest model being marketed. He took more than 300 long-distance buses, over 200 trains, 40 container ships, shared motorcycle taxis, and a high-performance yacht, sometimes having to backtrack due to illness, visa delays, or conflict.
“I depleted my personal funds, sold some possessions, and took out two loans. A few years in, I found that what used to be 1% work and 99% fun had turned to 99% work.” His three cardinal rules seemed innocent at first but created a mental prison for him as the years went on. “Four years turned to five, then six, then seven, and then a global pandemic broke out when I was just missing nine more countries. I finally reached the last country and returned home after nearly a decade. You’d have to be a certifiable nutcase to do a thing like that,” Pedersen says. His now-wife came to visit him 27 times.
The most complicated was the Panama-Colombia border, Saudi Arabia would not accept overland travel and entering Equatorial Guinea required visiting 5-6 EG embassies and the borders closed during Covid. Besides the usual 195, he also went to Kosovo, Western Sahara, and Taiwan.

LOW PASSPORT INDEX (LPI)
The Low Passport Index (LPI) ranks travellers who travel on passports with few visa-free countries. Using the Henley Passport Index Ranking, only travellers from countries with access to fewer than 95 of the 227 territories are considered. Dual nationals are not considered and those with a passport from a HIgher Passport Index country should declare that. However, NM has no way of knowing that.

TRAVELERS WITH DISABILITIES
1. Houston Vandergriff. Houston has Down’s syndrome and has been to 25 countries, 49 U.S. states and all Tennessee counties. He is an avid photographer.
2. Renee Bruns. She only gets around using a wheelchair and sees the world differently. To navigate all 193 UN countries for a person with two legs is a daunting task and she is trying to achieve it with her disability.  She is a former Fortune 500 executive who turned vagabond and was on a sabbatical to travel.
3. Slaven Škrobot. Slaven is a quadriplegic who must use a wheelchair. He travels to educate, encourage, motivate and inspire people to dare to follow and live their dreams. He travels to exotic destinations outside the routes provided for people with disabilities breaking down all barriers and stereotypes. Some of his achievements so far: – The first person in the world in a wheelchair who climbed up to the Monastery in Petra; – The first person in the world in a wheelchair who climbed Mount Sinai in Egypt; – Handcycled 3,500 km from Savudrija (HR) to Istanbul (TR) to gather money for four adaptive bikes; – Traveler of the year for 2022 in Croatia; – The best travel project for 2022 in Croatia; – The first person in the world in a wheelchair to climb Pidurangal in Sri Lanka.
4. Tony Giles. From England, Tony has been blind in both eyes from birth and partially deaf in both ears since age 5. He uses a white cane and digital hearing aids to communicate. He has been travelling alone and independently since age 19 and has visited all 7 continents, all 50 U.S. states, 10 Canadian territories and every country in Europe and South America. He bungee jumps, skydives and sea kayaks. He has published three eBooks.  In 2024 he had been to 130 countries, 487 NM regions and 158 UN territories.
5. Eric Weihenmayer. Weihenmayer has climbed the highest mountain on every continent, kayaked the length of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, scaled the notorious “Nose” route of El Capitan in Yosemite and completed some of the world’s most gruelling races. He skis, rafts, ice climbs, mountain bikes, surfs and paraglides. His accomplishments would be jaw-dropping even if he could see. But Weihenmayer is completely blind.
Weihenmayer was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and started losing his sight as an infant, suffering from an inherited condition, juvenile retinoschisis, that causes slow disintegration of the retinas. When he was 14, he realized he couldn’t see enough to take a step. Unable to play football or basketball, he joined the high school wrestling team and excelled. Wrestling was mostly about feel – something that was also true of climbing where he scans his hands across the rock face like a grid,
He started to love hiking after discovering trekking poles. In 1995 he ascended Denali in Alaska, the highest mountain in North America. It took him six years of training to attempt the Grand Canyon in a kayak, He keeps in contact with his guide via a radio mounted on his helmet. Paragliding relies on a hanging bell that rings when it touches the ground below him. When he skis he follows a guide who wears a speaker on his back to amplify directions. When ice-climbing, he uses the ice axe to “scan” the ice by tapping it to feel the vibration through the ice to determine its density.
He earns most of his money as a motivational speaker. He has had a hip replaced.
He may be the world’s greatest adventurer.
I met him in about 1996. It was 5 am and he was behind us in a queue to obtain the permit and camping spot at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. We chatted for an hour but I had no idea of his accomplishments.

CANADIANS WITH 193 (October 1, 2024)
Nomad Mania Member verified for UN countries and regions
1. Ron Perrier. (941 regions #1 Canada). Born 1952. UN 193 (Tuvalu). Verified for UN, NM regions, Supreme Verification, World Heritage Sites and The Biggest Traveler.

Nomad Mania Member verified for UN countries
2. Eric Abtan. (417 regions). Born in 1973, done at age 43 in 2016 (Nauru)
3. Daniel Walker. (969 regions). Born in 1941 in Victoria, done at age 66 in 2007
(Mongolia). He is a citizen of and listed in Costa Rica (#1) where he has lived since 1991. He has 969 NM regions and would be #1 in Canada if he listed himself as a Canadian. He did a lot of his travel in his Rolls Royce.
“I started trying to travel as soon as I could walk, which my mother cured by putting me into a harness and attaching me to the clothesline. For my first major trip, a friend and I stuck out our thumbs from Victoria in 1964 to go around the world. We had $30 between us. When we ran out of money we worked at whatever we could get. That lasted about a year until I ran into a girl and got married, which put a damper on travel for too many years. I have a 1957 Rolls Royce that I drove around the world in 2007, then from Victoria Canada to Alaska & the Canadian Yukon in 2009, then through Central and South America and back in 2011. I’ve driven it through 49 countries and all the Canadian provinces and continental US states. Hopefully, I’ll travel until I drop!”
4. Ernestine Chan. (570 regions) Born in Hong Kong in 1971, from Vancouver, she finished at age 52 in 2023. Listed under Hong Kong (#1).

Nomad Mania Member non-verified 
5. Horace Tong. (307 regions). Born in 1986, from Vancouver, done at age 35 in 2021 (Guinea-Bissau)

Travellers with Personal Website or Book
6. Ian Boudreault. Born in 1982, done at age 32 (Libya). He wrote the pretentious book
“Globetrotter: From Pioneer Digital Nomad to World’s Most Traveled Man” (2021) and
described himself as “the Christopher Columbus of the 2000s”. His second book is “The
World’s Most Traveled Man’s Top 60 Travel Tips: For the Seasonal Traveler to the Full-
time Digital Nomad” (2021). He travelled for 20 years, 17 as a digital nomad living in
many countries.
7. Mike Spencer Bown. Born in 1966, from Calgary, and done at age 47 in 2013
(Ireland), he wrote a pretentious book called “The World’s Greatest Traveler”. When
asked how many counties there are in the world, he says “It’s open to debate”, possibly
implying that he hasn’t been to all 193. He joined Nomad Mania in 2020 where he was
#129 on the Master List and then promptly removed himself from the site
8. Stephen Fenech. Born in 1968, and now living in Toronto, he completed with Nauru at age 55 in 2023. He works in the television industry but spends much time travelling as a photojournalist and award-winning filmmaker. His documentary Chad Exodus won various prizes in several festivals. His travel book, “Earth: Been There Done That Got the T-shirt, Book One: The Big Kahuna” was published in 2016. It highlights a three-year trip around the planet. Its follow-up “Earth: Been There Done That Got the T-shirt, Book Two: Missing Pieces to the Global Puzzle” was published in 2017.

Travellers With a Media Reference
9. Bruno Rodi. Born in 1954 in Italy, his family immigrated to Quebec in 1960. He
started travel in 2000 and finished 193 in 2018 (Saudi Arabia) at age 64. In an article in La
Presse, he claims to have seen every territory, dependency and World Heritage
Site in the World – 1,071 at the time. That is hard to believe. He has also climbed the
seven highest peaks on each continent (including Mount Everest), been to the seven lowest points on the planet, the wonders of the ancient and contemporary world and has
been to both poles on skis. He also cycled the Tour de France and rode the Dakar Rally. He humbly admits to only being “the greatest traveller living in Quebec”.
He wrote the book “Globe-trotter des extrêmes” with the author Sonia Sarfati, His son
Jason has produced two films about adventure including Bruno (Everest & Bouvet Island). He owns the Montreal bike-sharing company Bixi. 

I find it interesting that these last four Canadians, all supposedly with 193 (none are members of Nomad Mania or verified) have all written books stating or implying they are the most travelled people in the world. Curiously, the only books I have seen with the “most travelled man in the world” moniker are all by Canadians.
I do not doubt that all are great travellers but there are likely many travellers on Nomad Mania who have travelled more than Mr. Boudreault, Bown, and Fenech. Mike Spencer Bown joined NM in 2020 but then removed himself, he was #129. Admittedly Mr Fenech doesn’t say he is the world’s biggest traveller, but he needed two books titled Earth: Been There Done That Got the T-shirt to list all his destinations and experiences.
Mr. Rodi humbly only claims to be the most travelled Quebecois but when you read what he has done – 193, every UN territory and dependency (wow!), all 1071 World Heritage Sites (wow, easily #1 in the world, especially as about 40 are either impossible or very difficult), every Wonder of the World, skied to both poles (wow!), the Seven Summits (wow! three attempts to finally climb Everest, two attempts to climb Denali), Tour de France, Dakar rally, on and on – he may be the most experienced traveller in the world.

I wish these guys would prove what they have done. I have no doubt all are great travellers. I am not sure why they have not entered their Nomad Mania regions but think the issue of not even joining NM is that the ranking is by region. If their travel was not orientated to seeing regions, their region count is probably low and thus is relatively low on the master list of Nomad Mania – not something the “World’s Greatest Traveler” wants to see. I don’t think Mr Bown has visited 193. Mr. Rodi is very private and couldn’t care less about ranking or publicity.
It would also be nice to see WHS and series items. Then they should undergo verification and prove what they have done, not just make assertions in books.

Very Close (regions as of Oct 2024)
10. Brad Xuan. UN 192 (N Korea) – 580 regions. Born 1975. Listed under China (#6)
11. Tom Wong, UN 192 (N Korea) – 567 regions. Born 1957. UN verified.
12. Dillon De Coteau. UN 192 – 250 regions. Born 1969. Listed under Trinidad and Tobago (#1). UN Verified.
13. Michael Graziano. UN 190 – 414 regions. Born 1989.. He suddenly appeared a few years ago when he posted 193 countries and 859 regions (one more than Stewart Sheppard, #1 in Canada at the time). In the Master Ranking, he is listed as having transited some countries. 
14. An Xian Ni. UN 189 – 744 regions. Born 1966. Listed under China (#2)
15. Ian Tremblay. Born?, UN 189
16. Masha Glanville. UN 188 – 596 regions. Born 1962. Their website is dancingpandas.com.
17. Robert Glanville. UN 186 – 541 regions. Born 1964. Listed under Canada but also with a US passport.
18. Ammon Watkins UN 175 – 712 regions. Born 1979. Presently #3 in Canada in NM. If anyone ever passes me in Canada, I predict (and hope) it would be Ammon. Verified for UN and NM regions.