Meet Lexie Alford, a 21-year-old American woman who has achieved quite a feat by becoming the youngest person on Earth to travel to all countries in the world. On June 2, Lexi uploaded a photo on her Instagram account with a caption that read "officially traveled to every country in the world". The photo shows Alford holding a piece of paper that has "North Korea May 31, 2019, country #196" written on it, indicating that North Korea was the last milestone on her tremendous journey and a finishing step in the world record. Her website, lexielimitless, proudly displays the number of countries she has traveled, 196, in contrast to the tab with the remaining countries where the number has finally dropped down to zero.
"It sounds crazy but more people have traveled to space than every country in the world," Alford told Bored Panda. "There's an estimate 150 or so people who've done it and less than 10 of those people have been women," she explained. And now she's one of them! The young woman explained that despite being pressured to continue studies after finishing community college when she was 18, Lexie decided to go against everyone's wishes and pursue what she saw as her own personal passion.
The adventurer has documented her numerous travels across the world not only on her blog but also captured the moments in stunning photos which she uploaded on her Instagram. At the moment, her page has 67.3k followers and around 400 posts with multiple images. Scroll down below to see photographs from many of the countries she visited and don't forget to comment and vote for your favorites.
More info: lexielimitless.com | Instagram
#23 Afghanistan
"Afghanistan is one of the most unique places I’ve traveled to because it felt almost taboo to be there. So much negative hype has been built up around it that not many people get to experience this place which is a real shame. Honestly it is very unstable here and I don’t recommend going to Afghanistan casually. I got really lucky with my experience but I also put in the work researching where to go and how to do it safely. That being said, wow. Just wow. The food, architecture, smells, colors. Gorgeous people with dark hair and bright blue eyes. Sensory overload. I didn’t feel unsafe walking down the street although the traffic will give you anxiety. I visited a few colorful 1000+ yr old mosques and saw hundreds of people praying together. Everywhere we went there seemed to be someone genuinely happy to share their culture with us. Although Afghanistan was challenging to understand at times, being there made me feel so much connected to its people, their cultural history, their strength and struggle. It made me thankful for everything that I have and reminded me not to take it for granted. Afghanistan made me grow."
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12points
#24 Canaima, Sucre, Venezuela
"Over the past few years I’ve developed an affinity for offbeat places. And its been rewarding me nearly every step of the way. Places like Venezuela have been written off by the average traveler as somewhere that’s too dangerous to travel. That’s a logical conclusion to reach given what we see on the news but it’s an underestimation of the genuine kindness within real Venezuelan people. I’ll always remember this trip as one of my all time favorites."
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12points
#26 Angers, France
"I’m in one of those rare times in life where everything seems to be working out perfectly and I couldn’t be more grateful. Sorry that I have joy BURSTING from my fingertips right now but I just got on a flight to a country I’ve never been to before and I’m so freaking excited!"
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11points
#27 Gilgit-Baltistan "Land Of Mountains", Pakistan
"This was one of the top 5 craziest adventures of my life! After riding like maniacs on the top of our 15 passenger van through the Karakoram Mountains for countless hours we arrived at the launching point. We switched into these 4x4 rock crawling land rovers and ascended up the aptly named “most dangerous road in the world”. The local driver swerved recklessly around loose gravel corners with heart pounding 500+ ft. drops to the left. After nearly 3 hours of that, we arrived at the starting point for the hike to Fairy Meadows. Our group quickly fell into different paces which gave us time to feel even more secluded in the deep wilderness of Northern Pakistan. We hiked up roughly 2500 ft. as the sun set on the little Swiss cabins we would sleep in that night. The temperature dropped rapidly. All our bodies were acting funny because of the altitude. The 10 of us huddled around the common room stove sharing stories and stretching our deliciously sore muscles. ‘Twas a day & night that I’ll never forget"
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11points
#29 Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
"Travel therapy should be covered by health insurance
Seriously though. It’s unbelievable what traveling has done for my mental health. I was a pretty depressed & angsty kid when I was in high school because I felt like I didn’t belong there. I felt like I didn’t have anything in common with the people around me. All my frustration and unhappiness is what ended up fueling me to save up as much as I could and start backpacking. That’s when everything changed for me. As soon as I got out of my hometown bubble and realized there’s so much more out there for me. Discovering that there’s so many beautiful places and awesome people scattered all around the world made my outlook on life change completely.
Even if you can’t afford to travel right now, you can always change your perspective in smaller ways. Do whatever you can to get active outside in the fresh air, whether it be hiking or photography or whatever calls to you. Take a road trip to somewhere you’ve never been, even if it’s only an hour away from your house. Small trips like that are how you can gain momentum but be careful, once you get going it’s really hard to stop!"
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10points
