NEW YORK: A 21-year-old woman sets a world record of becoming the youngest person to travel every country on earth. She set a record when she visited North Korea on May 31. She broke the Guinness World Record of traveling to 196 sovereign nations.

She beat James Asquith from the UK, who holds the Guinness World Record of traveling to all sovereign countries. He was 24 years and 192 days old when he arrived in the final country, Federated States of Micronesia, on 8 July 2013, according to the Guinness website.

“Travel has been a part of my life since before I can remember. My parents would take me out of school and place me on independent study for weeks and months at a time every year,” Alford said. She has been traveling since she was a child. Her family owns a travel agency in California. She traveled to places like Cambodia, Dubai, Argentina and Egypt with her family, according to a report in Forbes.

 

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OFFICIALLY TRAVELED TO EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD?? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ it’s crazy to have years of hard work culminate into one single moment. I’m so grateful to everyone that’s helped me get here. The greatest chapter of my life is coming to a close. Cheers to a new beginning ?⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Photos by @thomasbrag

A post shared by Lexie Alford (@lexielimitless) on Jun 1, 2019 at 5:27pm PDT

Alford said, “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.” The first time Alford thought about breaking the world record was in October 2016. At that time she had traveled to 72 countries.

She said, “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.”

(Agencies)