Everyone has a dream to travel the world and many want to visit every country. Gunnar Garfors, 46, a Norwegian author, had followed the same dream and became the first person in the world by visiting every country not only once but twice.
According to Gunnar, his father used to send him cassettes, telling stories from all around the world- which made him more curious to visit all the countries. In 2004, he visited Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and then he visited all the ‘Stan’ countries which led him to visit all the different parts of the world. “It’s the sort of disease that I don’t want to get rid of. It is all about freedom, education, friendships, exploring, and breaking your own comfort zone,” he said.
Besides his achievements, he has written many books on travel including ‘Elsewhere’- his recent book about the 20 least visited countries in the world. Gunnar said during his research he had to visit some countries again to get reliable information and then he realised that no country in the world deserves to be visited only once.
He said: “When you visit a country, it makes a unique impression on you and after some time you want to see what has been changed there. There is so much to learn and see in every country. You will always meet new people every time. I would say even visiting countries two times is way too little.” He hopes to visit all the counties again when the COVID situation is over.
Gunnar himself is a solo traveler, and he believes that traveling in a group makes it difficult to engage with new people, whilst traveling solo makes it easier. Besides being the first person to visit every country twice, he also holds many other world records such as visiting 19 countries in 24 hours, visiting five continents on the same day, and circumnavigating the world via the six inhabited continents on scheduled aircraft in 56 hours and 56 minutes.
“Travel made me learn more about myself. I made so many new friends through travel. And because of travel, I started looking at the world a little bit differently. I would say it made me a lot more humble and helped me to see the world from many different perspectives,” he said. He doesn’t have any favourite country because he believes that every country has its own culture and identity and one can’t perceive any country as evil or bad.
Sharing his most memorable and dangerous experiences, he said: “One time I was invited to a wedding in Afghanistan. However, that wedding got postponed due to some issue but the generosity I had, made it my most memorable experience.
“I had a bad experience in Gabon, Africa. I was walking on the street and suddenly two people jumped on me and dragged me 5-10 meters away from the main street. They pulled a gun at me but without any fear, I fought back and somehow I managed to drag them back to the main street, and then they ran away. I was fortunate that they only had a gun, but if they had a knife or any other types of weapons, then they would have just killed me straight away.”
Lastly, Gunner advised beginners to start traveling in their neighbourhood first and eventually start traveling abroad. He truly believes that people should at least try if they have never traveled anywhere because travel is the best education in the world.
Check out his Instagram @garfors and to follow his travel journey check his website https://garfors.com/