Hey guys, so as you know, there are some pretty strange world records out there.
In October of 2019, I broke the Guinness World Record for the youngest person to travel to every country in the world.
I traveled to 196 countries by the time I was 21 years and 177 days old.
And I broke the previous world record by over three years.
It's pretty sick right?
Traveling to every country in the world was an incredible experience and I'm so grateful to have had the privilege to do so but I would be lying if I said that it wasn't at times an incredibly difficult process.
This is horrible.
This is what it takes to beat a Guinness World Record.
Huh?
Just dying a little bit more inside.
You're gonna be okay.
So dumb.
In this video, I am gonna tell you about the incredibly difficult process of breaking a Guinness World Record and having it officially verified by Guinness World Records.
The full process for me took over three full years.
Let's go back to the beginning to give you some context.
I graduated from high school two years early and got a degree from community college by the time I turned.
At that point I had saved up enough money to take a year off from school and travel the world.
When I came back to California about two months into my gap year, I was staying at a friend's house in San Diego.
One night I couldn't sleep so I decided to try to count how many countries I had been to.
By the time I was 18, I had traveled to around 70 countries.
I am a very goal-oriented person and, as much as I loved traveling without much of a plan and just seeing where I ended up, I wanted to have a more specific goal in mind.
The light bulb went off in my head when I saw this world record and I wanted to see if I would be able to challenge myself to travel to every country and discover if that was even possible for a young woman to do.
In the beginning I honestly didn't take the world record attempt very seriously.
I just wanted to travel to as many different places as I could, and I kind of figured that the paperwork would take care of itself eventually.
And to be clear, there wasn't any financial incentive to break this world record.
Guinness World Records doesn't pay people to break records and there's no crazy special prize at the end of it other than the experience itself a plaque to commemorate the accomplishment.
So even when I finished traveling to every country, which towards the end became an incredibly stressful endeavor, that's when it felt like my Guinness World Record attempt was really starting cleaning up my mess.
What like as a whole?
What task are you currently working on?
It's too complicated to even explain.
No, i'm saying what are you?
You're submitting your application?
To say that i'm submitting my application, i don't have the enthusiasm to do this, babe.
Look at the hey guys.
I honestly kind of procrastinated organizing all of my evidence along the way, and it took a full six months of really hard work to try to organize everything that I had brought.
I had brought home pounds and pounds of paperwork that I needed to sort through, find out and remember what each and every tiny little receipt, which country it came from.
It was just the most intense organization I've ever had to do.
And it was so incredibly time-consuming.
This is actually one of the most evidence-heavy world records that you can apply for and, all in all, I ended up submitting nearly 7000 pages of documentation, in chronological order.
So from the very beginning of applying for a Guinness World Record, you have to pay 800 US dollars to have them respond to any of the questions you have about your application within two weeks.
Otherwise, it can take more than 12 weeks to get a response.
Then I found out once I completed my application and submitted it for review, I had to pay another 440 US dollars to have them review my evidence and give me an answer within two weeks as well.
I personally tried to spend as much time as I could in each and every country that I went to, depending on my budget.
But according to Guinness World Records, you aren't required to spend any specific amount of time in each country.
But you do have to have a lot of different kinds of evidence which when I was gathering all of this evidence, it really did take quite a bit of time.
So basically the proof that I needed from every single country was this.
Proof of entry and exit from each country That includes plane tickets, bus tickets, taxi receipts, etc.
And the dates with those need to correspond with the passport stamps and visas in your passport.
Any and all receipts from each destination for food transportation, visa paperwork and accommodation.
Photo and or videos in front of signs or distinguishable landmarks only.
A cover letter explaining in detail when you entered the country, what you did there and how you exited.
A travel log detailing when you entered and exited each place, the miles traveled in between and the type of transportation used.
A witness log compiling the 390 witness statements required in chronological order.
Even something as simple as passport stamps started to become an issue.
If you take a look in your passports, I can almost guarantee that there is probably a few stamps in there that are missing enough ink to be able to tell what date you entered or exited a country on, or you might not even be able to read the name of the country.
I ran into this problem a lot, so I would actually have to ask immigration officers from each country, while I was handing them my passport, to please make sure to have enough ink on their stamps to be able to read the writing.
Another thing that turned out to be very difficult was finding two witnesses in each country that read, spoke and wrote in enough English to be able to help me fill out these really tedious forms that asked for all of their personal contact information.
It really taught me how much it is to ask for five to ten minutes of someone's time.
So when I opened my Guinness World Records application, they sent me a specific guideline pack to my record and there were some pretty funny rules in there.
The rule that ended up being the biggest issue was that you were not allowed to operate a vehicle while attempting this Guinness World Record, because they didn't want to promote a race against the clock on public roads.
The only conclusion that I could make about that rule was that maybe they were covering themselves legally in case a person who was attempting this record was somehow driving recklessly across borders trying to finish this record, and really quickly, or something.
It just never really made any sense in my mind.
At first I didn't think that this rule would even apply to me at all, because since I was 21 when I broke the record, I've actually never been old enough to rent a car in a foreign country in the first place.
But that's when I got this email.
Dear Alexis, after a thorough review of your application and the evidence supplied, we have determined that the arrival from Swaziland into Mozambique does not meet the Guinness World Records guidelines requirements for this record title.
Point D in the guidelines states Guinness World Records cannot endorse a race against the clock on public roads and for this reason only scheduled public or chartered transport may be used.
In this case, you supplied a receipt stating that you paid a private driver to provide transportation services to Mozambique by motor vehicle.
While reviewing the rest of your evidence submission, It's apparent that he is a travel companion and a witness to your journey.
For the purposes of this record title, having a friend who is not a licensed tour guide or taxi driver in the region provided the sole entry into a country would not qualify as an approved method of arrival.
In this case, your attempt is not disqualified.
If you would like to continue the application process, it is imperative that you journey to Mozambique by an approved method and document said journey before providing updated evidence of that arrival.
It was so frustrating to travel halfway around the world again back to Mozambique only because I was given a ride there in a friend's rental car in 2018.
In the end, that mistake added 100 days onto my record attempt.
Regardless of that, I ended up meeting some pretty special people and made the most of the victory lap anyway.
I don't even know how to function right now!
You did it!
Oh my god, did you get the email literally a minute ago?
Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to the youngest person to ever travel to every single country in the world Lexia.
I'm going on in five minutes and I'm so nervous.
Overall.
There were a lot of ups and downs over the three years it took to break this world record, but it was still the best idea I've ever had.
I'm just so happy.
A question that I get asked a lot is, was it worth it?
And honestly, as far as breaking a world record goes, I don't know.
I'm still kind of readjusting to life after having worked on this project full-time for over three years.
And one thing I can say for sure is that it was absolutely worth it to travel to every country.
I had so many experiences that I will remember for a lifetime, and I still feel that I have only just scratched the surface of how much there is out there to explore.
So I'm very grateful that this idea came into my head and that this Guinness World Record is a part of what motivated me to see as much of the world as I have at my age.
Thank you guys so much for watching this video.
I hope I answered most of your questions about Guinness World Records.
I'm excited to start telling even more travel stories.
If you haven't already subscribed to this channel, you can hit the button below and I will catch you next time.
