Most people who travel like to keep track of all the states or countries they’ve been to (me, I’m up to, I think, 39 states and about a dozen countries).
Others have goals to go to all 50 states or every country in the world. I remember when a 27-year-old stepped foot on every country on earth in the shortest time, only to be beaten by a 21-year-olf who did a similar thing a year later.
And then there are the travel-related conversations that start. For example, does a layover count as “being in” a state or country? (cuz if it did, I’m probably closer to 15 countries, LOLOL!) Everyone has their own opinion on that one.
But now we can start talking about an even more controversial topic – a 16-year-old New Jersey boy just visited 35 countries on 6 continents in 24 hours. And as much as I’m sorta kinda OK with layovers counting, I kind of question his methodology for this one.
Not long ago, Asher Boiskin, 16, was looking at the Guinness Book of World Records for the most countries visited in one day. He saw that a group of people in Europe managed to visit 19 countries in one day. Well yeah, it’s easy in Europe – most of the countries are relatively small.
Boiskin decided there had to be a better way (and, since he only had $200, a cheaper way). In researching, he discovered a hack of sorts. Apparently, the U.S. Department of State officially counts embassies as countries. It falls under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961.. So if he were to go to Washington D.C. and visit all the embassies there, he’d officially be entering foreign soil. So that’s what he did.
In the time frame of about 4 months, he made appointments at 49 embassies, all in one business day in June.
Ummm….OK?
He started his day at 8:30am and ended it at 6pm. He didn’t make it to all 49 embassies though – just 35 of them – because of, you guessed it – D.C.’s notorious traffic.
Boiskin said the hospitality of each embassy was incredible. Many of them served him sweets and pastries and tea from their respective countries. The last embassy he visited was Ukraine’s – he gave his wishes to the Ukrainian people.
He said the most important thing he learned that day was, “Just the importance of exploring the world and asking questions and learning about all the cultures.” He also said he hopes to visit all the countries in person someday.
The Guinness record for visiting embassies on one day is 47 (there’s a documented record for that???), so he didn’t break the official record. But he did break SOME records.
“…I did set the record for the most embassies visited in DC,” said Boiskin. “I also set the record for the most countries visited as an American citizen.”
Well, OK then.
So what do you think? Did that count as going to 35 countries?
H/T: Twitter, ABC
Feature Image (cropped): Nathan Hughes Hamilton / flickr / CC by 2.0 Attribution
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