Globe-trotter Sets New Record

The Journey Begins

After nearly 7 years travelling and an estimated cost of nearly £350,000 an Indian businessman has finally completed the last stage of an epic journey across the world, visiting every country on earth and setting a new record for the quickest time to achieve the feat.

Kashi Samaddar, 55, started his journey with a trip to The Netherlands in 2002, but it was a trip to a southern African country that motivated Mr Samaddar to visit every country in the world, when he was denied a visa to travel because of his nationality. In a bid to prove that his nationality should not hold him back from where he wished to visit, he set about travelling to every nation to prove that he could get the required visas for everywhere and finally 218 countries later he has finished.

Trouble with Visas

During his travels Kashi took in the beautiful scenery and landscapes of the world but also ran into the sometimes frustrating bureaucracy that many travellers experience when applying for visas. In many cases this led to short delays to his trip or having to wait in hotels for the correct paperwork to get through or in one particular case a wait of several years. “The most difficult visa to get was Moldova, which took me almost three years with many rejections. The problem isn’t with big countries like America, England or places in Europe, a lot of the time it’s smaller countries who don’t know what they should be doing,” Mr Samaddar commented.

Favourite Locations

The view across Rio to Sugar Loaf Mountain

Several countries in particular have stood out for Mr Samaddar during his globe-trotting. “Some of the great destinations that I would suggest are Copacabana Beach in Rio Di Janeiro, Brazil, the Kovalom Beach in India, Colonia at Micronesia- Margarita in Venezuela and Mala Mala at Nadi Fiji.”

“The towns at the foot of the Alps, Andes or Himalayas are just magnificent. I came across breath-taking views at Black River, Amazon.”

Environmental Impacts

On a visit to the island nation of Tuvalu in the Pacific Ocean, the potential impact of global warming was brought home to Mr Samaddar. The island is one of the most vulnerable places to the ice caps melting with the highest point on the island being only 5 metres above sea level and could end up being completely submerged by rising water levels. “It is one of the least polluting countries in the world but faces a threat because of the pollution. 35 years down the line, if nothing is done, this island will not exist,” Kashi commented.

Although Mr Samaddar visited many beautiful countries and had many wonderful experiences on his journey, there have been a few unfortunate moments that fellow travellers can associate with. “Once I was travelling from Somalia to Djibouti with my wife Barnali and we lost our luggage that had important documents. That was a difficult trip,”. Mr Samaddar has taken his wife with him for his travels as often as he can do and she has personally visited over 70 countries with her husband during his journey.

Now that Mr Samaddar has returned home to Dubai and finished his journey, for the moment, he has set up a website (http://www.ttpglobal.com/) dedicated to aiding fellow travellers sharing the same difficulties in gaining visas and hopes to continue his travels at a later date.

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