As the uncommon sight of land appeared on the horizon, Egyptian traveler Omar Nok jumped from his slim bunk and climbed as much as the deck of the 49-foot sailboat he’d been traveling on.
After weeks of being surrounded by nothing however the ocean, the sight of the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, house to the UNESCO-listed Piton mountains, left him frozen with awe.
It was the tenth cease in an bold quest for the 31-year-old traveler, who’s making an attempt to circle the globe without flying.
The sailboat served as one other car so as to add to his unconventional record of modes of transportation.
Since setting off in October, Nok has been hopping on ships, using camels and counting on strangers’ generosity as he continues his no-fly journey in a bid to expertise the world extra deeply.
“The no-flying part makes it easier to see more of the world,” Nok advised NCS. “There’s also a special kind of pride in arriving somewhere far, because the distance reminds you of everything it took to get there.”
This philosophy has taken him throughout deserts, land borders, and oceans — and into locations few outsiders ever see.
Nok says his urge for food for exploration started in childhood however accelerated throughout a 2018 journey to the Balkans, when he booked a one-way flight to Romania from Egypt and a return from Montenegro two weeks later, leaving the remainder of the route “unknown.”
He later left a finance job at Amazon in 2022 to journey full-time, dwelling off his financial savings whereas spending frugally. Since then, Nok’s adventures have solely grown bolder, with journeys overland from Egypt to East Asia.
Nok, who holds each an Egyptian passport and one from a European Union nation, got here up with the thought of traveling round the world without flying throughout a seven-month journey to Japan in 2024.
The thought was impressed by Danish traveler Torbjørn “Thor” Pedersen, who visited 203 nations over practically 10 years without boarding a airplane.
While staying in the Japanese city of Shinshushinmachi, Nok was launched to “Ikigai,” a Japanese philosophy about dwelling a joyful life. He realized that his personal Ikigai was to undertake a long-term, no-flying journey round the globe.
Just months later, Nok was en route. He left Cairo in October 2025, making his manner throughout Egypt to Libya.
Nok has been documenting his journey on social media, constructing an viewers of practically one million throughout Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, and his actions are being live-tracked by way of the journey app Polarsteps.
His on-line supporters have already proved helpful. The visa for his first border crossing, into Libya, required an invite letter, which one of his Instagram followers helped set up.
He hopes his adventures will encourage these holding monitor of him.
“Some people told me that their faith in humanity was restored by watching my journey. And that’s the best part,” Nok stated. “That’s the biggest win.”
Another early problem was traversing northern Libya between Benghazi and Tripoli — a journey fraught with threat that almost all vacationers would decide to make by air.
Nok discovered himself in a shared van on an in a single day journey that was cramped and tense. Checkpoints dotted the freeway and at one level, his paperwork was rejected, stalling his progress.
“I’m not easily stressed, but at this point I was super stressed,” he remembers.
Luckily, an area buddy got here to his support, and he was capable of make it to his subsequent vacation spot, Medenine in Tunisia
He then traveled to France and Spain, making it to the Canary Islands, positioned off northwest Africa, on a 30-hour ferry trip, earlier than crusing to the Caribbean.
Buses, trains and cars
His varied modes of transportation alongside the manner have ranged from buses, trains, vans, hitchhiking, horses, motorbikes, gradual boats, sea barges, bicycles and even a poultry truck.
After making landfall on St. Lucia, he’s since began to island-hop northwest, reaching the Dominican Republic.
From right here, he hopes to finally attain the East Coast of the US. He plans to go to Canada and then journey west earlier than heading south to Mexico.
With the world at present going through heightened instability, it’s unclear if or how the present Middle East disaster will impression his journey additional down the line. Nok stays hopeful, preferring to not give a lot weight to politics. What issues to him most, he says, are locations, meals, and individuals.
“It can be a polarized world, but honestly, it’s more government-related than everyday-people-related. And most of the world is made up of people, not governments,” he defined.
Boarding that sailboat to St. Lucia in December wasn’t a simple process — Nok spent three weeks making an attempt to attach with sailors in the Las Palmas marina in Gran Canaria, the third-largest of the Canary Islands, seeking a ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
He faces the identical challenges making an attempt to cross the Caribbean Sea however says he’s assured there’s at all times a manner ahead — so long as it doesn’t contain planes.