He’d struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder since childhood, however Cameron Mofid says that there was one factor that helped him cope — traveling the world.
Mofid, who’s initially from San Diego, discovered that he was continuously replaying and overanalyzing conversations or “obsessively needing closure or certainty.”
But the “freeing” sensation that got here with having the ability to hop on a aircraft and journey to a new vacation spot made him really feel as if he may “live with uncertainty.”
“OCD feeds on control: controlling your environment, routines, and outcomes,” Mofid tells NCS Travel.
“But when you’re navigating chaotic borders, sleeping on floors, or figuring things out in countries where you don’t speak the language, you’re forced to surrender control. It’s uncomfortable, but also freeing.”
This 25-year-old American has traveled to every country on this planet
Mofid says the mental health situation — which the Mayo Clinic describes as a “pattern of unwanted thoughts and fears known as obsessions” — can “dominate your thoughts and actions in ways that are exhausting” and tough to clarify.
“Travel became my way of coping — first as an escape, then as a form of healing,” he provides.
And then, journey turned Mofid into a world report breaker.
Having already clocked up visits to many locations whereas enjoying tennis competitively, he got here up with the concept of traveling to every country on this planet whereas grappling with OCD throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
And in April 2025, Mofid, who’s of Iranian-Egyptian descent, lastly accomplished his quest to go to all 195 UN-recognized international locations and territories after leaping on a aircraft to North Korea with some of his closest pals.
While it’s a feat that has been achieved solely by an estimated 400 individuals, it was significantly important for Mofid as he grew to become, by some reckoning, the youngest particular person to do it.
His report didn’t stand for lengthy, however he says being uncovered to so many alternative cultures has modified his perspective on life fully.
“Visiting every country wasn’t just about geography,” says Mofid. “It was about learning how to live with uncertainty, find calm in discomfort, and connect with people from every walk of life.”
Mofid says the choice to strive to go to every country got here as a lifeline throughout a significantly low level.
“One day, I was in my apartment, and my anxiety, my OCD is kind of spiraling out of control,” he recollects.
“And I was on my pc simply trying up randomly how many individuals had ever been to every country.
“More people had been to space than had been to every country in the world,” he says. “I thought that was crazy.”
Mofid quickly realized that whereas the Guinness World Record for being the youngest particular person to do this was held by 21-year-old, he was technically ready to beat the report listed by on-line platform NomadMania, which requires interactions with locals and visits to cultural or geographical landmarks in every country for it to depend towards the report.
“The record was (held by) a guy who was 25 and a half,” he says. “At the time I was 20. And I mentioned, ‘Maybe that’s an incredible, loopy purpose that I may attain.’
Feeling impressed, Mofid, who had beforehand labored in advertising and marketing, arrange an occasion advertising and marketing firm to earn sufficient money to find a way to obtain his purpose, giving himself a three-year deadline to start the problem.
“I told myself, after I graduated college, I would (begin,) which is what I did,” he says.
Although he’d traveled to some international locations as a youngster, he determined to “restart,” solely counting these he’d visited from the age of 18 onwards.
Thanks to the 100 or so international locations clocked up throughout his in depth travels whereas working within the tennis business, in addition to journeys he’d handle to squeeze in throughout his research, Mofid wanted to journey to simply over 90 new international locations to full the problem.
In order to be certain that he did so “legitimately,” Mofid got here up with a checklist of his personal private necessities, whereas adhering to these set out by NomadMania.
“My rule was I had to do something in each country,” he says. “Something meaningful. Most countries, I stayed at least four days.”
Mofid then created a “massive spreadsheet” detailing the quite a few combos of flights and routes he may take, alongside with the numerous visas he’d want to acquire.
“It was a logistical nightmare,” he says, earlier than explaining that he opted for the mix of flights and routes that “made the most sense financially to do on such a budget.”
In late 2022, Mofid “threw a bunch of clothes into a Nike duffle bag,” alongside with some footwear, and started the journey that might see him be part of the membership of vacationers who’ve visited all 195 UN-recognized international locations and territories on this planet.
“I started with the countries around Europe,” he explains, admitting that he wished to work his method up to the “ultra dangerous countries” by starting with people who he was extra snug traveling to.
“And then maybe the South American ones. Australia, these sorts of countries that are not seen as dangerous.”
To maintain prices as little as potential, Mofid took many in a single day buses and stayed in finances lodging.
“I stayed in some two-star hotels,” he says. “I stayed in a hotel in the country of Niger with no electricity and no running water… I’ve hitchhiked in crazy countries to get to the next border.”
During a go to to his a hundred and fifteenth country, West Africa’s Nigeria, in January 2023, Mofid visited a floating village named Makoko and was so impacted by the expertise that he went on to discovered a nonprofit group named Humanity Effect, to help kids locally.
“That’s something that kind of is the biggest legacy for my travels, I suppose…” he says, explaining that he has returned to the village a number of occasions through the years.
However, Mofid’s journey definitely wasn’t with out its setbacks.
After traveling to North African country Algeria in April 2024, Mofid grew to become extraordinarily sick and says he was unable to transfer from his mattress for 15 hours.
“I couldn’t even reach over to grab my phone to call anyone,” he recollects. “I started having weird visions, hallucinating, sweating like crazy. I was so hot, and then I was freezing.”
Mofid concedes that this was in all probability the one level within the journey when he critically thought-about giving up.
Highs and lows
“That was the closest I got to a breaking point,” he says. “Where I just thought to myself, ‘Why am I here? Why am I essentially in a state of paralysis in the middle of the Algerian Sahara?’”
Thankfully, he recovered after being admitted into a hospital and was ready to totally expertise Algeria, which Mofid describes as “unbelievable.”
“It’s one of my favorite countries in the whole world,” he says, noting that “the countries that receive the least amount of tourism are often the ones where you have the best experience, because you feel totally immersed in their culture.”
Mofid was additionally extremely taken with Yemen, after visiting the vacation spot in February 2023, and says strolling by way of the streets there was like “going back in time.”
“To see people dress the same way that they were hundreds if not thousands of years ago,” he says.
“To see people living in mud houses, to see people still using flip phones.”
Both Algeria and Yemen are topic to US State Department journey advisories. Caution is urged in Algeria due to “terrorism and kidnapping. In March 2025, an advisory said travelers should avoid Yemen “due to terrorism, civil unrest, crime, health risks, kidnapping, armed conflict, and landmines.”
“It’s a country that’s obviously in a very politically and economically difficult spot right now,” Mofid says about Yemen. “But again, what you find is that the countries that are in some of the worst situations have the kindest people.”
While he says he was grateful to be doing one thing so few individuals have both the time, means, or need to tackle, Mofid admits that he felt extremely lonely a lot of the time.
“The reality is that 95% of the time I was alone,” he says. “You have to actually study to get snug being lonely and type of adore it in a method.
“To love actually getting to know your self, since you’re going months on finish with out seeing anybody that you realize in locations the place there’s perhaps not a lot of connectivity…
“So that sort of loneliness can be very isolating at times. But at the same time, it really pushed me to make friends and meet people.”
Aged 25, he visited North Korea, the ultimate country on his checklist, by collaborating within the Pyongyang International Marathon, an annual race held within the capital metropolis.
“That trip was just incredible. I mean, getting off the plane and touching down in my 195th and final country…” he says.
“I became the youngest person to ever visit every country per NomadMania, barely. I beat the guy that was the previous record holder by I think, six weeks.”
Mofid celebrated reaching his “grand finale finish line” by heading to a bar with his pals.
“That was the big celebration, to have some beers in the world’s most isolated and remote country,” he says.
“We went to a dive bar. People don’t even know they have those in North Korea, but they do.”
Pferdmenges Lucas, 23, from Germany, might have since overwhelmed Mofid’s report, in accordance to NomadMania’s UN Master’s list.
Mofid significantly loved getting the chance to watch individuals within the country “going about their daily lives” and doing easy issues resembling operating, commuting to work, and enjoying video games with one another.
“I think that kind of sums up what I had learned throughout the whole journey,” he says. “We have shared pursuits, we’ve got shared hobbies…
“So those sorts of things, seeing that innate ability of humans wanting to connect with each other in the most isolated country in the world was something extraordinarily powerful.”
Now again in California, Mofid is slowly readjusting to being in a single place for an prolonged interval of time.
Reflecting on his journey, he admits that he’s extremely proud of himself, and has discovered that “no one is going to believe in you as much as you do yourself.”
“When I told my friends and my family that I had this mission, I was going to visit every country in the world, not a single one of them told me that I could do it,” he recollects.
“They all said, ‘You’re going to go to Afghanistan and North Korea and Somalia and Yemen and the Congo, and you’re going to get yourself killed.’”
Mofid was ready to make “hundreds of friendships” all through his travels, and continues to be in contact with many of these he met alongside the best way.
“It just goes to show the goodness of humanity,” he says. “The fact that I could walk down a street and a busy slum in Central Africa and be welcomed with a smile, a glass of tea and an invitation of dance.”
During the course of the journey, Mofid met many others who struggled with mental health problems like his, and says that this helped him immensely.
“Travel helped me recognize that mental health disorders don’t discriminate,” he says.
“People from all over the world shared a lot of the same plights and challenges that I did with my own mental health, and there’s something very comforting in that.”
Mofid nonetheless struggles with OCD to this day, and says he’s accepted that it’s going to at all times be a half of his life in “some capacity.”
“But being able to accept that and speak so openly about my experiences, makes it so much less scary,” says Mofid.
“And I feel like now, seven years after this whole journey began, I’m in control of my OCD, whereas before it was in control of me.”