I visited every country on earth but meeting suicide bombers at a wedding shocked me

Telegraph

22-04-2025

'I was kidnapped by terrorists in Mauritania. They kept us in a tent for three days in the desert. When they realised that we were nobodies they let us go. I still ask myself: 'why?''
Nicolas Pasquali is reflecting on the inevitable perils that come with joining the '193 club', an exclusive coterie of people who have travelled to every UN-recognised country. The Argentinian recently reached the goal by visiting North Korea when it reopened to foreign tourists in February.
'It was like a school trip,' he says, speaking over WhatsApp from Argentina. 'They put you on a bus, show you what they want you to see. There's all this propaganda everywhere, about how North Korea is the best, how they are going to smash the world. But we had a wonderful time. The people were curious about us.'
Despite being chaperoned and fed constant propaganda, North Korea was a holiday compared to Mauritania, where Pasquali and his hired driver were held against their will under canvas by militants who had posed as hitch-hikers. 'They wanted to know what we were doing there and made us pray with them, but they shared their food and treated us pretty well, actually,' he says.
Then there was Iraq, where he spent two nights behind bars after being arrested at a checkpoint.
'[The police] didn't believe that I was a tourist; they thought I was a spy,' he says. 'They were just doing their job. And it is suspicious, right? But they were friendly. They gave me chicken, we drank tea, they showed me pictures of their kids. Then they put me in a car and drove me to Baghdad and said that if I had a problem, I should call them.'
Having brown skin probably helped Pasquali in such situations, he admits. It certainly did in Afghanistan where he hung out with the Taliban.
'I met a guy who made weapons for the Taliban, and he wrote me this letter. It said that I was a great Muslim and a friend of his and so to look after me,' he says. 'I showed the letter at checkpoints, and it opened a lot of doors. People received me, they didn't let me pay for anything.
'They were extremely generous. I got invited to weddings and was introduced to [would-be] suicide bombers. They showed me their weapons. Maybe they're not around any more. I don't know. It's insane to think about.'
Pasquali, who is not Muslim, brushes off such dicey dealings as 'part of the game'. It takes a special kind of person to visit every country, he reckons. 'You don't know if you're going to make it,' he says. 'You have to be determined; you have to be a problem solver. I think that's what we all have in common.'
Only 370 people alive today are confirmed to have visited all 193 UN-recognised nations, according to NomadMania, which verifies people's claims and does not count airport layovers as legitimate trips (there are a further 66 claims that it could not verify).
The site keeps an online league table of the 'most travelled people on Earth', with founder Harry Mitsidis leading the pack.
Mitsidis has visited every nation twice because 'if I stay in one place for too long, I feel caged', he tells me over WhatsApp from a 'middle of nowhere' village in Nepal.
Ironically, Mitsidis has been caged a number of times on his travels – as many flag collectors have – including in Yemen where he spent a night in a cell with some cockroaches.
'It was miserable,' he says. 'But I deserved it because I was travelling without a visa. It's the only time I have entered a country illegally.'
Half-British, half-Greek, Mitsidis grew up between cultures which he credits with sparking his wanderlust. He lives in Kent but spent only 40 days at home last year.
His favourite places to hang out are the Silk Road – 'it's the link between east and west, truly fascinating' – and Latin America, where 'there are no rules but some sense of organisation – a winning combination'.
'I also love Romania,' he adds, 'but I can't rationally explain that.'
To begin with, Mitsidis' mission to visit every country was, he admits, a bit of a 'box ticking exercise', a restless quest for bragging rights. Nowadays he goes 'much deeper' and tries to immerse himself in cultures. 'I like to think that the movement has evolved like I have evolved,' he says. 'We're not just tickers any more.'
The every-country club is a tight-knit community and a broad church. 'Some people are very wealthy, others are washing dishes and saving for their next adventure,' says Mitsidis. 'We've got members from all over the world, and it really varies in terms of age. It does tend to be more masculine, though – about 75 per cent are men – but I see more women entering the space.'
Riza Rasco, a Filipino scientist, is one of them, having also just ticked off North Korea, her final country. She took on the challenge of visiting every nation after her mother died in 2013.
'My world was different after,' she says. 'I was in my early 40s, depressed and no longer wanted to be in the US, where I was working.' So she signed up to a nine-month overland trip around Africa, travelling in the back of an old military truck. 'It was very basic,' she says.
When her marriage fell apart in 2019, Rasco took to travelling full-time at a cost of around $50,000 (£39,000) per year, funded by renting out property. 'I stay in cheap accommodation,' she says. 'Once in a while I'll treat myself to a three-star hotel.'
Rasco goes deeper into destinations than most. 'I like spending time with tribes,' she says. 'I went into the Amazon to be with the matsés – the jaguar people – who have decorative whiskers. I like to dress up like the [native] women and learn what they do, so I went into the forest and gathered. But matsés women only wear skirts woven from leaves, so I was topless.'
Rasco, however, declined the local custom of imbibing hallucinogenic frog toxic. 'I was scared how my body would react,' she says. 'I was far from a hospital.'
Invariably, she's had brushes with danger, notably in Yemen. 'The rebels were firing bazookas around us on our way to the airport,' she says. 'The ground was shaking. It was scary.' Despite such experiences, she believes that '99 per cent of people are good' and the world is safer than we're led to believe.
Completing the task of visiting every nation begs an obvious question: what next?
'I'm writing a book about how places changed me,' says Rasco, who resettled in the Philippines where she leads projects to improve life in poor communities. 'The more I travelled, the more I wanted to belong. And where I belong is the Philippines.'
Pasquali has also settled in his native Argentina where he works in finance. 'My new purpose is to have a family,' he says. 'But first I need to find a girl.'
Mitsidis, meanwhile, keeps moving. Through NomadMania he has divided the world into 1,301 'distinct' regions and aims to visit them all.
'It's a good challenge without being absurd,' he says. 'I need constant change.'