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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-08-25
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMM-mr4CTY0
who in their right mind would travel alone two hundred ninety six countries when someone finds out I've done something that no other woman on this planet has done and broken to Guinness world records they usually have a few questions for me they want to know how I pulled that off what my experience was like and why even did it in the first place today I'm excited
to share with you how it took me three years to plan and raise money for the eighteen month trip what my experience was like traveling alone is a woman and I'm gonna talk about something I've never talked about publicly before the real reason why I did this expedition so how did I do it hundred ninety six country sounds easy enough rape I knew this expedition was
going to be a huge endeavor and the first step was figuring out all the rules for breaking a Guinness world record there are so many rules both big and small like how I was only allowed to take scheduled public transportation to and from each country I wasn't allowed to drive a car while on the Guinness clock and there were limitations as to how far I could
travel in a taxi I also had to prove that I'd been in each country which is harder than you think many countries throughout Europe and Central America don't stamp passport so I had to find different ways to document everything I collected photos videos countless tickets GPS coordinates signed witness statements critic her bells and even phone logs next time you go North Korea you can forget about
bring your phone they don't stamp passports you can't use your credit card in Kingman junk hoon is not going to give you an autograph you can you can however send a pre approved propaganda postcard Sir showing a fist crushing the Pentagon and then there was the most challenging rule of all I wasn't allowed to spend more than fourteen days in the country this didn't seem like
a big deal at first but I wasn't always able to predict when I received my visas this rule almost ended my expedition in country number one hundred and ninety six Yemen first the U. S. embassy wouldn't let me in due to high terrorist activity in Yemen and then the Oman authorities wouldn't let me out to the situation Yemen I think it's a major risk of being
stuck on the mainland of Yemen but after two attempts of trying to cross the border I watched in the night as a rusted steel gates pushed back and I was finally let back into Oman but that's a challenge came how we pay for this expedition a most people think that I must be rich or that I'm just this young blonde American girl leisurely troubling the world's
not have to do a single day of work but they couldn't be more wrong I didn't grow up in a family with a lot of money in facts I had to put myself through college and I wasn't able to finish my degree because I couldn't afford it so with I I knew that with this expedition I'd have to find creative ways with having to figure out
how to fund it I spent countless hours developing business plans finding financial backers blogging filming an educational documentary so that I could pay for all on my own remember the time and effort it took you to plan your last vacation now imagine doing it a hundred ninety six times and all on your own what I thought would take me six months to plan actually took me
three years so what was it like in four words it was exhilarating it was exhausting it was scary and it was I opening whether you've been to five countries or a hundred and fifty you probably have your own personal unique experience related to each place we all have our own way of traveling and discovering a culture and it doesn't matter what you see here where you
go what matters is your own experience while you're there some people think that only spending a week or an hour in the country doesn't allow you enough time to see it but if there's one thing I know to be true it said just one brief experience can shape your whole life it was eleven PM on a Saturday night when I arrived in Cuba after traveling twelve
miles in the taxi I realized I only had twenty dollars cash on me Cuba didn't accept U. S. debit or credit card so when I got to the hotel I was unable to pay the hotel or the taxi driver I was so ashamed of the mistakes that I've made I rarely cry but that night I just sat on the side of the road and completely broke
down the taxi driver came over to me and said something like yo tengo tres E. ha sido entiendo Vienne and with my broken Spanish I understood that to be something like I have three daughters I'd hate for them to be in your position you can come stay with my family for the night at first I refused but then sheepishly agreed I don't know what his wife
would think of him bring home a young blonde American girl at midnight but when we arrived to their little concrete home she greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and made the bad for me it wasn't until the next morning when I saw her sleeping on a one inch thick foam pad on the kitchen floor with a floral sheet draped over her she had given
me her own bed to sleep Ben I had experiences like this over a hundred and ninety six times I have just a taste of what every country the world is like which for most people is unimaginable I know that non Muslim women can enter Saudi Arabia alone and without covering their heads I know that you consume with whales in Tonga and that you can cross the
Drake passage to an article in sixty mile per hour winds and thirty foot waves only to find tranquility and penguins on the other side these experiences that will support ever shave my view of the world but while this expedition was exhilarating it was also quite exhausting I spoke to over sixteen thousand students on countless issues I collected water samples and planted trees to offset my carbon
footprint I met with mayors ministers in films an educational documentary and I use social media as a means to showcase the beauty of countries around the world and encourage others to travel in ways that they never have before but what you don't see on Instagram is the constant exhaustion of working fifteen hour days or the raw fear that I felt I was a woman traveling alone
and many countries that I travel to were either inaccessible or dangerous or both imagine arriving to border control at two in the morning in Mogadishu Somalia and then I'm getting into an armed vehicle surrounded by pickup trucks filled with men with machine guns then imagine passing through for security gates just to get to the compound compound and then I'm showing you to your room and then
nonchalantly pointing out the safe room where you go in case you hear an explosion I wasn't sure if I bill tell my family if I becoming home or when and we all knew that was a possibility that I wouldn't make it back safely but I wouldn't trade these experiences for the world they were hard and scary yes but I discovered the goodness and people all around
the world because my expedition been featured N. tons of new channels around the world and hundreds of thousands of newspapers magazines and articles and we only have thirty seconds to answer the why question this is what I tell them I saw the opportunity to make history by breaking a speed record I wanted to break down misconceptions about women and as a traveling I wanted to test
my physical and mental endurance will also experiencing as much of the world as possible I wanted to inspire others and enhance the world we live in and leave a positive legacy behind I'm all of that is true this expedition actually started from a much darker place at the age of thirteen I started feeling like something was off but I was never able to pinpoint it I
didn't know why I was having these negative thoughts or these feelings of unexplained to sadness so I just ignored them as though they didn't exist and at the age of twenty one I travel with my brother for a month and he began to notice this unusual pattern of melancholy he blatantly asked me Cassie are you depressed I became so defensive I completely diverted from him and
again just shop these feelings aside spent the next two years running away for my own truth but those thoughts never seem to go away then two thousand fourteen I was casted for reality TV show called naked and afraid %HESITATION the show appears to strangers together to survive naked in the wilderness for twenty one days I've never been on TV before and I saw this as an
exciting opportunity to pull myself up but it's I was not prepared for what came next the editing made me look like a useless billin and worse viewers agreed I received hundreds of thousands I hate messages and death threats and still do to this very day I didn't know why so many people hated me or what I done wrong when I just try to do my very
best I don't know what to do next so I moved out to Los Angeles and picked up to babysitting jobs working eighty five hours a week just to make ends meet eventually I hit rock bottom and I felt like I had nothing else in me I sat on the cliff side in Malibu and wondered if me being alive had any positive impacts on society but then
I ask myself the question if I could do anything what would it be travel I still had feelings of melancholy an unexplained sadness throughout the expedition but at least I had a reason to learn how to manage it or attempt to overcome it but about a quarter the way through the expedition I ran out of money and I consider quitting and I realized I could not
leave my commitments behind my commitments to my sponsors to my family to my supporters to everyone and I had to finish when I started when you're at that very last moment and everything around you is caving in what's that one thing that'll pull you out for me that thing was true was travel and it ended up being a beautiful and life changing experience we are given
these magnificent mines and these powerful bodies and it doesn't matter where you come from your monetary status your religion your age how others judge you what your friends or family say you can or can't do it doesn't even matter what your dreams are none of that matters what matters is your truth you're either here on this earth for one more hour or you're here for one
hundred more years but the beauty is you'll never know so like female record breaker Amelia Earhart sad the most off active way to do it is to do it nothing else matters but the next step you take in the respect and growth but you owe to yourself so find that one thing that brings you just a little bit of excitement and devote yourself to a hundred
