Some of the greatest things that happened to me were actually the misadventures, as I call them, things that went wrong, not because I enjoyed them.
At the time, when I was getting deported from Eritrea, you know, when I was sleeping on the floor of airports in central Africa or getting in a car accident in Italy, or different things that happened, I didn't enjoy those at the time, but they gave me confidence.
You know, they helped me realize I'm going to be okay.
Ten years ago, Chris Guillebeau mounted a quest to do the impossible to visit every country in the world.
Along the way, he's been hassled, deported, detained, harassed and threatened.
But far more often, he's been welcomed and embraced, discovered the brilliance of a deeply connected world, built a global community of unconventional adventurers, and maybe more importantly, he experienced how an intensely challenging, years long quest changes you in ways he likely never saw coming.
I'm Jonathan Fields, this is good life project.
My guest today is Chris Guillebeau.
Ten years ago, he began a journey that evolved into a quest to visit all 193 countries in the world, something only a handful of people in the history of the planet have done.
And all before his 35th birthday.
He completed that quest in April 2014 and writes about this in an astonishing new book, the Happiness of Pursuit.
In today's conversation, we explore this remarkable person and journey.
So you spent ten years on a quest that puts you really in a league of only a handful of people in history.
What was your why and how did this evolve?
So I began as a traveler.
I just began as someone who loved to travel, and I didn't have a goal established for it.
I just loved being out in the world and exploring different places and making discoveries, meeting new people, just kind of challenging myself along the way.
But I did like the idea of structure.
I was always a list maker.
I liked to write things down and check things off.