About Me Aside from my travels, I'm simply an average person working a full time job and enjoying life at home just like everyone else. As of now I'm 30 years and I currently live in Springfield Virginia which is where I was also born and raised. My interest in traveling is something that slowly grew on me over time. My very first trip was to Costa Rica when I was invited by my old neighbors. This trip is what certainly put the travel bug in me, and only a year later I was able to travel to Peru with my sister's best friends. From this point forward, I became an independent traveler and during my last year in high school I saved up enough money to be able to afford a trip to Africa and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. I had always assumed I would go straight to college after graduating high school, but as I had no idea what to major in and no money for college it didn't seem like the right choice for me at the time Seeking adventure and a challenge I joined the US Marines at the age of 18 for a 5 year enlistment. There I worked as an avionics technician, repairing all the electrical systems on F/A 18 fighter aircraft. I never went to Iraq or Afghanistan, but instead I spent 6 months on an aircraft carrier in Europe, and later 6 months in Asia on the ground. Top Left: Myself guarding our base only days after 9/11. Top Center: Aboard the USS Truman during a 6 month deployment in the Mediterraean. Top Right: Myself returning home after 6 months at sea along with two friends. I had known nothing about the military before I joined the Marines, but it ended up being an excellent choice for me. The skills I learned and the confidence I gained set a good solid foundation for the rest of my life. I had never intended to spend my life in the Marines, so there was no question that I would be leaving after my enlistment was up, and when I first was back in the civilian world life was great. People always ask how I'm able to manage my trips, and though I dislike talking about money I'll give this one example. I saved up $100 a week for 5 years during my enlistment, this resulted in me leaving the military at the age of 23 and not only being debt free but having over $25,000 saved up. With this I was able to use half of it to travel for several months visiting over 10 countries in every continent except for Africa and Europe. Top left: Returning to Korea as a civilian during my super trip. Top Center: Myself after a cold swim in Antarctica, completing my dream of visiting all 7 continents. Top Right: Rappelling in New Zealand in the Lost World. Returning home from my long trip wasn't easy. My lack of plan for my future regarding work and survival lead to a difficult year. Fortunately I had lots of money saved up still, so I was able to take my time figuring out life. As my life savings descending from a large amount to almost nothing, I began to panic, and life was very stressful. At one point I even worried I might never have the means to travel again, and all my previous trips were simply the best times in my life and would be nothing but good memories! Eventually I got myself out of the hole and I am now employed by a Japanese company working as a field engineer. Since then I've traveled to almost 20 new countries and have also climbed four more of the seven summits, or highest mountain on each continent. Though the great recession certainly has hurt me in recent years, I'm still able to follow my dreams and have had some significant progress towards my personal goals. About My Mission For most of my life I've always dreamed of some unique adventure of a lifetime or special challenge I could overcome. Unfortunately though, it just seemed that everything in this world had already been done by people thousands of times over. There are no new unexplored countries or uncharted islands to discover, the highest mountains have all been climbed, and the first person to reach the north and south poles accomplished this a century ago. One day in November 06 while I was hiking in Ecuador I realized how much traveling was my passion, how amazing this country was, but also that it was just one of over 200 countries in this world. Traveling to every country on the earth wasn't a new idea, it was just something I never really saw possible or took seriously. After all, if I visited a new country every few months, it would take me over 40 years to accomplish this goal, and how many people can afford an overseas vacation every 10 weeks much less get the time off work consistently for the next four decades? Despite the time and financial challenges, the dangers of visiting war torn and remote countries, and the impact it would have on my personal life, I suddenly felt like this was something I had to do, and strangely I felt like it might even be possible. I also plan to take this goal a step further, by visiting the most interesting places in all countries (never crossing the border just to say I've been there), climbing the highest mountains on each continent, and posting photos and stories. Since I returned from that trip in 06, I have stayed passionate about my goal. Well over 30 states from the US have been added and more than 25 new countries explored including 5 of the most dangerous. In addition to the traveling goals I've also conquered three more of the 7 Summits, including Denali which is the second most difficult. About My Photography Photography is something that I've slowly gotten passionate about. When I first began to travel I could careless about photos and would only bring a disposable camera which I used to take a few careless pictures. As I began to travel, I became more and more interested in photography, especially after I launched my website. From the start of my website in the fall of 06 to April of 08 I used a Panasonic Lumix FZ30. As an amateur photographer, I think this is a great camera and it served me well until I spilled juice on it while climbing Aconcagua. I then used my first SLR camera which was a Nikon D80 that I kept for about a year. I currently use a Nikon D300 which I purchased in 2009. I'm still very much an amateur photographer with a lot to learn. Every single photo on this web site was taken by me with no exceptions, unless of course I'm actually in the photo itself. The pictures on this site have also been resized and their quality lowered significantly so the web site will be more efficient. I have begun to attempt to sell some of my best photos as a means to raise money for future adventures such as mountain expeditions or polar expeditions. Use of my photos: All photos on this site are copyrighted and may not be posted on other sites without my permission. I felt the need to put this in writing after finding some of my own photos being used and distributed by random websites. If you would like to post one of my photos on your site, or purchase one please contact me at George@travelthewholeworld.com. About Dangerous Countries Unfortunately the world has many dangerous countries, and unfortunately I have no choice but to try to visit every single one of them. In 2007 I had posted on my website that I don't go out of my way to travel to dangerous places, but since then my philosophy on this has changed. Since I am serious and dedicated about my goal to visit every country in the world, I reason that the older I am the less likely it is for me to visit hot spots around the globe. If I'm 35 and married with kids is it realistic that I'll take some time off to backpack a war zone? More than likely my ambitions by then would have changed, and even if they haven't, it would be selfish of me to risk my life while my family wonders if they will ever see me again. In most dangerous countries the longer you're there, the more likely you are to die, therefore I try to do the things on my list for those places in minimal time. The US state department currently publishes a list of about 30 countries to avoid travel to. Of these I have stepped foot in many of them, but I have completely checked of five of these from my list which I believe are in the top 10 most dangerous list. Since I have no ambitions to get myself killed, I will never just blindly arrive to some dangerous country. Finding a reliable contact on the ground in dangerous places where most do not have internet and their motives might be in question can be very difficult. I have tried to plan trips to several other places such as Pakistan, Algeria, Nigeria and more but nothing seems to hold together. Sudan was finally the exception where I felt confident I would be visiting the country with reliable people, then 8 months later Afghanistan came along followed by Haiti, Somalia and Yemen most recently. From now on, I do plan to try to focus on knocking out what I believe to be the most dangerous countries, but here and there I will take a more normal vacation and go to more ideal destinations.

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