‘It was a form of healing’: How travelling to every country helped this American cope with a mental health disorder

In April 2025, Cameron Mofid from California became one of the few people in the world to have travelled to all 195 UN-recognized countries and territories. Mofid is pictured in North Korea, the final country on his list. (Courtesy Cameron Mofid via CNN Newsource)

He’d struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder since childhood, but Cameron Mofid says that there was one thing that helped him cope — travelling the world.

Mofid, who is originally from San Diego, found that he was constantly replaying and overanalyzing conversations or “obsessively needing closure or certainty.”

But the “freeing” sensation that came with being able to hop on a plane and travel to a new destination made him feel as though he could “live with uncertainty.”

“OCD feeds on control: controlling your environment, routines, and outcomes,” Mofid tells CNN 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.”

Huge goal

Mofid says the mental health condition — 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 difficult to explain.

“Travel became my way of coping — first as an escape, then as a form of healing,” he adds.

And then, travel turned Mofid into a world record breaker.

Having already clocked up visits to many destinations while playing tennis competitively, he came up with the idea of travelling to every country in the world while grappling with OCD during the Covid-19 pandemic.

And in April 2025, Mofid, who is of Iranian-Egyptian descent, finally completed his quest to visit all 195 UN-recognized countries and territories after jumping on a plane to North Korea with some of his closest friends.

While it’s a feat that has been achieved only by an estimated 400 people, it was particularly significant for Mofid as he became, by some reckoning, the youngest person to do it.

His record didn’t stand for long, but he says being exposed to so many different cultures has changed his perspective on life completely.

“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 decision to try to visit every country came as a lifeline during a particularly low point.

“One day, I was in my apartment, and my anxiety, my OCD is kind of spiraling out of control,” he recalls.

“And I was on my computer just looking up randomly how many people 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 soon realized that while the Guinness World Record for being the youngest person to do this was held by 21-year-old, he was technically able to beat the record listed by online platform NomadMania, which requires interactions with locals and visits to cultural or geographical landmarks in each country for it to count toward the record.

“The record was (held by) a guy who was 25 and a half,” he says. “At the time I was 20. And I said, ‘Maybe that’s an amazing, crazy goal that I could reach.’

Feeling inspired, Mofid, who had previously worked in marketing, set up an event marketing company to earn enough cash to be able to achieve his goal, giving himself a three-year deadline to begin the challenge.

“I told myself, after I graduated college, I would (begin,) which is what I did,” he says.

Although he’d travelled to some countries as a child, he decided to “restart,” only counting those he’d visited from the age of 18 onwards.

Thanks to the 100 or so countries clocked up during his extensive travels while working in the tennis industry, as well as trips he’d manage to squeeze in during his studies, Mofid needed to travel to just over 90 new countries to complete the challenge.

In order to ensure that he did so “legitimately,” Mofid came up with a list of his own personal requirements, while adhering to those 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.”

‘Logistical nightmare’

Mofid then created a “massive spreadsheet” detailing the numerous combinations of flights and routes he could take, along with the many visas he’d need to obtain.

“It was a logistical nightmare,” he says, before explaining that he opted for the combination 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,” along with some shoes, and began the journey that would see him join the club of travellers who’ve visited all 195 UN-recognized countries and territories in the world.

“I started with the countries around Europe,” he explains, admitting that he wanted to work his way up to the “ultra dangerous countries” by beginning with those that he was more comfortable travelling to.

“And then maybe the South American ones. Australia, these sorts of countries that are not seen as dangerous.”

To keep costs as low as possible, Mofid took many overnight buses and stayed in budget accommodation.

“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 visit to his 115th country, West Africa’s Nigeria, in January 2023, Mofid visited a floating village named Makoko and was so impacted by the experience that he went on to found a nonprofit organization named Humanity Effect, to support children in the community.

“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 several times over the years.

However, Mofid’s journey certainly wasn’t without its setbacks.

After travelling to North African country Algeria in April 2024, Mofid became extremely ill and says he was unable to move from his bed for 15 hours.

“I couldn’t even reach over to grab my phone to call anyone,” he recalls. “I started having weird visions, hallucinating, sweating like crazy. I was so hot, and then I was freezing.”

Mofid concedes that this was probably the only point in the journey when he seriously considered 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 able to fully experience 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 also incredibly taken with Yemen, after visiting the destination in February 2023, and says walking through 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 subject to US State Department travel advisories. Caution is urged in Algeria due to “terrorism and kidnapping. In March 2025, an advisory said travellers 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 something so few people have either the time, means, or desire to take on, Mofid admits that he felt incredibly lonely a lot of the time.

“The reality is that 95% of the time I was alone,” he says. “You have to really learn to get comfortable being lonely and kind of love it in a way.

“To love really getting to know yourself, because you’re going months on end without seeing anyone that you know in places where there’s maybe 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 final country on his list, by participating in the Pyongyang International Marathon, an annual race held in the capital city.

“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.”

Big celebration

Mofid celebrated reaching his “grand finale finish line” by heading to a bar with his friends.

“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, may have since beaten Mofid’s record, according to NomadMania’s UN Master’s list.

Mofid particularly enjoyed getting the opportunity to watch people in the country “going about their daily lives” and doing simple things such as running, commuting to work, and playing games with each other.

“I think that kind of sums up what I had learned throughout the whole journey,” he says. “We have shared interests, we have 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 back in California, Mofid is slowly readjusting to being in one place for an extended period of time.

Reflecting on his journey, he admits that he’s incredibly proud of himself, and has learned 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 recalls.

“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 able to make “hundreds of friendships” throughout his travels, and is still in touch with many of those he met along the 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 disorders 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 still struggles with OCD to this day, and says he’s accepted that it will always be a part 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.”