‘I feared for my life’: record-setting US traveler says he was held as possible spy

An American man who set a world record while traveling to every country on the globe says he has been temporarily detained as a possible spy by four different nations.

“I feared for my life several times,” Indy Nelson told Guinness World Records in an interview the organization published on its website recently. “There were definitely several times that I did not think that I was going to get out of that country. [But] by the fourth time, it was like, ‘No big deal anymore.’”

According to what the native of Hayward, California, said to Guinness World Records, the countries which surmised he was potentially spying were Iran, Russia, Libya and Papua New Guinea. They collectively held him in custody for a total of about 24 hours before deciding he was not engaged in espionage and freeing him, he recounted to the group which is renowned for curating a database of more than 40,000 records.

Nelson said he got the idea to set foot in every country on the planet while on a spring break to North Korea, an unusual destination for a kind of vacation that many US college students instead spend on the beach. He said he obtained an $80,000 loan after graduating college and embarked on his international journey.

Since then, he has flown on 170 different airlines – most during an 18-month jaunt across the world that he started in 2017, when he was 22. Guinness World Record verified on 14 July that Nelson’s tally of airlines flown shattered the previous mark of 156, which Ryuji Furusho had previously established from 1996 to 2014.

Perhaps what is most remarkable about the 500 flights that Nelson took during his assault on Furusho’s record is his assertion that only two of them were canceled. And both landed him free hotel stays while waiting for the flights on which he had been rebooked, he told Guinness World Records.

Nelson credited his flights’ high completion rate to prioritizing morning departure times, saying those are less likely to result in a cancelation or delay. He also said turbulence was the worst on-board trouble he has had despite all of the aerial trips he has made.

The best airlines in Nelson’s opinion are Emirates and Qatar Airways, though he said “any in the Middle East are awesome”, according to his interview with Guinness.

Culture and “super-friendly” locals made Cambodia his favorite country to visit, said Nelson, who described having to navigate his way through a number of war-torn areas despite efforts to avoid zones of conflict.

He added that encounters with “not too friendly” people made Comoros – a small group of islands off Africa’s south-eastern coast – his least favorite country to visit, which is saying something, given the receptions he recalled Iran, Russia, Libya and Papua New Guinea giving him.

Nelson said he did not mean to surpass Furusho’s record for patronizing the most airlines flown – and only realized he had done so upon returning home.

For now, Nelson told Guinness, he is pausing his travels to focus on building a telecommunication startup dedicated to providing mobile data to underserved communities, saying his worldwide travels inspired him to pursue the opportunity.

He also advised aspiring globetrotters to “just do it”.

“Do it when you’re young. Get out of your comfort zone … It changes your foundation, changes who you are, changes your view of the world.”