On Thursday, Danas Pankevičius, a Lithuanian traveller, announced that he had successfully visited every country on the planet. His achievement was 25 years in the making.
“After 25 years of non-stop travelling, I am happy to have finally visited all the countries of our beautiful planet. Every single one. The last one was Turkmenistan,” Pankevičius posted on Facebook.
He has been officially recognised by the record-keeping organisation Rekordų Akademija (Academy of Records) as the first Lithuanian national to visit each country on earth.
“I’ve climbed mountains, swum oceans, stumbled through deserts in the worst heat. I swam naked in Antarctica. I’ve slept for years in a hammock or a tent in the jungle or other remote places. I’ve dived for sunken ships and planes. I’ve watched great white sharks from a metre away. I’ve travelled across the African continent by land. I’ve crossed the entire Amazon River. And I came home overland from Singapore.
“I’ve visited dozens of different tribes, living with them and observing their daily lives. I’ve met many wild animals along the way. I’ve searched for diamonds and any kind of food. Sometimes, it was something you wouldn’t even dare to taste. I’ve drank water from puddles, or rivers in the rainforest. I’ve seen wars and poverty. I’ve seen luxury. I’ve travelled by every conceivable means of transport, even stopping the longest freight train in its tracks, as there was simply no other way to get out of a remote area. I’ve interacted with people from all countries,” he shared.
According to Rekordų Akademija, Pankevičius has visited all 195 countries recognised by the United Nations.
“[The organisation] checked every country in detail – I had to provide proof. It’s not just a stamp in the passport, but more than that – evidence of all kinds. You can fly into a country, stay at the airport and fly out, but it doesn’t really count as a visit. All the information that I have visited and travelled in each country has been thoroughly checked,” Pankevičius told LRT.lt.
As part of the evidence pack, Pankevičius presented 10 passports and two huge binders full of various documents.
According to him, it is not difficult to travel so much.
“Nowadays, it’s much easier. A lot of people are travelling because they can work online, remotely. Even I organise trips, but I can do it anywhere in the world,” he told LRT TV.
Usually, he travels without a plan: “I don’t like to put myself in a box – wherever the wind blows, I go.”
The traveller says he spends around one month a year in Lithuania and usually comes back to his homeland when there are no more free pages in his passport and he needs to get a new one
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