This woman traveled to 100 countries and all 7 continents before her 30th birthday — all on her own dime
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Melissa Roy will take couch surfing in a stranger's house over a hotel room any day.
She wishes that people would be a little more trusting. Instead of warily asking locals for directions and walking away, she stays in their homes, views the world through their eyes, and swears it's the best way to travel.
However, Roy knows that trusting people isn't always easy to do. After a tumultuous childhood in Indiana, all she wanted to do was leave everything — and everyone — behind.
She set herself a goal of visiting 100 countries and all seven continents by age 30 — and did it. She also did it all on her own dime — a rarity in an age of sponsored Instagram travel celebrities and branded #wanderlust.
Now 31 years old and at 109 countries, she hopes to one day see them all.
After what she calls a “traumatic” childhood involving restraining orders and custody battles, Roy longed to explore new places. “I just never liked being at home,” she said. “I always wanted to be out and get my mind off things.” She spent her sophomore year of college studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and knew that she'd found her calling.
While most students went home for their winter break, Roy worked her way through South America. “I just traveled everywhere,” she said. “Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Machu Picchu — I got the travel bug and it never went away.”
She loved it so much that she did a Semester at Sea during her senior year. “You live on a giant cruise ship with 1,000 students and you circumnavigate the world,” she said. “We went to 12 countries in 100 days and saw all of the world wonders.”
After graduation, she invested in the stock market and took acting jobs in order to finance more adventures. Even her commercials contain odes to her love of travel, like when she played Alec Baldwin's assistant as he walks through an airport and boards a plane.
“I would go back to LA, work in Hollywood, do commercials, save up the money, and then travel,” she said.
By the time she turned 29, she'd been to 66 countries. That's when she decided to aim higher and reach 100 countries by her next birthday. “I was having a midlife crisis about turning 30, and I'm like, 'I haven't gotten married, I haven't had kids, I need to do something really cool before I turn 30 — what should I do?'” she said. “That's what sparked it.”
Roy moved through countries quickly. She spent about four or five days in each one. She found free accommodations in locals' homes around the world through Couchsurfing. “Couchsurfing is good because you get a local's perspective,” she said. “It's like having a VIP host in a country.”
By befriending her local hosts, she maximized her short stay in each destination. “Engaging with locals for three days is a fuller experience than staying for two weeks,” she said.
She became certified as a Divemaster in Panama.
She visited Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and other countries in the Middle East, but couldn't secure a visa to Saudi Arabia. “I'm determined to find a way,” she said.
She also crossed the notoriously tense border from Colombia to Venezuela on foot. The border has been shut down several times over the last few years due to rising tensions amid Venezuela's political and economic crises. “I like really off-the-beaten-path kind of places,” she said.
One year and 34 countries later, she celebrated her 30th birthday in Antarctica. “Antarctica was unforgettable,” she said. “It's everything you would dream about.”
She hopes to eventually see every country in the world — but there's no hard deadline for that. “I don't want to start living a normal life where you have kids and a mortgage and a husband and a desk job,” she said. “I just want to keep doing this, because I love this life.”
Read the original article on INSIDER. Follow INSIDER on Facebook. Copyright 2017. Follow INSIDER on Twitter.
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Read the original article on Business Insider UK. © 2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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