Cassie De Pecol, a 27-year-old girl from Connecticut, is set to see the world. Unlike most travelers, her goal is to be the fastest person to visit the whole world.
According to the Independent, Cassie De Pecol started her journey 16 months ago and has only 20 more countries left to visit before she reaches her goal of 196 countries. If she makes it, she will be the first female to do it, and beating Yili Lui, the current record holder who took 3 years and 3 months to finish.
De Pecol has already spent $200,000 including airfare of 254 flights on her journey as stated in a report by Forbes. This was made possible by some donations from sponsors as well as being able to get free rooms from luxury eco-hotels in exchange for her promotion via Instagram posts.
A photo posted by ᶜᴬˢˢᴵᴱ ᴰᴱ ᴾᴱᶜᴼᴸ| ᴼᶠᶠᴵᶜᴵᴬᴸ ᴾᴬᴳᴱ (@expedition_196) on Jul 9, 2016 at 2:33am PDT
On top of her trip, Cassie De Pecol is also working on a few projects, collecting water specimens for Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, and acting as an ambassador for the International Institute of Peace Through Tourism. She stays for 2 to 5 days on each country meeting with other tourism leaders and visiting schools.
In an interview, Cassie said that she was not really much of a traveler before she started. She also had several jobs before she took on her quest from web development, sales, childcare, and marketing. Though she developed great relationships with the people she worked with and really enjoyed taking care of children, she felt that she will not have any career growth there.
De Pecol also did not want others to keep her from doing what she wants that is why she kept the plan to herself until she felt that she was 100% sure of pursuing it. Halfway through, she finally shared her plan to her family and friends and she was overwhelmed at how supportive they all were.
As of December 4, 2016, Cassie De Pecol is six countries away to achieving her goal. Despite her achievements, not everyone supports her due to their trips not a legitimate traveling for others. Some people believed that true traveling is immersing themselves into the culture, tradition, and people the country has to offer. But, because of her short stints, not everyone is a big fan of her.
