How Many Countries Has Drew Binsky Visited

How many countries has Drew Binsky been to exactly

Drew Binsky has visited all 197 countries recognised by the United Nations, plus two permanent observer states. He completed this goal in October 2021 after a decade of near-constant travel, finishing in Saudi Arabia as his final country.

The total of 197 includes all 193 UN member states and the two observer states, Vatican City and Palestine. Binsky counts Taiwan separately, which brings his personal tally to 197 rather than the standard 195 often cited by other travellers who stick strictly to UN membership alone.

Fewer than 300 people worldwide have documented visits to every sovereign state, and Binsky is one of them. His journey began in 2012 when he moved to South Korea to teach English, and he used that base to explore Asia before gradually expanding to every continent over nine years of continuous travel.

Which list of countries does Drew Binsky follow

Drew Binsky counts countries by the standard United Nations list of 193 member states, and he adds two observer states: Vatican City and Palestine. That gives a total of 195. He finished visiting all 195 in 2021, and he refers to this as "every country in the world" in his videos and posts.

This is the most common benchmark among travel documentary makers and it is stricter than the list used by the Travelers' Century Club. The TCC counts 330 territories, including separately administered regions like Gibraltar, French Polynesia, and Guam. Binsky has visited many of those extra territories too, but he does not include them when he states his country count.

The UN list avoids debates about disputed borders and keeps a clear finish line. If you track your own count, the same 195 figure is easy to check on a map and keeps the number honest, without territories that need no separate visa or border crossing.

How long did it take Drew Binsky to visit every country

Drew Binsky visited every United Nations member state in just under a decade. His first trip abroad as an adult was a study abroad programme in Prague in 2012, and he touched down in his final country, Saudi Arabia, in October 2021. That makes roughly nine years from his first stamp to the last.

He did not set out to chase every country from the start. Binsky began teaching English in South Korea in 2013 and used his base there to explore Asia on weekends and holidays. He started tracking his country count seriously around 2015, when he launched his blog and realised he had already visited about 50 countries. From that point his pace picked up sharply. He visited most of his 197 countries in a busy five-year stretch from 2016 to 2021, treating travel as a full-time job and often visiting two or three new countries in a single week.

The final sprint came in 2021, despite global travel restrictions. Binsky used transit loopholes, special permits and chartered flights to reach his last few destinations, including Saudi Arabia, which he entered just as the kingdom opened its first tourist visa programme.

What counts as visiting a country for Drew Binsky

Drew Binsky requires three things before he counts a country as visited. He must set foot outside the airport, spend at least a few hours on the ground, and have at least one genuine interaction or experience beyond the transit zone. An airside connection, even overnight, does not make his list.

He has described this rule in interviews and on his YouTube channel. A quick fuel stop where you never leave the plane is out. A half-day layover where you exit immigration, eat a local meal and talk to someone qualifies. The test is whether he can recall a distinct memory from the place, not just a stamp in the passport.

For a handful of countries he has bent the rule slightly. In places where a full tourist visit was impossible due to conflict or closed borders, a brief but documented land crossing with a local guide has sometimes been enough. However, he still insists on leaving the immediate border area and meeting people who live there.

What can independent travellers learn from Drew Binsky's approach

Drew Binsky's decade on the road offers a few clear habits that work for any independent trip, whether you are ticking off a single region or aiming for a hundred countries. His style is less about speed and more about depth in the places he visits.

Slow travel is at the core of his philosophy. He often stays in a country for two to four weeks and picks one neighbourhood to walk daily, which builds a routine and turns strangers into familiar faces. That rhythm yields far stronger stories than a rushed two-day layover.

Several practical lessons stand out for anyone planning their own journey:

• Treat documentation as part of the experience, not a chore. A short daily note or a one-minute video clip builds a personal archive that sharpens your memory of small details.
• Learn five phrases in the local language before you land. A proper greeting and a thank-you open doors that English alone cannot.
• Say yes to invitations from locals when safety allows. A shared meal or a family gathering reveals a side of a place no guidebook can capture.
• Accept that discomfort is part of the deal. Long bus rides, language confusion and wrong turns are not failures. They are the moments you will tell people about later.
• Ignore the country count as a scoreboard. A single neighbourhood you know well teaches you more than a rushed tour of ten capitals.

You do not need a filmmaker's gear or a sponsor to apply these ideas. A phone, curiosity and a willingness to slow down will shift your trip from a checklist to a collection of real memories.

Which countries were the hardest for Drew Binsky to visit

Drew Binsky has spoken openly about the extreme difficulty of entering North Korea, Yemen, Syria and Equatorial Guinea. North Korea required him to join a tightly controlled state tour with minders present at all times, and he could only enter via Beijing on a pre-arranged group visa. Independent travel was not an option, and every interaction was monitored.

Yemen and Syria posed a different set of obstacles. Both countries had active conflict zones when he visited, so standard tourist visas were unavailable. He relied on local fixers who arranged security escorts and negotiated passage through checkpoints. In Equatorial Guinea, the challenge was bureaucratic: the government rarely issues tourist visas, and he had to secure an invitation letter from a registered local contact weeks in advance.

These trips shared a common thread of unpredictable timelines and last-minute cancellations. Drew often waited months for visa approvals and had to reroute his entire itinerary when borders closed without notice.

Photo: Vlada Karpovich, Pexels (Pexels License)