A vlogger is trying to become the first Filipina to travel to 196 countries using a Philippine passport.
Kathrina Umandap has been to 176 countries and territories since starting her globetrotting adventure in 2014, after quitting a hospital job in Kuwait, and is aiming to achieve her personal challenge by the end of this year, ABS-CBN News reported.
Among the countries Umandap had visited were Afghanistan, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan and Venezuela. Aside from her vlog, helping her travel are sponsors, income from social media and her online visa and travel services business based in Montenegro that she put up in 2019.
While Umandap has already spent eight years trying to fulfill her goal, four American women took about a month to travel within one country by boat.
Former athletes Libby Costello, Sophia Denison-Johnston, Brooke Downes and Adrienne Smith got together in Santa Barbara, California last year to plan and train for the grueling trip.
In June, the four calling themselves Lat35 embarked on their journey aboard the American Spirit in San Francisco. They arrived safe and sound in Honolulu, Hawaii on 26 July.
It was an incredible feat not only because their travel time of 34 days, 14 hours and 11 minutes beat the previous women’s world record for the Great Pacific Race set last year by one day and 12 hours, but also because they all had no ocean-crossing experience.
The four rowers took turn in paddling through the Pacific Ocean 24/7 averaging 70 miles per day in the 2,400-mile journey.