Serial backpacker, Bailey Cook joins Daniel in London for a wide-reaching conversation about exciting destinations, travel tips, and a personal journey of self-discovery while attempting to reach every country in the world with just 7kg of belongings on his back.

Connect with this episode’s guest, global traveller Bailey Cook:

https://www.instagram.com/backpackwithbailey

https://www.backpackwithbailey.com

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Connect with our host, Daniel Edward:

https://www.danieledwarduk.com

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieledwarduk

Welcome to Destination Unlocked with me, Daniel Edward.

Destination Unlocked is the chatty travel podcast where a local

expert or top traveler helps unlock their corner of the world.

Today we are diving into slow travel, backpacking, and what it's

really like to explore the globe full-time with nothing but a backpack.

My guest is Bailey Cook, better known as Backpack with Bailey, who left Australia

for a six month adventure and somehow turned it into three years, 70 countries,

and a goal to visit every nation on Earth.

And just a quick note, Bailey and I recorded this one at the Southbank

Centre in London, so you will hear a bit of real life bustle in the background.

Think of it as London joining in the conversation.

Enjoy.

So Bailey, thank you so much for joining me.

Welcome.

We're talking travel style today.

So what would you describe in a word as your travel style,

In a word currently is... slow.

Slow travel.

Slow travel.

It hasn't always been the case.

It's been developing, but that's where I've gone to these days and

I'm very happy with where it is.

I was wondering which word you were gonna pull out.

I was wondering was it gonna be backpacking, was it going be world?

Because you've been traveling full time for quite a while.

For three years now.

With the intentions of another six to seven years ahead of me.

Was that originally the plan?

No, not at all.

Six months was the original plan and it's just kind of snowballed from there.

You're from Australia.

Yeah.

It's a sort of rite of passage to do a bit of traveling if

you're from Australia, lots of people do a summer in Europe or something like that.

Yeah.

Is this a summer in Europe, just lost control?

I had done some like, quote unquote summers in

Europe, in the autumn, autumn time.

But when I left for this.

It was intentional travel rather than a vacation.

I just didn't intend for it to be this length of time.

I left wanting to travel, but with no goal.

I just left looking for something and then ended up wanting to visit

every country, which is a long goal.

What were you doing before you set out on that first six months?

I was working at McDonald's.

I was a restaurant manager at McDonald's.

It was okay.

Paid the bills, but, very limiting socially.

So decided to take off.

It's interesting that you say that managing at McDonald's

was limiting socially, because I would imagine that there's nothing more

socially limiting than traveling the world with no set destination year round.

Yeah.

That, that, that's true too.

With Australia, predominantly the people that work at McDonald's are quite young.

Like 14, 15, 16.

Really?

That young?

Yes.

Quite young.

I can only interact with them so much before I need more.

So yeah, it was kind of just, felt a little bit stunted by that.

So I had gone on a three week trip to Europe, met with some friends my age

while I was there, had a great time.

Went back home and within three days had put in my

resignation and decided to leave.

Did you talk to anyone before putting your resignation?

My mom.

My mom was it, who was very encouraging

. Daniel Edward: So then you headed out and your first destination back on

that road of six months was where?

The Netherlands.

I had a friend staying there, with room for me.

So I had applied for a year long Shengan visa, it was a working holiday visa,

so I could work if I wanted to, but I wasn't required to work, so I could also

be on holiday, which I did decide to do.

The Netherlands was kind of my base, and from there I branched out to UK,

France, Germany, surrounding countries, until pretty much the end of 2022 when

my friend moved outta the apartment and I kind of had nowhere to go really.

So I put my stuff in the backpack and have been in the backpack ever since.

So you were using the Netherlands as your base?

Then you, you ended up baseless.

And at this point you could have gone back to Australia and said, okay, I've

had a great time experiencing Europe and seeing some surrounding areas.

Now I'm gonna get back.

But you decided not to do that.

Yes.

I did what every normal Australian does and headed up into the Arctic in

the middle of the winter, which could not be any more different from home.

It was dark, it was cold, it was snowing.

So it was minus 49 degrees in Svalbard.

Hadn't seen the sun for over a week.

I guess it was like a quarter life crisis.

And that was the moment I kind of thought, I've gotten myself all the way

to Svalbard, I can get myself anywhere.

I remember sitting in the snow going, yeah, I'm going to go to every country.

I can pinpoint the exact moment that I had decided to commit to that.

So Svalbard is the northernmost place that's inhabited.

Yes.

Yeah.

In the wintertime pitch black.

And that was the inspiration to see the whole world?

Funnily enough.

I call it my darkest moment, I guess.

And so you decide to see the whole world.

You have your life now in a backpack.

And you have that visa which allows you at that point to work

in Europe on a short term basis.

Is that what you then do?

I kind of run the figures and calculated that I could probably

do another six months on my savings and decided to focus more on traveling and

experiencing rather than stopping to work.

I country hopped through Europe for the following few months,

quicker than I would have liked.

I was literally spending two or three days in each country.

I sat down and kind of made a map and booked all of my buses, my

hotels, my flights, everything for two or three months in advance.

Was that just because of the target of ticking them

off or you were really organized?

I didn't really know how else to travel.

I was used to the prior vacation where you book it before you leave,

you turn up, you follow your set schedule, and then you go home again.

And I found myself sitting there going, well, I don't know what I'm doing, but

I've got this goal of the countries now, so I may as well make a list of

the cities and how to get between them.

And then just book all of it and off I go which I had a great time

doing, but I found myself missing out on different opportunities,

whether it was people that I met that said, come to these caves tomorrow.

And I said, I can't, 'cause I've got pre-book plans or I find out about another

part of the country that's so much cooler.

And then as I slowly moved towards the east where information became less and

less available predominantly regarding transport; transport in the Balkans is not

the same as transport in Western Europe.

Usually can't book it in advance.

And you usually can't even find out if there's a route without going

to a bus station and asking for it.

So that was definitely a defining factor in my travel slowing down was

that I couldn't plan ahead very far.

I'm trying to avoid flying because it's expensive for the most part.

It interrupts your day.

It's not great for the environment.

So if you can avoid it, why not?

My money

was starting to run low, so I was looking at

volunteering projects through Workaway and World Packers,

which often ask for a minimum two weeks, but some of them minimum four weeks.

So that was also forcing me to kind of slow down a little bit

The money starting to run out led you to look at those

options, but volunteering sounds like you don't get paid for it?

No.

But it subsidizes the cost.

So lets your money go further rather than you having to spend out of pocket.

Covered accommodation, covered food.

Some of them even give different activities and stuff like that as well.

What sort of volunteering did you do?

My first experience was a rural wine making farm in

Bulgaria, which was quite a lot of fun.

It was very interesting experience.

Sadly I didn't make any wine during my wine making experience, it was the wrong

season, so the grapes hadn't grown.

But I got to experience life in a rural village in Bulgaria, which is

something I'd never thought about before.

It was different and interesting.

Did you drink the wine?

The last day I had one glass from that vineyard.

It was not great.

Ah.

But at least you can honestly say you had nothing to do with making it.

Exactly.

Exactly.

But the other local wines were quite impressive.

That region itself had a lot of wine making.

It was on the border of Serbia and Romania, and that whole

region all make their own wines.

And some of them were quite good.

The ones that I was working on needed a little bit of extra work.

I then moved on to the Middle East, which was quite hot, and

found myself in the Maldives after that, which again, quite hot.

I had a very, very long summer and I was looking for somewhere cool.

So I was looking at voluntary projects in Georgia, and this was November.

Reached out to a hostel that said they wanted someone to

create a social space for them.

So I took them up on that opportunity.

They said, we'll do two weeks and then go from there.

And I ended up there for about three months.

Wow.

So that was when you really started to slow down that travel.

It worked for me.

I enjoyed it.

It was winter and it can be difficult to travel anywhere in winter, but

I, yeah, it was cold and still adapting to European winters,

Australia winters just don't compare.

So I found it easy just to sit in one spot and do the same thing for a little

while, where it was warm and comfortable.

What's it like, working in a hostel?

It was a lot of fun.

It was far from a party hostel, just general socializing every day.

I've got new, different backpackers coming through.

Georgia is still somewhat off the beaten path, so I found

most people coming through were quite interesting to chat with.

A lot of them were well traveled and had been far and wide.

Few of them had come back to Georgia for second or third

experiences, which was really nice.

So it was a little bit different from your kind of standard European or Southeast

Asian hostels where it's the first time they've ever been abroad and it's just

party, party, party and sleep all day.

For a short time I was the only non Georgian working there, so I really

got to dive into being Georgian with everyone around me, learning their

card games, learning basic phrases.

It was a lot of fun.

They're friendly once you break them down.

Breaking them down can be a little bit difficult sometimes.

But once you do, they're all friendly.

They welcome you as if they're like one of their own.

And I suppose that's why the slow travel helps.

I had my comfort zones.

I had the same place I'd go back for coffee or the same restaurant where

the waiters ended up recognizing me.

I met other expats and I was invited to expat communities from people

that genuinely lived there, which you would never meet them in your

24 hour traveling through there.

So that really kind of made me stop and think and kind of evaluate how I've been

traveling and what part I have enjoyed and which parts I haven't enjoyed and

slowing down to enjoy made sense to me.

So I followed up the same, I went to Azerbaijan with the intentions

of staying as long as possible, which does require a visa.

So that was 30 days and I think I stayed 27 days of the 30.

And it was the same thing.

I ended up getting invited to a local social group with

Azerbaijanis, through couch surfing.

And I ended up speaking and chatting with them almost every single day,

going out and doing different things.

Not necessarily tourist attractions, but playing volleyball or going Turkish

dancing and stuff you would just never do as a tourist and I've just found those

experiences to be so much more exciting than taking a picture with the biggest

building in town or something like that.

And it's usually a building that people don't even know the name of

Exactly.

When they take a picture.

Exactly.

The things that you're describing sounds like it

needs a huge amount of confidence.

Yes.

I wonder if this is a confidence that you had

before you started traveling.

Absolutely not.

Or if you found it?

It developed, more outta the necessity.

When I first left Australia to travel, I was looking for something.

And I think a lot self-growth was something I was looking for through that.

So part of it was necessity, but part of it was pushing myself to do so.

And I still struggle with it these days, but it's become a little bit

easier to just gain the confidence to get out there and talk to strangers

and put yourself amongst things.

I know the outcome now will always be positive.

it'll always be worth the stress and the anxiety of it beforehand.

That definitely helps me to jump in and do it, even if I'm nervous at first, I know

that I'm gonna be so rewarded afterwards.

The nerves I guess is how is this person going to interpret who I am?

What are they going to think about me?

Are they going to look at me and laugh the second I speak?

Which is like looking back on it so silly.

'cause how often do people just laugh in your face when you try and talk to them?

Part of the nerves comes from language barriers.

Will I be able to communicate with this person properly?

I don't speak other languages, so that does make it hard to communicate.

I think I really settle into my comfort once conversation starts flowing and I can

feel that the other person is obviously comfortable and not hostile towards me.

Not that I've met a lot of hostility, and I think that's what

most people expect from everyone else in the world is hostility.

But that's just not the case.

You've been to some countries where they do

have that reputation of the unfriendly, hostile nations.

Afghanistan is one which is coming to my mind.

The people could not be more different from how

they're portrayed around the world.

Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, three of the most hospitable places I've been to

where you can't walk down the street without being offered tea and food.

And do you have somewhere to sleep tonight?

Most of the time on the trip you are not working , but you

are still surviving on a pretty nice, comfortable life, from the looks of

Yeah.

How pressured do you feel when it comes to managing

finances on such a long trip?

Personally quite pressured, but that's more of my personality.

I feel more pressured than I need to feel.

There's also the general social media things always look nicer than what

they might be in the background.

I fall into the trap of not always showing the bare budget basics that

sometimes I have to go through, whether it's the 20 hour bus ride

that I haven't slept in three days, and then I post one smiling photo and

everything's all grand and magical.

I don't budget to the point where I miss out on experiences, but I

do budget to make sure I can make things last as long as possible.

I've done the occasional online work, little bit of like administration

and stuff where I get paid a small amount, but it's remote and

it works while I'm on the road.

And now I am monetizing through social media as well.

Let's talk about the social media part.

Your Instagram account , it's really big.

And it wasn't your intention?

No.

I had kind of gotten sick of individually posting pictures to my

different friends and family, so I just thought throw it all into one spot.

It is the same profile I made when I was 12 years old.

I just started putting it on there and a combination of friends and family watching

it, but then meeting people all around the world, and going to cool, cool places.

As I said, I was working as like a social manager in a hostel in Georgia

for three months, so I met a lot of people and we exchanged Instagram.

So part of it was just us meeting so many people that the followers were coming

up, but then some of the content started getting caught onto by other people who

started saying, this is really cool.

I wanna see more.

Was there a point where you started to think, I'm a travel

influencer ? Not, I'm sharing a couple of pictures for my friends and family to

see where I'm at, but I'm a creator now.

It took me a while to kind of accept the fact,

longer than it should have.

It wasn't until recently, I had a friend reach out and say, I want you to come

travel with us because you are a content creator, so come and travel with us.

So again, I packed up with about three weeks notice and took off again.

Wow.

So that was kind of where I locked into, well, accepting

the fact that that's now what I am.

There's this sort of mixed impression of content creators,

especially in the travel sphere.

Are they genuine travelers?

Are they doing it authentically?

Are they just being paid their way around the world and actually it's not real?

Where do you sit on on that?

There definitely is a scale, I don't want to accept a deal

that doesn't sit well with me or doesn't fit to what I want to be doing.

But I do believe there's a difference between content creation and influencer.

I'm not necessarily influencing people to go and do anything or see anything.

I'm more entertaining them by saying, this is what you can see or do in the world.

This is what Syria is like, this is what Afghanistan is like.

I'm not telling you to go, I'm not telling you not to go.

I'm just saying this is here for your entertainment purposes.

Use it as you will.

I would more refer to myself as a content creator rather than an influencer.

That's a really nice distinction.

I've not heard someone break it down like that before.

I do find a lot of that is where you find people accepting money

for whatever to do whatever to influence.

That's not where I sit.

Some of them are genuine.

Influencing is a part of marketing and marketers do

require a certain personality.

So I think as marketers, some of them are doing what they're meant to be

doing, which is trying to sell a product.

Whether or not they believe in it is different, but that's been

going on for hundreds of years now, so that's no different.

Just because it's on Instagram doesn't mean it wasn't the same as the Silk

traders that were just trying to make a couple of dollars a hundred years ago.

If somebody is tempted to follow in that path, and

for you it was an accidental path that that emerged, monetization

is a key part of that industry.

But it's not all together clear for people what that really means.

No, it's not clear cut.

There's no rules to it, which makes it both easy and difficult,

depending on who you are.

So I've got friends that use it to their advantage that there are no

rules and there are no like predefined things that you have to worry about.

They go out there and they just say, this is what I do and this

is what you're gonna pay me for.

And brands believe it 'cause they don't know any different.

But then there's other people, which I kind of fall more into this category of, I

don't know the rules, so I don't know how to follow them because it's not as clear

cut as you turn up and you do this and here's your salary and you go home again.

A lot of the people that I follow in their content that I love, they were

passionate about something else, and content creation just fell on top of that

rather than people that said, I'm going to go and travel and make content out of it.

The thing that I felt when we met was the passion, the excitement

about travel, actually the excitement for geography that came before you

were even traveling anywhere at all.

Before I'd even left my hometown in Australia,

I had my globe, I had my map.

I knew all of the countries and the continents and the different seas

and I'd always looked at the map.

Each country was a different color and I just thought it'd be so cool to go to all

the different colored countries, go to the purple ones or go to the green ones.

It was kind of something that was just always ingrained into me that

eventually it was going to happen.

And now how far along this country by country journey are you?

Just over a third of the countries now.

The majority of them have been in the last three years.

If you wanted to complete the remaining countries.

Yeah.

And also spend a decent amount of time there,

say two weeks in each place.

You are looking at about six years of full-time travel?

Six to seven more years of full-time travel without going home,

without spending longer in certain places, without repeating countries.

Which is wild.

It goes to how big this world is.

But also how shrinkable it is, the fact that you could even do it.

I know there was a point where I was quite a

cynical as a teenager, and I just thought, no, that's not possible.

Because I had the idea many years ago, as a kid, I'd love to do that, as a

teenager, I thought, it's too hard.

It's too unsafe, it's too expensive.

It's impossible.

I did believe that it was impossible until, as I said, I sat down

one day and went, no, it's not.

I can do it if I push myself hard enough.

There's always a solution to a problem.

So regardless if visas, if it's war, there is, there's always going to be a solution.

If you want it hard enough, you'll get it.

One of the funny problems, is that right now you're sort of stranded

in London, for a very unusual reason.

It's a very privileged reason: my passport is full.

In three years I've pretty much filled an entire passport and I'm

now in the process of getting a new one without returning home.

You're the first person I've met who's had to go and

get an emergency passport because there's no space for any more stamps.

And I love the fact that you're getting all the stamps because some

places aren't giving stamps anymore...

I know.

They've spoken about a potential digital passport where you will get digital stamps

for each country, which would be quite handy for like the EU and the Shengen

region where you don't get as many stamps.

But the original ink stamp is so symbolic of travel.

And I think it's so sad that we're losing that.

Do you ever go somewhere and think, this is the last time I'm

likely to ever be here in my life?

A few times I've thought that.

I'm also a very big fan of going back to places that I've enjoyed.

I've been to Kazakhstan six times now because I just, I love it.

And I really can't even put it into words as to why.

I know I'm going back.

But other times I've been places, I've definitely sat there

and thought this could be it.

This could be the only time I actually ever see this place.

Sometimes it's sad and sometimes I think that's also why I linger in

places as long as just to try and soak up as much as I can, not knowing

if I ever will be back there again.

I find this with places 'cause I've had such an

amazing time and the chances of me ever being back there are so slim.

There are also other places, I had such a great time there that I'm

not sure I want to write over that.

That's interesting.

I have not had one of those experiences yet.

I'd be very happy to go back to of anywhere that I've enjoyed significantly

that I wouldn't give it a second shot, that's an interesting concept.

For me, Antarctica is one of the biggest examples that come to mind.

One of the big distinctions with Antarctica for me, is it

wasn't really about people.

Everywhere else, it's people.

You don't really see people so much in Antarctica.

For me in Antarctica, it was scenery and weather.

That I've sort of got in my memory.

And yes, the ice does change in Antarctica, but unless

there was a ginormous change, I feel like maybe I saw it.

Somewhat the same.

I definitely agree.

The people are what changed the most when you go back to a place

for the second or third time?

Hence why I'm so happy to go back to so many places and whilst I do love the

nature in a lot of the places I travel to.

It's not the only part of the traveling that I do.

So I think that's why I'm so willing to go back and see things

for a second or third time.

When you are listing your priorities in terms of what it is

that you really want to see in a place, let's say you've given yourself a week,

what's your list of priorities of things that you definitely want to see, feel,

touch, eat , how do you balance it?

It does change from place to place.

Some places are so more immersed in the food culture than anything.

Some places have great architecture or not great architecture,

which could also be amazing.

I'll do a general Google search and see what top five, 10 things to do in the city

are, but I also often go into places quite blind and then just reach out to locals.

Whether it's through couch surfing and apps like that, just reaching

out to people and saying, Hey, let's meet up for a cup of coffee.

What's your most favorite thing to do in this city?

Some of them love the tourist attractions and they want to show me the big

buildings, and some of them want to take me to the coziest little cafe

in the hidden corners somewhere and just sit there and talk about what

life is like in that country, or they want to know about life in my country.

Or my experiences in every other country.

So I don't have a specific priority, it's more just turning

up and finding what I can find.

Which I also think leads to so much more.

A lot of people go in and say, okay, I need to go to the city and see 1,

2, 3, and they go there so focused on seeing those three things and too

many times I've realized on what I've missed out on now that I just try and

gather as much as possible everywhere I go, whether it's architecture, food,

local life, cultural events, nature.

Do you journal?

No, I don't.

I should.

Everyone has recommended it.

I kind of was using Instagram as a little bit of a journal, but obviously

it's public and now growing and sometimes pouring your heartfelt

feelings onto a page for everyone to read can be a little bit spooky.

So I've kind of withheld putting all of my feelings and emotions onto Instagram.

Writing's never been my stronger suit.

It's not something I really enjoy doing.

But I do text my mom a lot and I think I've often found that as

a bit of a form of journaling.

Depending on the time zone, she'll wake up to maybe 10, 15 texts from me,

kind of just blabbering on about my day or how I was feeling when I went to

this mountain or something like that.

But I also love connecting with locals.

I love talking.

Some people struggle to get me to stop talking.

So I think I also kind of journal when I chat with the local people.

And I often know it might be the one and only time I meet them.

So you can kind of spill everything out to them and then move on and you probably

never actually chat with them again.

Journal through conversation.

Makes me think of karaoke.

I will only do karaoke in a place where I know I'm never gonna see the people again.

Yeah.

There's no risk.

I still can't do karaoke either.

You couldn't put me in a room alone to do karaoke.

Are other family members also into travel?

Not quite the same as my kind of travel.

Some of them like their vacations, some of them like a little bit more adventurous

holiday, but still going very much back to doing what they were doing beforehand.

I'm unique within my family in terms of what I do and what I love to do.

It is quite an unusual way of traveling.

To be full-time and relying on a backpack.

Yeah.

It's extreme in a way.

It is.

I dunno if you feel it's extreme?

Uh, no.

I think because of how I slipped so easily into it, it's

become quite normalized for me.

Also, it's part of the community I'm in now, so the people around me are

all doing kind of very similar things.

The backpack is quite extreme and I do know that, I don't think I've met anyone

that travels quite as light as me.

I carry seven kilos, eight kilos in the summer when my winter

coat is attached to the bag.

Just a handful of outfits, my laptop, a spare pair of shoes, and my Rubix cube.

Is there anything that you've got rid of from your bag?

When I first left Australia, I took a suitcase and a backpack with

me, which makes me sick to think about.

I filled it with just belongings and whatnots that I thought I might need

because I didn't have a clear path of where I was going or what I was doing.

I was also very scared of European winter as not experiencing

anything like that before.

I very quickly ditched the suitcase and sent a lot of my stuff back home again.

I realized I didn't need it after the first month, condensed down

probably to about 12 kilo backpack.

Then, in the middle of winter realized I wasn't using most of the

stuff still within that 12 kilos.

And what was that stuff?

Extra jackets and jumpers you don't need four jumpers.

You can just wear one jumper.

Two winter coats.

It's great to have some style, but I didn't need it.

I didn't see any value in the extra style.

I had stuff that keeps me warm.

I can just wear that stuff.

I don't need to keep changing all the stuff.

It was becoming a burden to pack, like to Tetris, everything

in the backpack, every time.

It was heavy to carry when I was on the move and it's expensive to

take the extra stuff on the flights.

So when I had a moment, I sat down and I was researching most standard

is seven kilos on most flights.

So I found a bag that fit within the criteria of, not just carry on,

but small enough to go under the seat and kind of put everything on

my bed and said, what have I used in the last two or three months?

What haven't I used in the last two or three months?

And anything that I didn't use went straight into a box.

I just had to be really harsh and just got rid of anything and

everything that I did not need.

Would you call yourself a minimalist?

No.

I still carry a lot of stuff with me that people are so surprised.

I carry a Rubik's cube with me.

I have a clothes line to hang my clothes up around my bed to dry.

I carry a mouse for my computer, I end up with different souvenirs,

currencies, hats, all sorts of things.

So I wouldn't say necessarily saying minimalist, definitely not at home.

I'd love to be, but I just accumulate stuff and then attach myself

to it and can't get rid of it.

You mentioned the hats.

I love this.

It's, started quite recently, actually only about two months

ago, when I went to Afghanistan and I put on the Afghani hat, I love it.

And people kept asking me the way that I dressed and wore the hat.

They kept asking if I was from that region.

'Cause Afghanistan is so diverse and you can't pick people just

based off like ethnicity or looks.

So many people coming up to me speaking in Pashto and Dari saying, oh, you're

from Pan Chi, and no, I'm Australian.

So I just loved the hat so much.

So I ended up with a second hat and then I went back to, Uzbekistan where I ended

up getting more hats and Turkmenistan.

So I've got quite a large central Asian hat collection.

I've got my Vietnamese rice hat from early travels when I was much younger

and I did manage to get that home and it's still intact on my wall at home.

So I guess the collection kind of started back then.

But now, quite intentional about it and will try and collect as

many as I can and as many as my seven kilos will allow me to.

Yes.

I wonder how heavy hats are.

Some will probably end up having to ship home and not carry with me.

Do you end up shipping quite a bit home?

Outside of the initial, sending everything back that I didn't

use, I've not sent anything home.

I'm very grateful to have a friend that has a handful of stuff in storage for me.

Probably about three or four kilos, mostly of hats.

But so far I've kept it low on souvenirs, collecting mainly postcards, which I

post home immediately, or, just currency.

Luckily most hats are quite small

depends how big your head is.

Depends how big the head is.

Yes.

I will have to start sending some more hats home.

Have you always been a collector?

Yes.

Yep.

Gathering Pokemon cards and digimons and all sorts of stuff.

Always been collecting things.

So I think that's where a lot of the drive for collecting every country,

it's a collection

came from that.

Just having a number and a goal to strive for, and especially one that

gives you so much time to fill in.

You can do so much with it, it's not like it just finishes

tomorrow and then you feel empty.

It's gonna take me, as I said, six, seven more years to finish this goal.

It's very long term, but I like having such a long-term goal to strive for.

You have some entertaining targets in there as well,

particularly with the Rubik Cube.

I average between 30 to 40 seconds per solve,

which I'm quite impressed with.

I'd love to get it much faster, but I'm still happy with that.

It's still loved at hostels and my friends love it.

I started counting the countries that I've solved it in, and I've solved

it in quite a lot of countries.

I've already been to more countries than most people ever visit in their life.

And I've solved the Rubik's Cube in more countries than most people

will ever visit in their life.

So recently I've toyed with the idea of being the first person to solve

a Rubik's cube in every country.

It's a very quirky niche title, and

absolutely

it's a bit of fun along the way,

Do you find that a lot of people in hostels have a party trick?

Is that how people break down barriers?

Some do, yes.

I think there's a good mix of people that have party tricks to

show, and people that are there to see the party tricks being shown.

Not everyone wants to be the center of attention.

A lot of people, especially those that haven't traveled so much,

are looking for someone else to be the center of attention.

And that's when sometimes like hostels that aren't great will have

a bunch of people that just don't know how to really mix together.

They would kind of love to socialize, but they don't have

anyone to spark the socializing.

And that goes back to what you were doing in Georgia.

Yes.

You created that environment to give people the opportunity.

I was there for people to chat to.

I was there to give local tips.

I often went out on day trips with people that had turned up and they weren't

sure what to see or they didn't really know what they wanted to do in Georgia.

So I said, let's go.

Let's go for a walk.

We'll go and see this.

We'll go and see that.

And I could tell some of them didn't really know what they were doing there or

they were a bit shy and nervous and see that was part of my job was to just make

sure everyone was happy and getting along.

I think that's a really nice part of what you do with your

travel . It's a caring side of it.

Yeah.

Which I think a lot of people look online.

Instagram is a great example of this.

There are a lot of people who are selfishly traveling

Yeah.

And self-indulgently traveling.

And it gives the impression that a lot of people on these

platforms are all about themself.

I sometimes forget that you can travel for yourself and I find

myself traveling for other people.

I've had instances where I've gone along to different cities or towns that weren't

on my path or on my radar at all because someone else wanted company and I ended

up just helping them with their travel and just tagging along because why not?

I love helping people get to that point.

And it's nice not having such a strict goal to where I need to be and having the

flexibility that I can just help people go wherever and do whatever they want to do.

I get a lot of satisfaction out of that.

I get more satisfaction about giving information to someone

who wants to visit their next new country than I do about going to

my own next new country sometimes.

What's been your craziest experience on the go?

That one is definitely a standout.

I was in the Pamir Highway, Tajikistan, and my friend and I

had driven into a national park.

We were going into summer, but you're at four and a half thousand meters

of altitude, so you're quite high up.

Summer doesn't really exist there, so even though it was starting to

go into the summer season, we got stuck in a snowstorm, which led to

our car getting stuck in the mud.

And breaking down.

I left my friend for almost two full days.

You didn't go together?

No, he stayed with the car.

I had seen on the map there looks like there was a camp

about eight kilometers away.

So I walked eight kilometers and there was no camp there.

And I was like, do I turn back with no help and no ideas or do I

just follow this little goat track, quite literally a goat track.

And I decided to do that.

I found this little town and asked people or tried my best to ask people

for help with language barriers.

They put me up for the night.

Then the next day drove me to the next village, which was a bigger town, where

I found some other tourists and some people that were willing to help and

we managed to get together a car and drive all the way back around into

this national park to help dig my car out and get it back on the road again.

Did you feel like your life was at risk?

I had partially kicked into survival mode.

It was cold, it was getting dark, and so I was keeping my eye out.

There's obviously, you're above the alpine line, so there's no trees or anything.

You're just on bare mountains.

So I was looking out for anywhere that I might be able to shelter up for the night.

I had nothing with me.

We'd gone through all of our water at this point, so we were

boiling snow and river water.

So I kind of kicked into survival instinct, yeah, 42

kilometers is a long way to walk.

Four and a half thousand meters of altitude is approximately

twice the amount of effort to do anything, so it's quite tiring.

We finally got back to my friend, so it took two days to get back to him.

He had put up the SOS beacon on top of the car on the off chance that anyone

came into this national park, but no one had come into the national park.

It was just us.

We managed to get him out and drive off the next day, but in total it was

almost like a five day ordeal ordeal.

Yes.

When I finally connected back to the wifi, my mom was like, are you okay?

Where are you?

I'm about to contact the government to send helicopters looking for you.

I told her we will go offline for a day or two, but we should be back pretty soon.

And she had jumped into panic mode.

She found there was snow leopards in the mountains, so she thought

we'd just been eaten by snow leopards and worst case scenario.

It's definitely a standout travel moment that I won't forget anytime.

Yeah, no kidding.

I had no idea where the end point was.

So it was 42 kilometers, but it could have been further.

I knew it was approximately 350 to the biggest town nearby.

Kilometers.

Kilometers, yes.

Which is obviously very far to walk with no water or anything.

And that's the only civilization I knew of, so I just headed

in that direction hoping there would be something in between.

Was your friend surprised to ever see you again?

Because you both could have died.

We both could have died.

I had told him I will be back that night ' cause I thought I was going to

find help and then return straight away.

So I think part of him was actually expecting me to come back that night.

But he also as a joke, said, see you tomorrow when I left.

'cause he kind of thought, you don't know what's gonna happen.

So I think part of him expected me to come back or at least send

somebody to come back and help him.

But he definitely wasn't expecting us to find him in the middle of the night.

'cause it was midnight by the time we'd driven all the way back to

him and found him in the mountains.

I had lost the car at this point.

We were so far up and lost in the mountains that I had put a pin on

my map but the pin was inaccurate, so when we got back to the area, I

was like, I know I recognize that lake, but I don't know where he is.

And so we ended up on top of this hill and we saw his SOS beacon.

We got there and knocked on the door and he freaked out 'cause it was the middle of

the night, someone knocking on the door.

Part of him probably didn't expect me to come back.

We were so worried 'cause we were on the last day of our Tajikistan visa.

So we'd made a beeline for the border.

We crossed straight over into Kyrgyzstan as quick as we could.

I'm hoping that's my most crazy story and it stays that way, but we'll see.

I've got a lot of world to cover still.

Do you sort of live for the high?

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Not at the start, but I think the more highs I hit, the

more I start chasing them.

The dopamine levels are definitely adjusted to what I do, and there's

not much that matches that these days.

So that's why I'm always a little bit more focused on places that people are

scared of visiting or uncomfortable visiting or looking for places within

the countries that people are not comfortable with those specific places.

Like people are happy with Nepal, but put me on top of the mountains in Nepal.

Put me in the, the places where I'm gonna find the most dopamine.

Mm-hmm.

For people who are tempted to follow in what you are doing.

They're where you were when you were at McDonald's.

They've got a dream for it.

They haven't acted on it yet.

Where's a really good place to start?

Start within your comfort zone.

I've spoken to so many people that are like, I'd love to visit every country in

the world, but I'm scared of Afghanistan.

I'm scared of Syria.

I'm scared of parts of Africa.

And I'm like, but have you been to Southeast Asia?

Have you been to Europe?

Have you started?

And they say, no.

And I'm like, start there.

Start in the countries that aren't scary and then see how you go.

'cause at one point I was scared of those countries as well.

And sometimes there's reasons to be scared of them, but I've slowly over

time grown confidence by going to the places that were scary at the start.

And that's the same to be said about any goal that you're chasing is just start it.

It doesn't matter where or how, but just take the first step towards it.

' cause you don't know where you'll be after that first step.

But you're not going to be further away from the goal.

You're never going to complete your goal immediately.

And if you are, then it wasn't much of a goal.

No.

If somebody's looking at doing this sort of thing, backpacking

around the world, ticking off every country, is there something to avoid?

Avoid closing your mind to what's around you.

Avoid taking things you've heard as gospel.

Just go with an open mind everywhere.

Parts of media are accurate.

Parts of media aren't accurate, so just listen and learn rather

than just saying, well, I've heard this, so I'm not doing that.

Is there a good resource that you've turned to or you

would recommend other people turn to?

I have recently gotten more involved with the Nomad Mania community,

which are very focused on not just every country in the world, but also

breaking countries down into regions.

It really helps push the slow travel because if you have to go to 10 different

regions within a country, that means you have to spend at least 10 days

in that country trying to go to these different regions as opposed to just

flying to a capital city, staying for a night and leaving the next day.

The community's a great resource.

A lot of them have been to every country, so a lot of them can give you advice, but

other resources like couch surfing: not only does it help subsidize costs, but

it just gets you into the culture and the environment of the country rather than

staying at hotels with other foreigners who are traveling through the country.

What's your top food or drink that you've tried around the world?

I am not a foodie, which is really funny.

I've been so far and wide and I , I have to admit, find

myself eating western foods.

But I would have to probably say either samsa or manti from Central

Asia, or the Georgian khinkali.

All quite similar styles of food, but those three are

definitely my favorite snacks.

What's the best way that you found to support the local economy?

If you can see a restaurant is family owned.

Family owned guest houses.

Just avoiding chains, western chains or even local chains are generally not the

best to support within local countries.

If you can see that it's a guy with a stall, buy the kebab from him.

Buy it as local as possible.

Local markets and bazaars instead of going to a supermarket.

How have you found about tipping around the world?

It changes so often and I found the less wealthy the

country, the less they expect tips.

I found tipping to more being countries where they've already got money and

they're trying to get more money.

I found the people that have less always ask for less and always expect less.

Some of the poorest countries I've been to, I've tried tipping and they're

the ones that, not only give the tip back, but then try and make me leave

with souvenirs and give me everything despite not having anything themselves.

If I'm uncertain, I'll just ask, am I expected to tip?

And they're generally quite honest.

Most of the time they say no.

Some of them say, that's up to you, which is more polite way of saying yes.

Where can we follow you online to keep up

with date with your travels?

My Instagram is Backpack with Bailey.

It's pretty much the only platform I use.

I do have a website that I intend on getting out soon.

I've said that for a long time.

The website is the same backpackwithbailey.com.

I hope to see you all there.

Fantastic.

Bailey, thank you so much.

No worries.

You're welcome.

That's all for this episode of Destination Unlocked.

A huge thank you to Bailey Cook, Backpack with Bailey, for sharing such

an honest look at full-time travel.

From volunteering in rural Bulgaria to that wild snowstorm in Tajikistan, the

confidence he's gained along the way.

If you want to follow his journey as he works toward visiting every

country in the world, you'll find him on Instagram at Backpack with Bailey.

And if you enjoyed today's chat, hit follow or subscribe so you can easily

find your way back for our next journey.

For more interviews and travel inspiration, head

to destinationunlocked.com.

I'm Daniel Edward.

Thanks for listening.

I'll catch you next time.