‘It was a form of healing’: How traveling to every country helped this American cope with a mental health disorder

In April 2025, Cameron Mofid from California became one of the few people in the world to have traveled to all 195 UN-recognized countries and territories. Mofid is pictured in North Korea, the final country on his list. Courtesy Cameron MofidCNN — 

He’d struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder since childhood, but Cameron Mofid says that there was one thing that helped him cope — traveling the world.

Mofid, who is originally from San Diego, found that he was constantly replaying and overanalyzing conversations or “obsessively needing closure or certainty.”

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But the “freeing” sensation that came with being able to hop on a plane and travel to a new destination made him feel as though he could “live with uncertainty.”

“OCD feeds on control: controlling your environment, routines, and outcomes,” Mofid tells CNN Travel.

“But when you’re navigating chaotic borders, sleeping on floors, or figuring things out in countries where you don’t speak the language, you’re forced to surrender control. It’s uncomfortable, but also freeing.”

Mofid says the mental health condition — which the Mayo Clinic describes as a “pattern of unwanted thoughts and fears known as obsessions” — can “dominate your thoughts and actions in ways that are exhausting” and difficult to explain.

“Travel became my way of coping — first as an escape, then as a form of healing,” he adds.

And then, travel turned Mofid into a world record breaker.

Having already clocked up visits to many destinations while playing tennis competitively, he came up with the idea of traveling to every country in the world while grappling with OCD during the Covid-19 pandemic.

And in April 2025, Mofid, who is of Iranian-Egyptian descent, finally completed his quest to visit all 195 UN-recognized countries and territories after jumping on a plane to North Korea with some of his closest friends.

While it’s a feat that has been achieved only by an estimated 400 people, it was particularly significant for Mofid as he became, by some reckoning, the youngest person to do it.

His record didn’t stand for long, but he says being exposed to so many different cultures has changed his perspective on life completely.

“Visiting every country wasn’t just about geography,” says Mofid. “It was about learning how to live with uncertainty, find calm in discomfort, and connect with people from every walk of life.”

Mofid says the decision to try to visit every country came as a lifeline during a particularly low point.

“One day, I was in my apartment, and my anxiety, my OCD is kind of spiraling out of control,” he recalls.

“And I was on my computer just looking up randomly how many people had ever been to every country.

“More people had been to space than had been to every country in the world,” he says. “I thought that was crazy.”

Mofid soon realized that while the Guinness World Record for being the youngest person to do this was held by 21-year-old, he was technically able to beat the record listed by online platform NomadMania, which requires interactions with locals and visits to cultural or geographical landmarks in each country for it to count toward the record.

“The record was (held by) a guy who was 25 and a half,” he says. “At the time I was 20. And I said, ‘Maybe that’s an amazing, crazy goal that I could reach.’

Feeling inspired, Mofid, who had previously worked in marketing, set up an event marketing company to earn enough cash to be able to achieve his goal, giving himself a three-year deadline to begin the challenge.

“I told myself, after I graduated college, I would (begin,) which is what I did,” he says.

Although he’d traveled to some countries as a child, he decided to “restart,” only counting those he’d visited from the age of 18 onwards.

Thanks to the 100 or so countries clocked up during his extensive travels while working in the tennis industry, as well as trips he’d manage to squeeze in during his studies, Mofid needed to travel to just over 90 new countries to complete the challenge.

In order to ensure that he did so “legitimately,” Mofid came up with a list of his own personal requirements, while adhering to those set out by NomadMania.

“My rule was I had to do something in each country,” he says. “Something meaningful. Most countries, I stayed at least four days.”