Around the World in 80 days? How Lexie Alford Turned Travel into a 7-Figure Business
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The farther I got along, the more and more expensive the countries I had left were getting. I had been to around 175 countries out of 196. So I was getting towards the end. You were so close. So focused on just finishing that continent. I was planning the trip. I was running the numbers for the flights and the visas and everything. And I just didn't have enough. This message is brought to you by Apple Card.

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What's up rich friends? Welcome back to another episode of "Not Worth and Chill" with me, your host, Vivien Tu, AKA your rich BFF and your favorite Wall Street girly. Today, we're gonna talk about travel. I'm sure you've seen the headlines about how millennials love to spend their money on experiences and that stuff. And honestly, I feel like, frankly, that's an everybody thing these days. I'm no exception.

I feel like I'm on a plane every three days and while a lot of that is for work, sometimes it's for fun. I love traveling, exploring new places, even if it's just a little weekend trip to a town that I've never been before.

Some of my favorites have been Shanghai, China, where my parents grew up, Phuket, Thailand, for some of the best beachside relaxation I've ever had in my entire life. And if we're being honest, my love affair with Italy is unrivaled. It makes sense, right? I did get married there. This is all to say, I would consider myself decently well-traveled. But today's guest puts my travel list to shame,

76% of Americans have visited another country, but only 26% of Americans have been to five or more. And today's special guest, well, she's the youngest person to have ever visited every single country on Earth. Yes, Earth. She's been to Antarctica.

She's an incredible content creator, world record breaker, and a close personal friend of mine, Lexi Alford, aka Lexi Limb Endless. Welcome to Net Worth and Chill. Thank you for having me. What an introduction.

Lex, we actually are friends, and it is crazy to me that we only see each other every couple, what, months? Because both you and I have such crazy travel schedules. But I'm super excited to pick your brain. We can talk all things travel. But to set the scene, can you talk to me a little bit about your childhood growing up? What's the first trip you remember taking? It's almost hard for me to even remember since I've been traveling for so long. But I think...

Potentially, at least the first real trip that I can remember was actually to Kenya. I have some very adventurous... Oh, we just hopped straight to Kenya. There wasn't like, oh, we need to go to...

Maine or well I have some very adventurous parents okay kind of set the tone for my life very early on my mom has her own travel agency that she started when she was 19 and thankfully my parents are the type that would always take me with them on their adventures so I think one of the very first memories I ever had from traveling was being in Kenya I was probably like

five or six years old. You're literally a wild Thornberry. Yeah, something like that. And we got to see all of the wildlife close up, the lions, the elephants. And we actually got to go to a wildlife orphanage where they had all of the like little babies. So I had these like little baby monkeys and being able to see all of that in person. I also remember my dad, my

Basically, the Masai Mara, which is a tribe that lives in Kenya, one of the traditions that they have is that they drink a mixture of

both like I think it's either cow or goat milk with blood in it. Oh, and I remember my dad trying that like and seeing him do that for the first time like when I was that young. So they really, really started to show me the world at such a young age. And I think it really made a lot of a difference for like how mature I got as quickly. Yeah. Yeah.

having such a bigger idea of how much is out there. I've always said that whenever I have friends that have kids or anybody that's, you know, starting to raise a family, if you have the means and the opportunity to travel with them, it really does teach them so much more than you could learn in school. Yeah. I mean, it's so cool. They were both so open-minded, but also so adventurous. I love that the apple does not fall far from the tree, but you talked a little bit about means and

Can we talk about your families? Like, were you guys traveling and staying at the Four Seasons or, you know, balling on a budget instead? Or, like, what was the financial situation like growing up? Ew.

It's a really unique one because my mom has her own travel agency. And back in the day before there was influencers and comp stays and stuff like that, like the real travel influencers were travel agents because the ability for a travel agent to have like an on-site inspection, they comp your stay.

Oh, like a scouting visit. Exactly. So my mom did a ton of scouting visits when I was growing up. So we got to stay in some really luxurious places for free. My parents aren't, I mean, we're a pretty middle, upper middle class family. Both of my parents are entrepreneurs. So I kind of grew up

seeing both of my parents and especially my mom hustling so much at their own businesses. Honestly, neither of them went to college, so they actually really discouraged me from going to college as well, which is a whole other story. But I grew up with my mom really being able to finish

all of the perks of working in the travel industry, which is why we were able to travel for so long when I was young. And also, if you only have one kid, like I have spent so many days, months, potentially even years of my life being just the three of us traveling and you don't have to get an extra hotel room

room. Yeah. So the costs. You were always on the cot. Yeah, exactly. So I don't have any other siblings. So traveling as a family of three is a lot more affordable. It literally doubles everything once you're four. Yeah. Cause you got to get this second room. Yeah, exactly. And it gets pricey. Okay. Fun little sidebar. I need to know because there are two types of families, one type of family where you will walk 25,000 steps in a day on vacation or another type where you

Don't you dare miss the complimentary breakfast is part of the family Bible. Which of the two was your family? Oh, you know what's funny is because it's a mixture of both. Really? My mom is the type that never misses the breakfast. She's very frugal. She really likes the more luxurious side of travel.

the spas, all of that kind of stuff. And then my dad is actually really adventurous. So he's the one that wants to go skydiving and try all the crazy local foods and all of that. So I feel like I kind of got a little bit of best of both worlds with that. I love that so, so much. But, you know, we talked about you traveling with your parents as a trio.

But it's a very different conversation when your teen daughter looks you in the eye and is like, I'm going to go travel by myself. Like, what was your parents' reaction when you first started being like, hey, I want to travel and you guys aren't invited? Well, I actually had this plan much younger than probably most people do because I actually one time in Australia, my first trip to Australia, I saw these kids.

probably mid 20 year olds. I was maybe 12 or 13 at the time. And I saw these people that were living out of vans on the beach. You wanted to be a van person. And they looked like the most free people I had ever seen. And I'm like, I want to experience whatever they're experiencing.

So literally at 12 years old, I knew that one of my massive life goals was to experience what one year of life would be like if I didn't have to go to school and I didn't have to work, but I also had enough of my own money to do whatever I wanted to.

So that became my financial goal. I've always been a very, very goal oriented person. And so I started working really young and I actually graduated from high school two years early so that I could work more full time and go to college online.

So you did end up going to college even though your parents discouraged it? Yeah, so I only got my associate's degree because one of the loopholes that California had is a program that allows you to graduate from high school two years early. Okay. So that you can just go directly into college. But it only applies if you actually do commit to going to college. Okay.

So it was basically like I was going to college fully online, getting to choose my schedule and I could work all day and save up as much money as I could to travel and started as many side hustles as I possibly could to save up for that. And I think by the time...

I was around 18. I had saved up about $35,000. What were you doing? Like what were the odd jobs? Cause I feel like you told me like some of them were like summer camp counselor or like silly, but like what were you doing? It was a lot of different things to be honest with you. Um,

I started my own chauffeuring business. Uber before Uber. Literally before Uber. When I first got a car, I'm like, okay, how can I make this work for me? And because my mom's a travel agent, a lot of things were also based around the fact that my parents were both business owners. And so when people were booking flights early in the morning or needed a ride to the airport, I became that person.

person. So I was literally shuttling people to the airport at four o'clock in the morning at 16, 17 years old. Um, and I was like a part-time graduation slash celebration photographer. Okay. So I did a lot of grad photos, a lot of that type of stuff as well, but really anything that I could possibly do to make as much money, especially under the table. I

I was able to save up that much at such a young age. And finally, when I graduated from my just like small community college, I was able to start backpacking, which was a big change. Yes. Okay. So let's talk about this. This is the expedition. Did you just like in your mind say like, oh, I'm going to be the youngest person to travel to every single country on earth?

I didn't exactly start out that way, but so my, I mean, I was so focused on the goal of, okay, save as much as you possibly can, work as hard as you can so that you get this one golden year of travel. And I started backpacking in Europe, somehow ended up in Morocco within the first two months. How does that happen? You just like...

It was like a spur of the moment decision. And even looking back on it now, that was one of the most crazy stories

spontaneous, like blessed trips I've ever been on since so many things aligned perfectly to go right. And like being in the right place at the right time. I met so many people that I'm actually still friends with to this day on that trip. And I ended up in booking a flight to Morocco and went to the Sahara desert there and just had the most miraculous experience there. And yeah,

came up with this. It was actually such a ridiculous story. I was laying in bed and I was trying to fall asleep. And you know when you like count sheep? Yeah. I was really not falling asleep. And I decided to try to just count how many countries that I had been to. Okay. And like just for fun. And I ended up counting 72 countries.

which I was 18 at the time. And of course, when you graduate college or school, people start asking you the heavy questions of like, okay, what do you want to do with your life now? And so I had been asking myself those same questions. And I tried to start asking those questions by asking myself, what was I most passionate about? And what is it about me that makes myself

A bit more unique than other people because when I got my associate's degree, I mean, I got a 3.8 or 3.9. So you're a good student. Yeah. And I was so proud of that and how hard that I had worked. But when I walked across that stage and got my diploma, they then called 30 other people that had just gotten the exact same degree that I did. I'm like, oh, wait, this is, we're still at the exact same equal level.

playing ground. So I knew that I would have to do something to make myself stand out from the crowd in a career sense. And so I'm like, okay, well, obviously this travel experience is what is one thing that makes me unique from other people. What was the plan after the year of golden travel? Like,

Like, were you going to go to... I didn't have a plan yet. Okay. I didn't have a plan, but I did know that it sounded, always sounded so ridiculous to me to sign up to go to one of these events

bougie colleges in California, like a lot of my friends did and spend $100,000 to $200,000 of loans or their parents' money to get a degree that they could potentially and most likely would never use anyway. Yeah. I have friends that did that and it's always so gut-wrenching to think of the fact that they have so much debt or that's so much wasted investment for a degree that they will never use again.

Yeah. So I knew that I didn't want to do that. Okay. And that's when I started counting those countries. And I'm like, wait a second, I'm 18, I'm in a 70 countries. Like how many countries even are there? And like, has anybody traveled to all of them? And if so, like what, how old were they when they did it?

And looking that up, the first thing I found on Google was the Guinness World Record for the youngest person to travel to every country. And I clicked on it. It said that it was held by a 24 and a half year old British guy. And the record had never been held by a woman. So I was looking at this and it dawned on me that

If I wanted to break this world record, I had over six years to do it. And I, in that moment, instantly knew that I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't try. So that immediately, not a question of a doubt, same moment I thought of it, knew that I would have to do it.

Okay. So I buckled up. Okay. So you had just been taking like a really cool leisurely two month trip in Europe. You go to Morocco and then you find out this British guy has this record. You're now hell bent on breaking it.

Now what? Where do we go? Well, I stepped into the researching phase because, again, I didn't even really, especially at that point, have any idea what this would even entail as far as what it would be like. And honestly, it's probably for the best because if I knew in the beginning how hard it was actually going to be to do it, I probably would not have wanted to do it. But I...

Basically, I had to do it one step at a time, one country at a time. And I was paying for all of this myself. How quickly did that $35,000 go? I got that to last me a year. Oh, wow. Maybe even more than a year. So you were really doing the budget travel thing, though? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Oh, yes. I earned my stripes with the budget travel. Like, tell me about the most, like, horrifying. Oh, I got stories for days. I mean, the cheapest hostel I probably stayed at, I think, was $2 in Guatemala. It was, like, this super sketchy...

hostel thing that had like cement doors that locked on both sides so you could get locked into it. Oh. I've gotten eaten alive by bedbugs. I told you the story about getting malaria when I was in West Africa. I've probably ended up in the hospital in at least 10 countries. I mean, just for photos. For a variety of reasons. The photos you've sent me...

where like you're either you're like in a hospital bed, your lip is like half the size here and like twice the size over here. Like,

I worry about you when you text me sometimes. - Yeah, I've definitely gotten beat up a bit on these experiences and really taking public transportation for really cheap and chicken buses and-- - Sorry, what is a chicken bus? - A chicken bus is the type of public transportation, like buses that they have in Central and South America where they also transport livestock.

Oh, okay. Cool, cool, cool, cool. And then at the same time. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Nice. But it's like, you know, if a taxi or a flight costs, you know, $100 or $200, the chicken bus will usually cost like $5. Okay, so we're taking the chicken bus. We're taking the chicken bus, but it's going to take a lot longer. It's going to be a lot more exhausting and frustrating.

really, that's one of the things that I feel like can be so discouraging for people about travel is that it can be so expensive. Yeah. But from my perspective is like, how bad do you really want it? Because if you really want it more than anything else, you can find a way. And it's not easy. Of course, especially there's a lot of people coming from so many different backgrounds and means, especially like the U S dollar is really strong. So having that

be like where I'm from and the passport that I have is a privilege. But I really do think that people have a lot of limiting beliefs around how much it costs. Okay. So you were able to make $35,000, last you a full year. You were traveling the world. Can you give me like your top three budget travel hacks? Like what can people do to like save money while they're traveling? Maybe not take the chicken bus. Yeah.

Well, I mean, transportation, long-haul flights is the number one most expensive thing in every trip. So really learning how to utilize points and miles is a big one. Having a credit card, being responsible with it, and learning how to get those miles to... Pay it off in full, on time, every month. Yeah.

Yes, exactly. Very essential part of that. But points and miles programs are magic and really can go a long way. Again, it's how much do you want to compromise? Yeah. Couch surfing, for example. Yeah. You're staying places for free. It's somebody's house, which can be actually a really fun way to get to know the culture. Um,

But there's a whole variety. There can be free accommodation. There can be places like I'm sure you've stayed at that are thousands of dollars a day, knowing you. - Yeah, okay, listen, I don't like to rough it anymore. I did it in college. I told you, I went on like a three week backpacking trip of Europe.

And there was one, and this is not even close to your horror stories, but like there was one hostel that I stayed at where the shower only stayed on if you continued to hold the button. It wasn't like you press it and you get 30 seconds. Like it only stayed on if you pressed it. So you had to like shower while pressing. And now that I am at a position in my life, I am 30 at my big old age with my back pain and,

Yeah. I don't do that kind of stuff anymore either. Yeah. To be honest with you. Yeah. I feel like I. It's tough. I'm grateful for those experiences. But I'm also very grateful to now be at a stage in life where I don't have to travel that way. Yeah. It's so funny between like our friendship. I feel like we couldn't be more different. But at the same time. We clicked immediately. Yeah. We clicked so quickly. But literally I remember the first time we hung out. I came on my electric e-bike. Here is.

Miami Beach and I'm pretty sure you told me that you don't even do you know how to ride a bike? No I don't. This woman doesn't even know how to ride a bike. Don't be outing me on my podcast. I might be outing you on your podcast. You don't drive. Okay. Like that's easy to me. Uber exists. We love Uber. We love Uber but I feel like it's so different. Yeah. Like a personality type. Okay. Okay. The real personality difference here by the way everybody should know

You are by far the handiest woman I have ever met. When we went to go paddle boarding together, I own a paddle board, which I've used one, one, one time with you. I brought an electric paddle board pump. I, I like made my husband help me carry it.

Lexi rocked up to this paddleboard place and like was like, oh yeah, I'll pump my own. Like I'll unfurl it. I'll carry it myself. It's just like. Probably ended up carrying yours. You definitely did end up carrying mine. But like you're just like quite handy. But also I feel like very mentally strong in a way that I am not.

I'm mentally very weak. You're very strong in other ways. I think that we all have different gifts and talents. There's so many things that you're good at that I am not good at. So it's always different. We're going to talk about that today. I mean, I think one of the best things too about having friendships that are from such different backgrounds

is that even though you have such different life stories, like you said, we immediately clicked and like the transparency too, like I feel like we immediately talked about literally every aspect of it. Literally everything. Money. I was like, how much do you make? You were like, how much do you make? Yeah, it was amazing. But I think it's nice to be able to have a creator friend who I can do that with. Yeah. No, I think it's like there's no, it's a good friendship if there's like no gatekeeping involved at all. Speaking of no gatekeeping,

You, when we were on our paddle boarding trip, you told me that while you were traveling to your, you know, around the world in 80 days, except much more than 80 days type of beat, you ran out of money at one point and you thought you were going to have to stop.

How were you able to keep going? I didn't know how I was going to make it for a lot of it. What number country were you at? And you literally had no money left. So one of the things that I was doing, so I had that initial amount that I had saved. But of course, I was burning through that quite quickly. So in between trips, about every two weeks,

two and a half months, I would come home to California and work. Oh, okay. Save up as much as I could and then go out again. Yeah. One thing that people don't know is that the least visited countries in the world, probably some you've never even heard of before, are the most expensive to travel to. Hmm.

which is because there's a huge lack of tourism infrastructure and also visa costs to go to those type of places. Like if I wanted to spend a month in Indonesia, that would cost me the exact same amount to spend three days in Afghanistan.

Because of security, because of visas, because the hotels basically have a monopoly since most people only travel to these places for a specific type of government business. A lot of places in Africa are purely funded by like oil related business, for example. So.

hotels two to three hundred dollars a night yeah everywhere you go and it gets expensive very quickly that's it yeah especially for safety places that have security which I definitely didn't want to skimp on yeah being a young woman traveling by yourself yeah yeah so the the farther I got along the more and more expensive the countries I had left were getting and I had probably been to around

175 countries out of 196. Okay. So I was getting towards the end. You were so close. And I had 10 countries left in Africa. Okay. And I was so focused on just finishing that continent because there's 56 countries in Africa. It takes a really long time and it's really complicated logistics to make it to all of those places. And I was planning the trip. I was running the numbers for every, the flights and the visas and everything. And I just didn't have enough pay for it. Oh, okay. And I,

was really frustrated because I was ready to go. I was in the mode and you don't want to lose your momentum when you're trying to do something that's this big of a task. And one night I figured I'm like, okay, I'm just going to have to stop for a while and stay in California and try to find as much work as I can to be able to

this trip to Africa. And then I woke up literally the next morning. Well, first, a little bit of context. I had maybe around 3,000 followers on Instagram at that point. I was posting pretty regularly the photos that I had been taking and I didn't even know YouTube was something that you could make money on at that point until literally the end, until after I finished the record was when it dawned on me that YouTube was a thing. And that you should have been vlogging the entire trip. Yeah. Yep.

And so I didn't have much of a following, but I had randomly gone to a like Forbes 30 under 30 event in Boston, like in 2017 or 18. And somebody had been like, oh, hey, you should talk to this talent agent that lives in London.

And I didn't know this person. They didn't really intro us like to properly. And like, you know what? I'm just going to start cold emailing this dude with photos of my trip and updates and just tell him how it's going. And maybe it'll he'll remember me at some point for something work related.

And I got a call from him the very next day, the night after. After you're like despondent because you're like about to like have to cancel your trip. And I get a call from him the next day. Never talked to this person on the phone. He calls me. He says, hey, I booked you a job for $10,000. They're going to. A lot of money left. Yeah.

That was more money that I could even wrap my mind around being paid for something that was social media adjacent. And they...

It was for Montclair, which was also... Fancy brand. Crazy. Fan. Very fancy brand. I had never done any proper modeling before. I had never spoken on camera before. And it was for a really cool campaign. They've never been flown out somewhere. Yeah. Like, they flew me to New York. It was for $10,000. They gave me $10,000 worth of their merchandise, like their products. Yeah.

I...

I was shot with some incredible people. Yeah. John Boyega. Yeah. Bobby Brown. And I had the most crazy imposter syndrome ever for this shoot. But it was exactly how much I needed to be able to finish that trip in Africa and start the momentum back again. So it really felt like throughout so many points in my journey that I was very protected by...

like a higher power. There was something conspiring to get me across that finish line. And ultimately it took me a little over three years from coming up with the idea to break this world record. And I broke it by the time I was like 21 years old. This message is brought to you by Apple Card.

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And I mean, you still love, love traveling today. Definitely. I mean, it's become my whole life's number one passion. But it really is just a matter of what your priorities are. Yeah. And...

Basically the willingness to never take no for an answer and do whatever it takes to do and follow through with what you said you were going to do. So that was like a really big, big part for me. And it hasn't really stopped or slowed down since then. Yeah, clearly. I want to take a quick break. Lightning round. What travel experiences do you think are worth splurging on? First up, first class seats. Yes or no?

Yes. Okay. Yes. Five-star hotel. I mean, it's all worth it. It's amazing. Yeah. So yes. Okay. Super bougie food. Yeah.

You think so? I would have said no to that one. I love a good meal. I love a good meal. No, but I feel like, so I just got back from Thailand. Like, I felt like the street food tour was better than some of the Michelin restaurants I went to. Okay. I mean, yes. I think that it's like, yes and. Yes and. Okay. Like, you can do, like, all of these things are luxury and they're expensive for a reason. Yeah. But, and you will enjoy them for what they are. Yeah. But it's not worth it.

Not going just because you can't do those things. Right. Okay. That's a really great way to explain that. A local guide. 100%. Out of all of those things, that's the number one. Number one. Yeah. Okay. I love that. Private cars over public transpo.

I mean, if you were asking me this a couple years ago, I'd say no, but I'm definitely a private driver, private guide type of person. Okay. No. High-end luggage. No. No. That stuff's going to get beat up regardless. Yeah. I agree. It's not worth it. It's not. All right. I'm super nosy. I want to know, how many miles do you have with each airline?

It really varies. I'm a Sky Team girl. Are you? Okay. Yeah. Big Delta, KLM. Okay. Nice. Yeah. La Tombe. I mean, hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. I love that. Okay. When I need a flight, I'm going to be hitting you up. Yeah, right. So while you're taking this journey, I want to talk about your highest of highs. So think of your high. Mm-hmm.

but also your lowest of lows. And it can't be the time where you thought you weren't going to be able to keep going and you only had 10 countries left. Tell me, what was the best part and the worst part? I think the best part for me of travel in general is always the people. I've met so many inspiring people from all over the world and have encountered so much kindness and generosity and hospitality from people who didn't

didn't have much to give, especially in the places that, you know, they say that the people who have the least are the most willing to give what they have. And I really did find that to be true. And so always the people and the stories that you hear from people who live wildly different lives than you could ever imagine.

is something that has cultivated compassion in myself and like the way that I see the world, but also just created so many

that I would have never anticipated. Like you should see my WhatsApp. It is a mess. There is so many different area codes. Like I, I know it's a mess. Cause you're like, check out my WhatsApp, not check out my iMessage. Oh yeah. The WhatsApp is all used to communicate with everyone internationally. Like I've got, uh, my driver from four years ago in,

Jordan sent me a happy new year's message. I got a happy new year's message from a literal monk in a monastery in Bhutan. How does he have a phone? Like my friend in Nigeria, like so many different people. So I love being able to like call those people, my friends and to have relationships with them. That's always the best part for me. Uh, but the lows, I think that, uh,

Especially from my earliest travels, traveling to every country in the world, when I started getting farther and farther down the list of how many places I had to go, the countries and destinations I was going to were getting more and more obscure. So I wasn't really able to talk my friends or my family into coming with me. So I ended up traveling a lot by myself. My social anxiety could never. I've probably been to...

50 or 60 countries by myself. Who do you eat dinner with? Whoever's around or yourself. So that's the thing. One of the biggest struggles that I had was definitely...

loneliness. Yeah. Like I remember it was Valentine's Day. Oh no. I was like literally in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on I was going to I mean there's a ton of countries you would never know of that are hidden in the Pacific like Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tuvalu. I think I was in Tuvalu on Valentine's Day and

No phone reception there at all. A flight comes every four days. The majority of the island that I think a couple hundred, maybe a couple thousand people live on is the airstrip of the airport is the majority of the island. So when the flights aren't coming, they open it and it's literally a playground for all the kids. There's no fences or anything around this airport. But I was so lonely.

And that was really like one of the hardest things I think for me personally to, to overcome. And I do think that in spite of feelings like that, there's so much that you can get out of solo travel. For me, I feel like it's given me so much more self-confidence in my ability to navigate complicated situations on my own. Like I learned everything.

And like you mentioned, how to rely on myself to get things done. Yeah. Because there's, if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself. So I got like a really independent like attitude from that because it's,

Really, there's no better way to get to know yourself than being on your own. So I do think that everyone, at least once in their life, should go on a solo trip. And it doesn't necessarily need to be to the other side of the world, the middle of the ocean. But even to like a neighboring city or a state, or maybe if you're feeling adventurous, like another country. Yeah. I think that there's just so much that you can get out of that. I love that so, so much. Yeah.

After that whole experience, you traveled to every country, three years, you break the world record. You said, that's not enough. I am going to circumnavigate the globe in a car, specifically an electric vehicle. And you actually just got back from that trip a couple months ago. And I would know because we had our first date and we hung out. And then you were like, bye, seven months. I'll see you later. And I was like, okay, my one friend in Miami is gone. What made you want to leave me?

For so long. Well, it was another opportunity that I knew that I would regret for the rest of my life if I didn't do. So what's funny about this is that, so back in 2019, right before the pandemic also, is when I broke my first world record. Yeah. Yeah.

Perfect timing. Right. Perfect. So right around then, I actually found a journal entry that I had written that said that while I've gotten a lot out of this trip around the world to every country, I am grateful for the experiences, but I would never do it again because of the mental and physical toll that it took on my body and my mind. Clearly not. And, you know, that didn't age well. Yeah. Yeah.

at all because about two almost two and a half years ago I got a cold email from uh Ford who had this crazy idea that's based around an explorer named Aloha Wanderwell and this is someone that is so underrated you probably had never heard of her before you and I talked about her yeah exactly uh

She was the first woman to ever drive around the world in a car. And she set out on this journey when she was 16 back in 1922.

and she was so ahead of her time, literally the OG travel influencer. She funded her trip around the world in the 1920s by making films about her trips and what she was discovering around the world. So she documented all of it, took so many videos, so many photos, journal entries. She

I would love to tell more of her story forever because she's an endlessly fascinating woman. And she actually did that all in Ford Model Ts, which Ford had never previously highlighted her story and her

We came up with the crazy idea of taking Aloha Wanderwell's journey and where she went around the world and reinventing it, reimagining it into an electric car journey, which had never been done before. And

It took about a year of back and forth and planning and figuring out where we wanted to go, how to qualify a circumnavigation world record attempt. Yeah. All of that kind of stuff. I finally set out in the south of France in Nice, which is where Aloha Wanderwell also started her journey around the world. Love that. And it was...

Quite a whirlwind because you can plan all you want, but life will always have a very spontaneous way of catching up with you or surprising you. And there were a lot of surprises because before leaving on that trip, I had never even driven an electric vehicle before. Yeah. I had never had one. I was actually, I only drive a motorcycle usually. Do you guys see what I'm saying when I say she's the coolest girl I know? Yeah.

I don't drive a car. I have a motorcycle. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. That's such a cool thing to say. It's fun. Maybe I can get you on my bicycle first. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then get you on the motorcycle. The non-motorized one. Yeah. City bike. Yeah, I got to get you on a city bike before I put the little training wheels on. No, literally. But...

So set off and what originally the goal was to break the record in 90 days, which, uh,

Was not what happened at all. And I'm actually really excited because we made a documentary series about the entire journey. I can't wait to watch this. It's a three-part documentary series. And it came out on Amazon Prime in Europe. And it's also available on YouTube in the U.S. Oh, amazing. So it's called Charge Around the Globe.

Which is a very fitting name. Yeah, Charger. Because not being an EV driver normally, I had questions and so does everyone else who ever hears about this trip. Yeah. What happens when you run out of chargers? Like what if you're in the Amazon and you just don't have an electrical vehicle charger? Yeah. So I found out the answers to those questions. Like for example, in Zimbabwe, there is one charger in the entire country. So.

So, and I didn't personally see it. So when I was driving there, I had to rely on something called domestic charging, which is basically when you charge your car on a household power outlet, kind of like you charge your phone. And that can take upwards of 20, 30, 40, 50 hours to fully charge a vehicle. Right, because it's not like a hardcore energy source. It's like an outlet. Exactly. So then it felt like at times I was quarantined.

to be able to make it to that finish line. Ultimately drove over 30,000 kilometers, like over 19,000 miles on six continents and 27 countries. That's crazy. Would you do it again? I honestly can never say never at this point. Yeah. I can never say never. I just feel like you black out the bad parts and only remember the really good stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can be a little bit scarred by some of this, some of the not so fun aspects of this experience. Okay. Again, I got so sick. I think I remember sending you photos. Yeah, you did. And I was like, are you good? Like, are you going to come home? Oh, it got like the worst food poisoning of my life when I was in India. And do you know what you got it from?

I was being so careful. We were staying at a five-star resort or five-star hotel in Delhi. And I was like, I'm not getting the stereotypical Delhi belly food poisoning. When I'm here, I've got a job to do. I need to get to Bhutan before my visa expires. And I was only eating basically rice-based dishes, no meat from this five-star hotel and immediately got sick.

So I don't know. It just, it happens. It happens. It happens. To the best of us. Literally hands and knees throwing up in the parking lot of the Taj Mahal. Just things that my friend Lipsy can say. We still got the shoot. Oh, so.

There's a lot of importance that comes from pushing yourself through those type of situations. I have two questions left. One, what is your favorite country that you've ever traveled to? Yes, you have to pick one. You cannot give me five. Okay. Well, if I had to choose one, I might say Bhutan.

I've been dying to go. It is such a magical place. There's literally nowhere else in the world like it. The little houses on the cliffside and, like, I mean... Yeah, the temples hidden in the mountains. There's just... There is a reason they call it the happiest country in the world. Like, the people there are...

just so genuinely welcoming and the way that their government is structured is really fascinating. Instead of a GDP, gross national product, the government measures the success of its own government based on the happiness of the people. So they have gross domestic happiness.

is their way of measuring the success of the country. That's how much we literally so can't relate to that even a little bit. It's so totally different. Our government's like, how much can you produce? Don't care if you are happy. Yeah, exactly. So that's just one of the most magical places hidden in the Himalayas. And yeah, I mean, I've seen, I've only seen photos, but like

Some of those mountainous, like, temples that are, you know, cut into the cliffside, like, you get a good puffy cloud day and you're, like, in the clouds. So there's just nowhere else like it. It truly feels, like, mystical in the air there. It's giving, like, there should be dragons flying around. Yes. 100%. I love that. Final question is we talked a little bit about this. You were, like, you know, people have limiting beliefs. They really need to know how bad they want it. Yeah.

Do you have like a word of wisdom when it comes to reaching for massive goals like this, not letting finances be a limiting factor? Like what is your advice to everybody who's listening to this and like wants to make their life the coolest version and the most exciting and adventurous version that it can be? I have so many different pieces of advice on that topic. Give them to me.

I would say one that feels really relevant to your audience. I mean, for me, I've always, again, never take no for an answer. Yeah. There's always a way to make it work. You just, you always have to find a new way. And one of the things that I think is so underrated and has literally transformed my whole career is cold emails. Yeah.

If you want something, you have to figure out how to get a good cold email. Yeah. So quick story. The way that I was actually able to grow my following was very unusual. So I had broken this first world record. Yeah. I had I didn't even get 10,000 followers on Instagram until I had 10 countries left.

So it was a slow process. Visited every country on earth. Couldn't even get a couple Instagram followers. No. And I had crossed the finish line of my last country, North Korea. It was a little anticlimactic, to be honest with you. I just went back to my hotel room afterwards. I was sitting there and I'm like, you know what? I should probably cold email some like...

writers to tell them about this project. And I decided to cold email a writer from Forbes and had zero expectation that she was going to even read my email. But she got back to me only a few hours later and was like, hey, I read your story. I showed your Instagram to my six-year-old daughter and she's so inspired. I'm going to write an article in Forbes and publish it. She published it the very next day.

Like the turnaround was amazing. And that article changed my whole life. It went viral. It went completely picked up by the Associated Press. Yeah. It was translated into nearly every language. My Instagram was embedded into the articles and I had maybe 30,000 followers at that point or something. And it, my Instagram got 18 million impressions in five days.

It felt like my phone was going to light on fire. I was getting emails from the BBC and CNN and all of these crazy things. And off the back of that, I launched my...

YouTube channel. Yeah. Which was basically how my entire career was born. At that point, I had started making some more money online, but especially doing work for other people like taking photos and making content for others. But then I started to be able to monetize my own following and create a career that way. And

I'm sure it would have happened in a different way, but it would have not started that way or that quickly if I just hadn't asked for it. Yeah. And I get, personally, I get so many cold emails every day. I'm sure you get a ton as well. And you could probably say, they're so bad. They're all so bad. So, like, come on, guys. Dear sir or madam. What are you thinking? Sorry. Who do you think this is?

So I think having a really meaningful, heartfelt, concise, good, cold email that's sent in the direction that you want to go if you're just starting out trying to do something new, get a new job, do an internship, something like that. That's a really practical and very overlooked place to start. I love that. That is such good advice.

Cold email. Ask for what you want. Don't be afraid. And like when life gives you lemons, it's like you need to be ready to make lemonade. Otherwise, these opportunities come and then you don't make anything of them. Exactly. One of my favorite quotes is fortune favors the prepared mind. Love that so much. Thank you so much for being here. I love spending time with you. You know this. Lexi's about to drive us home because she just got a car.

I'm really excited. Please let everybody know where they can find you, where they can watch your travels, your adventures. Let us find you. If you want to see anything else of all of these crazy adventures around the world, you can find me on every platform, especially Instagram and YouTube at Lexi Limitless. And you can also watch my new documentary called Charge Around the Globe. If you're in Europe, you can watch it on Amazon Prime. And if you are here in the U.S., you can watch it on YouTube.

And everybody, that's spelled Lexi with an E at the end. Yes. Spell it. Spell it for us. L-E-X-I-E, Limitless. Perfect. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being here. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Net Worth and Chill, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you liked the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode.

Got a burning financial question that you want covered in a future episode? Write to us via podcast at yourrichbff.com. Follow Net Worth and Chill Pod on Instagram to stay up to date on all podcast related news. And you can follow me at yourrichbff for even more financial know-how. See you next week.