A few words about me

Why I travel…

I have traveled to every country in the world! All 193 UN-member states and a total of 330 countries and territories! I’ve even gone to Bougainville for the Independence Referendum for the future UN Member #194!

My name is Rus. I am a travel-and-adventure-obsessed adrenaline-junkie. I have been traveling pretty much my whole life – exploring new countries, cultures, people, landscapes, flora and fauna.

Life is too short!

It would be a total waste spending it working in an office cubicle or spending summers at the same summer house or going to the same lame beach or same ski mountain. I believe that traveling enriches you beyond any job, or college, or TV – you get to experience the most incredible things, witness amazing landscapes and cities with your own eyes, come face to face with rare animals, see otherworldly flowers bloom, sample the world’s most exotic cuisines and wines, immerse in different cultures, and meet hundreds of new friends from different countries and ways of life.

Once in a while I stop and reflect on all my experiences and then spin the globe,  re-pack my bags and go again toward new horizon, checking off new destinations of my ultimate bucket list.

By now, I have been almost everywhere, except for a few remaining countries. But every place I visited – I would want to go back again and explore deeper and in more detail – travel 2 unlimited!

My global journey

How it all came to be…

Working ungodly hours, I tried to use every possible vacation day and holiday to travel the world, as much as i could jam-pack into a few “vacation” days. always in rush and feeling like I was leaving something on the table. In 2013, I decided to leave the corporate world (or at the very least take a break) and explore full time. A week later I was hiking the frozen tundra of Svalbard in the Arctic.

Dream it! Plan it! Do it!

I started with 81 countries under my belt, and since then added another 237 to the list, all the while exploring and photographing and documenting my journeys – overland through all the “stans” in Central Asia, driving all around Europe (every single country), criss-crossing the entire Australia, island hopping through the Pacific islands (more then once), commuting with penguins in Antarctica, reveling at the Rio carnival, clubbing in Ibiza and Tomorrowland, exploring the history in the Middle East, climbing top three peaks in Africa, and going on authentic safari and wildlife trekking, visiting Highland tribes in Papua New Guinea, hunting coconut crabs on the island of Niue, marveling at the mud mosques of Mali even pushing into the “troubled” areas of Afghanistan, South Sudan, Central Africa Republic, Congo, and the like. And even getting to the most remote spots on Earth like Pitcairn, Saint Helena, Tokelau, and more! Somalia and Yemen became my last two UN-countries!

And the journey still continues!