Popular travel content creator and adventurer Shubham Kumar, known online as Nomad Shubham, announced he is on track to become the youngest Indian to visit every sovereign nation in the world.
Speaking from his hometown, Kumar revealed that he has already visited 165 countries and plans to complete the remaining 30 nations within the next five months.
The 24-year-old traveller intends to conclude his historic journey at the Rio Carnival in Brazil, marking the end of an eight-year odyssey that began in a small village in Bihar.
Kumar, who hails from the Munger district of Bihar, started his journey at the age of 16 after walking away from a career in engineering.
He initially moved to Kota to prepare for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) entrance exams, but found himself inspired by travel documentaries on YouTube.
After securing a refund from his coaching institute, he used the funds to begin hitchhiking (travelling by soliciting free rides from passing vehicles) and couchsurfing (staying on locals’ sofas for free) across India and Russia.
The creator emphasised that his entire journey has been completed using an Indian passport, which often requires rigorous visa applications for many jurisdictions.
To help other aspiring travellers navigate these hurdles, Kumar announced the launch of VisaFu, a visa assistance startup he co-founded with fellow creators like Deepanshu Sangwan (Nomadic Indian).
The platform aims to provide transparency in the visa process, offering a refund on processing fees (the service charge for handling an application) if a traveller’s visa is rejected.
Kumar’s rise to prominence in the creator economy began in 2019 when his videos of hitchhiking through extreme conditions, such as the -60°C temperatures of Oymyakon, Russia, went viral.
He managed to fund his early travels through a combination of remote tutoring, small stipends from his family intended for education, and, eventually, his YouTube ad revenue (the money earned from advertisements shown on his videos).
He noted that for years, he kept his travel lifestyle a secret from his parents, leading them to believe he was studying for civil service exams in Delhi.
As he enters the final leg of his global tour, Kumar currently has over 3 million subscribers on YouTube and has become a symbol of the “slow travel” movement in India. While he plans to step back from full-time travel after visiting every country, he intends to continue producing content that highlights unique cultures and hidden corners of the globe.
