Double alumnus Cameron Mofid is just back from the adventure of a lifetime. Traipsing mountains in Afghanistan, touring palaces in India, backpacking in the remote Congo, cavorting with school children in Nigeria, ambling the streets of Baghdad—all those and so many more.
Beginning at the age of 18 and over a 7-year span, Mofid visited every one of the 195 countries in the world.
And by verified metrics, he’s the youngest person to have ever done so. While the Guiness World Book recognizes the youngest globetrotter to be a 21-year-old woman, her feat was marginally diminished by the fact that she never left the airport in several countries and visited only the demilitarized zone in North Korea. Mofid’s trek, on the other hand, was verified by the extreme travel group NomadMania for having truly visited every country in the world. He joins an elite group of some 400 people ever to do so.
Needless to say, Mofid’s globetrotting was filled with adventures and escapades—many of them challenging, even harrowing. Yet the last country he visited was perhaps the most memorable.
“I traveled to North Korea as part of a delegation of amateur athletes, and there we ran in front of a huge stadium crowd. So, crossing the finish line with 50,000 people cheering was literally and symbolically the top-of-the-mountain moment for me, and something I’ll never forget,” Mofid said.
The son of Iranian and Egyptian parents, Mofid was born in Baltimore, Maryland and raised in San Diego, California. He spent his last year in high school at a tennis boarding school in Naples, Florida. The school was operated by the Academia Sanchez-Casal, based in Spain.
“It was a really diverse group of kids. Of the 11 of us who graduated, I was the only native English-language speaker,” explained Mofid.
As a junior player, Mofid earned a world-ranking, but his ambitions to pursue a professional tennis career were sidelined by injuries. So, after graduation, he took a gap year where he managed a nonprofit founded by Nick Kyrgios, an Australian professional tennis player. As part of his work, he traveled extensively—to Barcelona, Hong Kong, Milan, Marrakesh, among others—and visited tournaments to market tennis memorabilia and merchandise to benefit underprivileged children. Additionally, as a contributing writer, he wrote articles for Florida Tennis Magazine.
“That gap year definitely sparked my love for travel,” Mofid said. “It was so cool to travel the world, using the app Couchsurfing or staying with friends. It was very exciting.”
So much so that when he started his undergrad studies at the University, Mofid’s experience was far different from that of most first-year students who enjoy the freedom that college offers.
“I’m very type A, and so I want to do well in my classes and have always been a strong student,” Mofid said. “But I was so free during that gap year that the structure to attend classes was challenging. So, it was good being in Miami, one of the most well-connected international cities, from where it was easy to take a weekend trip to Guatemala or a short trip to Belize and Mexico.”
Mofid focused enough to graduate magna cum laude with a B.B.A. in finance and management and went on to earn his M.B.A. as was named valedictorian. In his first year at the U, he co-founded an event marketing company and organized live music events around Miami, managing a team of over 100 people at one point.
When the pandemic launched in 2020, like so many others, he was obligated to spend a lot of time alone.
“I was in my apartment one day and began looking up how many countries are there in the world. Who’s the youngest person (to travel to them all)? All these records, it was crazy that more people had been to space than had been to every country in the world,” he remembered. “I thought to myself: ‘Maybe that’s something I’ll pursue at some time in my life.’”
Then in December 2021, the idea that had been percolating spilled over.
“I just decided I’m going to go for it. I’d been operating my marketing company for a while, saving up, and just decided now’s the time,” he said.
He called Joseph Ganitsky, professor of professional practice in the Miami Herbert Business School—a world traveler himself and one of Mofid’s favorite professors.
Cautiously optimistic and impressed by his student’s bravado, Ganitsky warned that Afghanistan and some of the other countries might be dangerous. “Well, we’ll cross those bridges when I get there,” he told his professor. “And eventually I did.”
So Mofid set out on the open road. And what did he experience?
“One of the most powerful parts of this journey has been the human connection and the empathy that comes with that,” he said. “Maybe it sounds hard to believe, but my mission was not about checking off countries, it was about meeting the people in them.”
News headlines and political rhetoric can prompt distorted views of what people in the world are like, he said, adding that politicians and the media often have agendas, and that those agendas rarely align with reality.
“So, what I found in my travels instead was a very deep universal desire for human connection and kindness everywhere I was, even in the most remote places,” Mofid said. “In the most politically tense parts of the world, people showed extraordinary generosity—offering tea to me when I was walking down the streets in Baghdad, a place to sleep in a remote island in Suriname, or simply a smile in every country in the world. So, when I talk about being a global citizen, empathy is at the forefront of that.”
The University community around the world played a huge role in facilitating his travels.
“What makes UM special isn’t just the academics—it’s the incredible global network of peers and faculty who genuinely care and support one another,” Mofid said.
Friends that he’d made in his classes and on campus welcomed him into their home countries more than 10 times—including trips to Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Vietnam, Morocco, Greece, Switzerland, Poland, Latvia, Jamaica, and Mexico.
Ganitsky, a global citizen himself who’s traveled to more than 100 countries, offered invaluable guidance and support. During his travels, Mofid returned several times to guest lecture in Ganitsky’s business classes as well as to offer a TEDxUMiami talk. Susan Amat, director of Entrepreneurship Initiatives at Miami Herbert Business School, offered her global network to support him, and Alex Alexandrakis, a business law lecturer, provided critical advice during some uncertain situations—especially in more remote or challenging parts of the world.
Mofid’s trek has translated into at least one very concrete outcome: his own nonprofit.
“Humanity Effect was born directly from this journey. When I visited Nigeria—my 115th country—I spent time in the slum of Makoko, part of which is built on stilts over a lagoon. The poverty there was some of the worst I had ever seen,” Mofid explained.
“After that experience, I launched a GoFundMe to support a local school I had visited—and we raised over $60,000 in just a few weeks, largely thanks to the support of the UM community,” he added. “That campaign sparked the creation of Humanity Effect. Since then, we've built a second school and are halfway through constructing a medical center. Today, we support more than 750 children.”
In what ways did the adventure change him?
“I’ve built thicker skin and developed skills that will translate very well to my career—negotiation, logistics, budgeting, relationship management, problem-solving, among others—that will all be useful as I pursue the next chapter of my life,” Mofid said.
Mofid has just recently returned from visiting North Korea, the last country of his world tour.
“I’ve been so determined and focused for the last seven years to reach this goal. More than my studies, more than tennis, more than anything, this is the goal I envisioned: I wanted to do something that only 400 people have ever done. And not only did I accomplish it, I became the youngest person to legitimately ever do so,” Mofid said.
“I’ve always had a passion for tennis and knew I wanted to get back into the business world of tennis after I graduated,” he said. “I delayed that for a few years to do this trip around the world. Tennis is the reason I started this in the first place, and the sport has given me a network of friends all over the world. It’s through that same relentless curiosity and drive that helped me visit every country in the world that I’ll be successful in the next chapter of my life.”
