This guy’s trips are the bomb!
Scotland native Andy McGinlay, 34, has more than your ordinary sense of adventure when it comes to traveling. This bloke favors “extreme backpacking,” and it’s taken him to some of the world’s most unsafe (even tyrannical) areas, including North Korea, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I never feel more alive than I do when I step off the plane into some far-flung war zone or despotic country,” McGinlay — a teacher based in Saudi Arabia — tells Barcroft Media. “It’s a dangerous cocktail of adrenaline and the sense that I’m going somewhere nobody else has the balls to — I live for this feeling.”
So far, McGinlay’s travels have taken him to 91 countries. He aims to hit 100 during his lifetime, which we sure hope isn’t cut short during one of these daredevil holidays.
“After former President George W. Bush made his infamous ‘axis of evil’ speech, I knew right then that I had to visit every one of those countries — Iran, Iraq and North Korea — and I did,” McGinlay tells Barcroft.
He went to Iran in 2012, noting its border was harder to enter than North Korea’s. But while in Iran, it wasn’t difficult for him to wander into Iraq.
“Many of these so-called dangerous countries do, in fact, turn out to be quite friendly and almost the opposite of our perception from Western media,” he says. “They receive so few visitors from the outside world, the tourists who do venture there are made to feel extra welcome.”
His experiences, though, aren’t always so rosy. While on a mountain hike in Kabul, Afghanistan, McGinlay recorded footage of people shooting at American Black Hawk helicopters.
In Syria on a 2010 trip, he was arrested and interrogated over accusations of spying.
Once, in New Delhi, he was kidnapped and taken to Kashmir, where his captors — who held him for 10 days — forced him to smoke opium. He was only 20 years old at the time.
But adrenaline, thick skin — whatever it is that keeps him going — isn’t fizzing out anytime soon.
“I’ve invested so much of my life into traveling, and there’s nothing else I would rather be doing,” he tells Barcroft, “so I expect to continue my journey long after the big 100 and well into the future.”