Lexie Alford

Lexie Alford is a popular traveller and YouTuber.

She has more than 400 thousand subscribers on her YouTube channel by the name Lexie Limitless.

Lexie held the Guinness World Record as the youngest person to travel to all sovereign countries.

She is also a blogger and photographer.

Introduction-

Lexie Alford was born on 10 April 1998 in Nevada City, California, United States.

Both her parents are entrepreneurs.

Her mother didn’t attend college and at 19, started her travel agency, Adventure Travel Inc.

Her mother is an inspirational figure for Lexie.

A born traveller-

At a young age, Lexie started travelling around the world along with her parents, thanks to her mother’s travel agency.

At 2, her parents made her first passport and at 4, she travelled to Ireland and this was the first country that she travelled to.

At 12, while travelling down the Great Ocean Road in Australia in a rental car along with her parents, Lexie stumbled upon youngsters living in Volkswagen vans with surfboards on, enjoying themselves on the beaches.

This inspired her and she started daydreaming about travelling the world for a whole year without having to work or study.

Education-

Lexie did her schooling from Nevada Union High School in Grass Valley, California.

Thanks to the California High School Proficiency Examination (CHSPE), she was able to graduate from high school at 16, at the end of her sophomore year.

Then, Lexie studied for an associate’s degree in Behavioural and Social Sciences with an honours in Astronomy from Sierra College Nevada County Campus in Grass Valley, California.

By 18, she graduated from college.

Working hard towards her dream-

As at 12 Lexie dreamt of taking a year off from school to travel the world, she started working and saving money for her world travel.

As it was hard to find a job at that young age, she started cleaning and painting on her father’s construction sites after school.

Later, Lexie also started working on the sites of her father’s friends.

She along with her friend ran a successful lemonade stand.

At 15, Lexie started receiving training at her mother’s travel agency and later, became a certified travel agent.

Later, when she got her driver’s license at 16, her family gave her a car and she started her first business as an airport chauffeur.

At that time, Lexie was living rent-free at her parents’ home and this helped her to save money.

As she studied from a local community college, her tuition was affordable and she didn’t have any student debt and this also helped her to save money.

World travel inspired by a Guinness World Record-

By the time Lexie had graduated from college, she had saved up enough money to take a year off to travel the world.

So, she took a gap year and a couple of months later, in her friend’s house at San Diego, she decided to count the total number of countries that she had travelled by far and she learnt that she had travelled to 72 countries.

Out of curiosity, Lexie Googled, “What age is the youngest person to travel to every country?” on her phone and Google presented her with the Guinness World Record website according to which the age of the youngest person to travel to every country was 24.

That night, she decided to travel to every country in the world and break that Guinness World Record held by James Asquith.

At that time, Lexie was 18 and had six years of savings and had already travelled to 72 countries and she was also a travel agent experienced in creating complex itineraries.

As she was a travel agent herself, she had a good knowledge of the travel industry, cheap flights, points, miles and she also had access to discounted rates.

As her parents too were travel junkies, they completely supported her decision of travelling the world.

After Lexie started travelling the world, she started blogging and photographing.

The pursuit of the Guinness World Record-

Lexie started her world travel in 2016 and on 4 October 2019, she created a Guinness World Record by becoming the youngest person to travel to all sovereign countries.

Mozambique was her final country and on the day of creating the world record, she was 21 years and 177 days old.

In order to qualify for the Guinness World Record, Lexie had to submit almost 7,000 pages of documentation in chronological order and had to submit evidence like passport stamps, visas, plane tickets, accommodation receipts, detailed itineraries, receipts of inward or outward journeys from countries and two witness statements from two people that she met in each country.

Before turning 18, she travelled to 72 countries and this too was accepted for the Guinness World Record but out of those 72 countries, she had to revisit 30 countries due to lack of sufficient travel evidence for the Guinness World Record.

Lexie funded this world travel all by herself, she was able to travel for the first half and a year with her savings and she continued the remaining of her world travel by working as a travel consultant for her family’s travel agency and also worked as a blogger and photographer and sold prints.

Starting Lexie Limitless-

Even though Lexie started her YouTube channel by the name Lexie Limitless on 23 November 2017, she started publishing videos only from 21 November 2019, that is, only after achieving the Guinness World Record.

She stockpiled video footage during her travels and after starting her YouTube channel, she started editing and publishing that footage in her videos.

Lexie earns from advertisements on her YouTube videos, receiving sponsorships, affiliate marketing, partnering with brands, etc.

As of November 2022, she has 409K subscribers on Lexie Limitless YouTube channel and has 631K followers on Instagram.

Initially, Lexie was shooting with a Fujifilm X-T2 camera and then switched to the Sony Alpha 7R III camera.

She also works as a freelance photographer.

Her book & TEDx Talk-

In 2020, Lexie started writing her book titled- Three Adventures from Around the World based on her experiences as the youngest person to travel to every country.

As of November 2022, she hasn’t published the book but a 15-page (3 chapters) preview of her book is available on signing up for her newsletter.

Lexie delivered a TEDx Talk in June 2019 titled- Life Lessons from the Youngest Person to Travel to Every Country.

Personal life-

Lexie hasn’t revealed much of her personal life except in a few of her 2020 YouTube videos that she was in a relationship with Thomas Brag.

She is a minimalist.

Lexie loves Japanese food especially sushi and is skilled in Hatha Yoga.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Lexie Alford?

Share with me in the comment section below.