bazaar witnessed history in the making as the British Ladies’ Society welcomed the inimitable Brazilian Nataly Gabrielly de Campos Castro to Kuwait to speak on her journey to become the first female solo traveler to visit all sovereign countries. Zoom guests from all around the world tuned in to hear travel journalist and digital nomad Nataly’s adventures, which are being followed closely and documented every step of the way by The Guinness Book of World Records.
Dragged-up by their boot straps, latch-key kid Gen X’ers may find it completely incomprehensible why Gen Z requires a “trigger” warning when something either possibly or vaguely traumatic is about to be mentioned, but even this 70’s child bazaarite was definitely left wondering why the Viaje Sem Limites speech didn’t have a “warning – traumatic content” label attached to it beforehand. Nataly sets the scene of her childhood with tales of bullying, being subjected to racism and ostracized by her peers because of her much darker skin tone and to such an extent that she could see no way out from her relentlessly painful existence – except one. Nataly’s voice broke and tears welled briefly as she recalled at times in her childhood being desperately unhappy, and it’s shocking to hear such brutal honesty coming from someone who, moments earlier, was so bright, beautiful and bouncy. One day, under the stifling blanket of an overwhelming acceptance that this was her lot and she’d had enough, she contemplated her next move on how to make the pain stop. She recalls looking down from three floors up – her chosen launching-off point – thinking, “No-one accepts me, so what am I doing here?”
But then, instead of down, Nataly decided to look up into the skies and just at the perfect moment spotted a passenger jet flying overhead. She stared at the plane, and as she continued to do so, her thoughts dramatically changed. “That day,” insists Nataly emphatically, “changed my life.” If this was a movie, the soundtrack would be reaching a crescendo, the camera in close-up capturing the change that comes into the eyes with the protagonist’s epiphany. “Why can’t I go on that plane…” Nataly questioned herself, “…to a place that no-one knows me and just start a new life? I may have problems here [in São Paulo] but that leaves me all the rest of the world to make new friends. I’m not going to end myself because of other people’s opinions.”
With a new lease of life, “ I was born again” she says, eighteen year old Nataly applied herself to whatever would get her out of Brazil, the brilliant teenager keenly strategizing that learning a second language would help her to “conquer the world and inspire others to achieve their dreams.” While on a course, she applied for and became the sole winner of a state-wide search for students worthy of an international scholarship, the prize being funding to study abroad. This led to a number of firsts; first time to mentally and physically prepare to leave Brazil, first time getting a passport, first time to travel, first time to fly on an airplane, first time stopping off in America and Europe, first time landing in Ireland. And the first time to learn English through total immersion for the Portuguese-speaking teen. And that Irish accent is not easy. With only a year on her visa Nataly felt that her goal of being sufficiently proficient in English to travel globally was time-bound, and she sometimes studied for twenty hours a day. She explains this dogged conscientiousness by saying matter-of-factly, “I needed to get results.”
The new adventurer realized that what she was really looking for was a way to travel where the travel itself would be funding her international exploits. She worked remotely as a travel consultant helping holiday makers build their itineraries and did this for five years between Brazil, the US and Europe. Until late 2019, Nataly continued to use travel as a way to fine tune her language, communication and journalism skills. She lived in five countries and visited a further nineteen countries under her own steam, learning first-hand about other cultures and discovering and understanding more about the misrepresentation of people and the misconceptions that can be perpetuated by a skewed print [and echo-chambered social] media. “So… what if I visited every country in the world,” she asked herself. Nataly discovered that out of eight billion people on the planet, almost no-one – only a mere 150 people – had managed to complete this feat. But that also meant that it was actually possible. She read that, naturally, more men than women had done it, no Brazilian has ever done it and delving deeper into her research, she discovered that certainly no black woman had visited all of the world’s sovereign countries as a solo traveler.
Nataly started planning her world trip expedition; which countries are recognized, which route captures the most countries in one go, how to rustle up sponsors, what to pack, and where is a good jumping off point to attempt this intercontinental challenge. And then came the global pandemic. Nataly reveals that she considers the airplane as a vision, revealing her path and visions can be extremely motivating, just ask Joan of Arc. So what Nataly did in 2020 and for two years, instead of binging on Tiger King and making sour-dough starter, was bring the Viaje Sem Limites project to fruition. She sent more than fifty thousand emails to various countries looking for sponsorships to help her get through her journey, but managed only to get enough funding to start her journey. With 650KD in her project funding the resiliently tenacious Nataly managed to visit a massive fifty countries and is now well over two thirds of the way through the journey to visit two hundred nations in eighteen months.
“But it’s not about setting records or doing just the journey,” Nataly presses on, “It’s about opening doors for others. My goal is to be the first Brazilian woman visiting every country in record time, yes, but that was not my dream. I want to inspire others to travel, and on a budget. To show the world and change little by little our society and surroundings.”
It’s a genuine kindness, showing her followers that it’s possible for them to complete whatever they want, achieve their dreams, and that they must always persist and not give up. Viaje Sem Limites is proof that when you travel you truly meet people, see how they live and understand them better. You’ll have to wait for the book to hear about Hungary. But bazaar can share that when asked which was the most difficult country to gain access to, Kuwait was immediately at the tip of Nataly’s tongue. Hopefully, the hospitality made up for it.
To learn more about her journey, follow @viajesemlimites on Instagram. Contribute to Nataly’s journey and be a part of history by emailing assessoria.viajesemlimites@gmail.com.
