Traveling to every country on one of the worst passports in the world

Maliha Fairooz said her first memory of traveling was from Bangladesh to London when she was four years old. 

“Most kids, when they’re on an airplane, they’re crying and throwing tantrums,” she said. “But not me — I was so excited. I remember flying through the clouds, looking down at the sky and thinking ‘I’m basically a bird.’”

She’s just as excited to travel now, she said.

Fairooz has traveled to 102 countries and is more than halfway toward her goal of visiting every country in the world.

But the reason she won a NomadMania Award in October is that she’s made it this far with a Bangladeshi passport, ranked the eighth worst passport globally in the Henley Passport Index. 

The Bangladeshi passport only allows visa-free entry to 40 countries. In comparison, Singaporeans, who hold the top passport in the ranking, can enter 193 countries without a visa. 

That makes traveling much harder, with more red tape to manage, she said.

For example, before Fairooz could apply for a visa to visit Kyrgyzstan, she needed an official letter of invitation from a travel agency in the country. To get the letter, she had to buy a travel package with a Bangladeshi travel agent first.

Then she waited five to six weeks for her visa to be approved, she said.

At 16, Fairooz left Bangladesh with her mother and lived in various parts of the world, including East Africa and the United Kingdom. She now resides in Berlin and works for a human rights and democracy non-governmental organization.

For her, a major challenge she faces while traveling is the stereotype that Bangladeshis are illegal immigrants, she said, pointing out that countries with stronger passports tend to be wealthier, which adds to the mindset that those travelers are explorers and adventurers.

There are also many challenges that solo female travelers endure, Fairooz said, but it gets even worse when one’s…