Meet up with the eight-year-old Dubai resident who has recently travelled to 68 countries

This past year, eight-year-old Dubai resident Ophelia Holden travelled with her mother, Stephanie, to New Zealand, Tajikistan, France, Uganda, India, Brazil, Serbia, the united kingdom, Norway, Russia, the Philippines, Benin, Eritrea and Djibouti.

By February of the year, after going skiing in Andorra, the half-American, half-Colombian have been to 68 countries. And then: nothing.

As the coronavirus outbreak spread around the world, travel restrictions were imposed and flights were grounded, Stephanie and Ophelia’s plans to visit every sovereign nation on the planet - 193 in total - were temporarily shelved.

“I feel sort of stuck in one box, because I’m kind of used to going to a lot of places, however now we’re just here - all day long,” Ophelia says. “I love traveling,” she adds. "It’s ways to see the world and how it really is.”

Stephanie, who has recently visited practically 150 countries, says she hopes their travels show Ophelia “empathy, and understanding something else other than the approach to life of Dubai”.

“I simply want her to learn how other persons live, how other cultures live, and how some who are less fortunate live,” Stephanie says. “Hopefully by starting at a age, this will be a part of who she is.”

Before the pandemic, the duo somehow were able to leave the UAE at least once a month, whilst Ophelia attends school as a year three student at Kings’ School in Umm Suquiem and Stephanie works full-time as chief strategy officer at MBC Group and head of MBC Ventures.

When lockdowns and travel bans commenced in March, Stephanie started pushing back planned trips to Chad and Cambodia to later in April. She's since postponed travel plans to October, adding constantly with their backlogged destinations list: trekking in Taiwan, Art Basel in Switzerland, the Raja Ampat islands in Indonesia, a polar bear National Geographic cruise in the Arctic, and an eco lodge in Bolivia.

Stephanie, who has lived in Dubai for 16 years, says she looks for unique, enriching or active encounters - not “kid-focused” or “touristy stuff”. They aren’t choosing countries in a specific order or concentrating on certain regions before others.

“Usually we mix it up every year,” she says. “We do some Africa, some Asia, some Europe, some SOUTH USA, some America,” Ophelia adds. “We mix and match.”

The youngest person to travel to all sovereign countries is American Lexie Alford, who broke the Guinness World Record at age 21 in October.

There are 247 persons who claim to have visited every UN-recognised country, according to Nomad Mania, which lists rankings and verifies documentation for proof. Founder Harry Mitsidis estimates the full total could be double that.

“2019 was an archive number for achieving the target, with an unprecedented 39 persons doing it. Even in 2020, nine persons did it, all within the first two-and-half months of the entire year,” Mitsidis tells The National.

He says it is difficult to guess if the youngest person record will be broken soon, especially given the devastating effect Covid-19 has had on travel.

“However, it really is clear the record has been broken year by year,” he says. “A few years ago, the ‘youngest person’ was 29; that then became 27, and eventually 21.”

Stephanie, 46, grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and travelled beyond your US for the very first time in high school when she did a year abroad in Hong Kong and learned Cantonese. During her time at the University of Pennsylvania, she spent a semester in Moscow studying Russian.

She moved to Singapore for her first job out of university with Merrill Lynch, and has since lived in a variety of countries, including the US, India, Lebanon and the UAE. The Harvard MBA graduate came to the UAE to work as a McKinsey consultant and has been at MBC since 2005.

During her studying and working life, she started “roaming” the world. After giving birth to Ophelia in the US in October 2011, within two weeks Stephanie was hiking in the Utah canyons with her in a baby carrier.

The travel never stopped and “she always accompanied me”, says Stephanie. In early stages, Ophelia visited countries such as for example France, Oman, Ukraine, Madagascar, Botswana and Zambia.

At age six, in Nepal, Ophelia climbed to 4,400 metres on the Tengboche to Dingboche hiking trail, which contributes to Mount Everest base camp. “I’m an extremely strong hiker I believe,” Ophelia says.

Some of Ophelia’s memorable occasions include sticking to her nanny Mercy in the Philippines, where she bathed in a bucket and sometimes had no electricity, and “the craziest dog sledding” on Siberia’s frozen Lake Baikal, the world’s greatest fresh water lake.

“I do like each of the countries, but there is a favourite: Eritrea,” Ophelia says. “I love Africa, it’s my happy place.”

She started authoring her travels in a journal during the last year and Eritrea was heavily featured. “I wrote everything about any of it,” she says. “That they had a camel market, that they had beautiful mountains, that they had Italian architecture and lots of fun stuff to do there. And my heart loved it.”

I simply want her to learn how other persons live, how other cultures live, and how some who are less fortunate live

Benin, too, is among her top picks because of the “voodoo dancing” and a temple where there “were pythons atlanta divorce attorneys direction you would go, so it was sort of scary”. She also remembers the salt rocks in “weird star shapes” in Djibouti and the “beautiful waterfall” in Angola.

But when asked where she wants to go next, Ophelia surprises her mother by naming a number of traditional tourist destinations: Paris and Egypt.

Paris, because “it appears pretty cool to see the Eiffel Tower and the art museums and Mona Lisa and the ballets”, she says. And Egypt “because I wish to start to see the pyramids and I think it’s a cool place and there’s the Red Sea.”

For now, Stephanie and Ophelia have resorted to staycations in Abu Dhabi, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah. However they are itching to reunite on the highway again, the moment it really is allowed and safe.