While travelling around the world remains a pipe dream for most of us, it seems like even more of a fantasy to those of us with the world's 9th weakest passport.
And yet, Maliha Fairooz achieved the impossible. Since our last rendezvous for Avenue T in 2019, Maliha has, successfully and proudly, waved her beloved motherland's flag in 16 more countries -- overcoming unforeseen adversities and dangers that the green passport entails, and bringing up her travel score to 100 countries.
A travel enthusiast since the mere age of four, Maliha pledged to explore the world despite any and all obstacles in her way, all the while documenting her travel tales on her blog.
With such an achievement under her belt, Maliha shares with us reflections from her experiences so far, and what she hopes comes next on her journey around the world.
Congratulations on your 100th country! What has been the most rewarding part of hitting this milestone?
Thank you so much. I think the most rewarding thing about this was realizing my own potential. I am a 31 year old woman who has solo travelled half the world. If someone told my grandparents I would do this in the future, they would have never believed it -- solely because you cannot be what you don't see.
So I became my own role model and decided to make the world my own. And that feeling of realizing that I truly can be whoever I want to be and do whatever I want to do has been simply phenomenal!
Was there a specific moment in life when you decided you wanted to travel to 100+ countries? How did you prepare to do that?
Actually, I did have a specific moment when I defied this. When I was 20, I was on a year abroad for university in the Netherlands where I met all of these young Americans, Canadians, and Australians, who had an aim of going to 30 countries before they turned 30. I could not understand why they would limit themselves so much when they had such powerful passports and so much support from the state and their parents.
So I'd set a goal for myself to visit 50 countries before I turned 25, and I made it happen, Egypt being my 50th country. After that I needed a new goal, and I thought I'd try and make it happen and hit 100 countries by the time I am 30.
Unfortunately, as we all know, Covid-19 happened -- so I reached my goal a year later than planned, but here I am.
It must take a lot of planning to map out your travel routes across the world. Walk us through your process and how you choose where to go next.
Initially, I would go wherever I could easily get visas to, or didn't need a visa for. For example, with a visa from the Schengen region, you can go to many different countries. In fact, most of Europe is at your doorstep in that case. Additionally, you can go to Mexico, Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica, and Turkey.
Now, because I have travelled more than half the world, I choose places on the basis of where I haven't been and have a keen interest towards. Next year, for instance, I really want to visit Central Asia: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. These countries offer rich cultures and history -- I think it's time for me to explore that.
On what occasions do you usually feel the cons of travelling on a Bangladesh passport?
There are too many instances to count. I can't just wake up one morning and decide that I want to go to Columbia -- I have to apply for a visa and other clearances. If there is a need for it, I have to have my tickets booked in and out of places too.
I hate the fact that being Bangladeshi or being brown means that you cannot be spontaneous. You're not given the privilege of being so, because your legitimacy as a traveller -- or even as a person -- is constantly being questioned.
This is what I mean when I talk about how racist and neo-colonial the travel sector is. Some people can waltz in and out of countries without accountability, even though their countries have caused more damage to the world than anyone can fathom. Yet here we are -- a country that produces so much of the world's clothes, exports various products, is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world -- but we are dehumanized when we travel.
Has this discouraged you at any point in time?
To a great extent, yes, I have been discouraged. And that's because that's what the system of white supremacy wants. The system wants to establish a hierarchy of race and gender that helps some progress and holds the others back.
For me, it's been clear from day one that my ancestors did not survive colonization, ethnic cleansing, genocide, wars, and famines for me to give up to a system that is so hell-bent on making a brown woman bow down. This isn't just for me; this is for everybody who wants to fight a system established to make us feel bad about our history, our heritage, and our culture.
The pandemic put a halt to all our travel plans indefinitely. What was that time like for you? What was the first country you visited post-pandemic, and how did that feel?
It was not really halted for too long for me. I started travelling again last year, so that was while the pandemic was still ongoing. I went to France first, which started my second world trip and lasted six months. It was so refreshing to travel and be free again. But I think that it was also good to not escape constantly, and take in the environment that you are based in a bit more.
What are your top favourite countries to visit at the moment?
Among my top five, number one would be South Africa -- more specifically Cape Town. Next would be Bosnia and Herzegovina, followed by Mexico. Number four would be Ghana, and lastly, Turkey.
What's your ultimate travel goal? Do you have a timeline that you want to achieve it within?
I do want to travel to all of 197 countries. But at the moment my travel goal is to make the whole travel sector less neo-colonial. My goal is to make more women, particularly Bangladeshi or South Asian women, travel solo. I want to encourage young Bangladeshis to invest in travel as opposed to material things, so my travel goal is essentially to encourage other people -- who look like me, are from Asia or Africa, or developing countries in general -- to travel more, and to demand this world to give them the same opportunities as their white Western peers.
What do you have to say to people with the mindset that achieving travel ambitions as yours requires a level of privilege?
I want to preface this by saying: I am, without a doubt, very privileged. I have language, wealth, colour, class, wealth, and to some extent even pretty privilege. So because of this, I have been able to achieve a lot of my goals in life. But I've been seeing this discourse amongst people online about me, about how they could also do the same things I'm doing if they had the money. And I've seen a lot of comments where people are saying I'm doing this because I have my dad's money -- essentially discrediting me and taking away my achievements as a woman by diminishing them. Just as patriarchy has intended.
Once again, I agree that I am extremely privileged. I am single, I don't have kids, with no more loans to pay off, without parents who rely on me. Every single cent I earn is my own and for me to pay for anything I want to pay for. I come from a very educated background where my parents encouraged me to travel as far and wide as possible, and there is no denying that.
But so many others in Bangladesh and elsewhere have the same background as me or are much wealthier and more privileged. Yet they are not keen to travel like I did. And honestly, even with all the money in the world, unless you are resilient, you will never be able to travel as much as I have.
Yes, money will cushion you to a great extent, but when you are being held in immigration jail for no reason -- where no one even looks at your bank balance, and you have to sit there and accept your fate that you could either be deported or be harassed or abused, and no amount of money you have will ever change that -- you realize that money isn't all it takes. I know because I have been there.
I have slept in bus stations, train stations, on bridges, on people's couches, in planes, trains, and airports just to be able to see places, experience cultures, and learn things. When I was in my early 20s, I did everything in my power to be able to travel.
It's important for everyone to figure out why they're travelling. If you want to travel to go shopping, eat good food, and see a minimal number of sites, it makes sense to visit places like Thailand year after year. But for someone like me, whose entire being is dedicated to learning new things in new places and about new people, it's been much easier for me to prioritize how I spend my money.
I breathe, sleep, and eat travel -- so if you think all it takes to travel is money, by all means, give it a go and travel somewhere nearby that's cheap, on your own where you don't know the language and don't know a single person, then tell me what you think. I can assure you, your opinion will change.
The news of her achievements has subjected Maliha to quite a lot of unsavory remarks too, unfortunately -- most of which, perhaps, her male counterparts are excused from, and which take away from the sheer resilience and conviction to the cause that brought her where she is.
Despite all that, she is ready to hop back on the plane for her next adventures. With her blog, Maliha Around the World, and a book on the way, Maliha Fairooz has many more stories to tell, and maybe inspire you to give in to your wanderlust too.
Zora Mohsin is Editorial Assistant, Editorial and Op-Ed, Dhaka Tribune.