When Shubham Singhi boarded his first international flight to Singapore at 14, little did he know that his adventures would take him to 111 countries across all seven continents by age 29. Now holding the record as the youngest Indian to achieve this feat, the Powai-based explorer says travel for him is about raw, unfiltered human connection and not about just ticking boxes.

“It was never about the count,” says Singhi, who works in finance and trading to fund his travels. “Initially, I travelled with family. But later, when I started travelling solo, it was to understand how people live in the most extreme corners of the world.” This curiosity led him to places few dare to venture—like surviving the -45°C in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, where polar bears roam freely, or entering Afghanistan in 2020 under the watch of armed soldiers.