From North Korea to the Arctic, a Maltese-Canadian man has travelled to every country in the world - and is lucky to be back in one piece.

Visiting 196 countries, Stephen Fenech witnessed a suicide bombing in Sri Lanka, suffered from hypothermia in Canada’s Arctic Circle and has even been held at gunpoint by a police officer demanding a bribe.

“I was about to throw my life away for 10 bucks,” the 55-year-old said, as he recalled his spell in Equatorial Guinea.

“There was no turning back… because if I went back it would be just as bad as going forward, so I kept going forward.”

Speaking to Times of Malta, Fenech shared some of the highlights from his globetrotting tour that started 35 years ago when he was just 19.

Born in Canada to Maltese parents, Fenech’s worldly interests began at a young age.

“When I was a baby, we would have adventures driving from Canada to California through deserts as our car broke down,” he said.

From a young age, Fenech would frequent Malta with his family as they visited relatives.

“Malta is like my home away from home.”

Once in high school, he took a course in world issues where students were shown videos documenting life from across the globe. The visceral imagery, he said, would drive his own ambition to see every country the earth has to offer.

A few years later, in 1988, a 19-year-old Fenech would go on his first backpacking trip to the Dominican Republic, an island within the Caribbean known for its beaches and resorts.

“It was a baptism of fire. It started as a total disaster,” Fenech said. Once he landed, he walked some 24 kilometres from the airport to the city where he would spend a sleepless night in the middle of a construction site.

The next morning, a local saw a Canadian flag on Fenech’s backpack and began showing him around.

“It got me hooked. You just have to keep moving forward and everything works out.”

In 1990, Fenech spent three years backpacking worldwide, ticking off 61 countries from his list and returning to Canada in 1993.

Funding his own travels, Fenech’s day job as a director of live TV productions saw him get through most of his trips. In the 1990s, however, Fenech would often take a break from his travels, hunker down and take on odd jobs to defray the costs.

In 1991, he visited the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, a cluster of islands to the north of Canada that lies above the 66.5° which, according to National Geographic, is what most scientists consider to be the Arctic’s border.

While there, Fenech had to be picked up by the coast guard while canoeing as hypothermia began to kick in during what should have been the area’s warmer summer months.

“The captain that picked me up told me that it was the coldest summer they had had in years.”

A suicide bomber

A year later, while in Sri Lanka, Fenech witnessed a suicide bomber across the street kill navy chief Clancey Fernando.

Fenech was walking along the road when, feeling hot in the humid heat, he decided to walk alongside the nearby coastline a few feet from the street.

“When the bomb exploded, it threw me to the ground. If it wasn’t for a very mundane decision that morning, I would have been there when the bomb went off,” he said, recalling the destructive crater the explosion left behind.

On another one of his journeys in 2004, this time to Equatorial Guinea, Fenech said he was held at gunpoint by a police officer asking for money.

“He put his gun right to my heart, he was going to shoot me.”

In Spanish, Fenech told the officer that, just like him, he works for his money before handing over a sum of roughly €10 to leave the terrifying situation.

However, Fenech’s “closest brush with death” was when he and his brother attempted to climb Mount Fuji in 1999.

The local authorities had warned the brothers that climbing the volcano would be dangerous as stormy weather was ravaging the area.

Ignoring the advice, they clambered on and were eventually caught in an ice storm that flung them off their journey and down steep cliffs.

“I was sliding at what felt like 50km/h,” he said.

Rocks cut into his skin, leaving long scabs down his legs and back. Fenech and his brother were saved by “divine intervention” when a wooden stake caught them just before they tumbled over a cliff edge.

“I still have scars from it.”

One nine six

Fenech based his list of countries on the United Nations’ member states/observing members and on the standards that other world travellers follow.

Currently, the United Nations (UN) has 193 member states and two states on the permanent observer lists (Holy See and Palestine), bringing up their total to 195.

The final country on Fenech’s checklist of 196 countries is Kosovo, a nation recognised by many countries since its independence from Serbia in 2008 but not yet recognised by the UN.

The list includes some of the hardest-to-reach nations including North Korea and his final 196th stop, Nauru.

“North Korea was actually very easy to visit,” Fenech said, as he joined an organised group tour in 2008. While there, the authorities would stop him randomly and check his camera to authorise the photos he had taken.

“No matter how random, if they ask you to delete it, you have to respect it.”

Nauru, on the other hand, was not as easy as Fenech said he had to book his flights and accommodation to get his visa confirmed, risking the money he invested on the trip.

“They are very suspicious of travellers because the tourism industry doesn’t exist there,” he said, visiting the country last month at the age of 55, closing off a journey that began in his late teens.

To infinity and beyond

Having had his fill of earth, Fenech wants to continue travelling to new and exotic places. So, what’s next on the list?

“My next mission is Mars.”

In 2011, Dutch company Mars One began collecting investors and applicants for what they claimed would be the first manned mission to Mars.

Fenech not only applied for the one-way mission to the red planet but was shortlisted several times for the mission through its various cuts over the years.

However, the project has since stalled. In 2019, a Swiss court declared Mars One Ventures bankrupt, which led to the company’s dissolution.

Optimistic, Fenech still looks towards the stars for his next big adventure.

“That’s how I’ll finish this world, by looking for another one.”