The 6th NomadMania Travel Awards took place as the closing event of the 3rd Extraordinary Travel Festival in Bangkok, Thailand. This was the second time the awards were part of the ETF in Bangkok and the third time they were a live event, following also the 2023 edition in Lviv, Ukraine. This session was also notable as the last time the NomadMania Awards were a standalone event – as of 2027, the awards will be part of our annual NomadMania Conference, bringing a glamorous evening to what will already be a jam-packed event.
The awards, much like the 2024 awards, were presented by Lucy Hsu and Dondon Bales, who are also key, avid members of our Awards Committee. Dondon has contributed a vast, well-researched document on possible nominees for many years now, so his contribution to the event is immeasurable. UN Master Lucy Hsu, on the other hand, leads the Committee with bright ideas and determination, as well as always donning an incredible outfit on Awards night.
There were 12 awards to be given overall – 5 directly by the NomadMania team, one that was proposed by ETF’s head organiser Ric Gazarian regarding his Counting Countries podcast and 6 awards which were put to the vote of the NomadMania Community. With many international travellers to celebrate, and every corner of the globe represented, the selection was, as always, quite hard.
NomadMania’s ‘internally’ chosen awards are given primarily to those who are key parts of NomadMania. The best NomadMania team member award went to our Travel Experience Manager Pedro Peticov from Brazil. Over the past 18 months, Pedro has developed an admirable reputation among travellers for his responsible, caring and heartfelt approach and it is fair to say that he is among the best elements of our trips when he leads them!
This award was the least we could do to thank him. Yan Pun is one of our two Envoys from Australia – the other being co-host Dondon – and she has kept going strong from the beginning of our Envoy programme. In the past year, she was instrumental in helping us get the Australian NomadMania community motivated to deliver a proposal for further Australian regions in our Masterlist. And this is a reflection of the true spirit of NomadMania.
Meanwhile, our volunteers Jack Shepherd (Head of the Series Committee) and Stephen Nemeth (Head of the ATLAS Committee) have both shown incredible resolve and commitment in their respective fields. Thank you all!
Our Against All Odds award is one of the most poignant as it celebrates resilience in travel in the face of difficulty. Once again, like in 2022, this award was a tie. On the one hand, Hayley Kennedy is the first female traveller to reach every country despite her disability; but more impressive perhaps is her continued commitment to travelling and exploring more long after the 193 goal was achieved.
This is what we especially like – when the curiosity and love is not just about one goal but becomes a lifetime aim! Meanwhile Maura Ward, mother of famed traveller Johnny Ward, won over the hearts and minds of everyone attending ETF and a real trouper she proved to be!
Our Lifetime Achievement award was this year given to inspirational Japanese travel couple Kazuto and Azusa Matsumoto who have spent a lifetime exploring the world, a good part of it together. Azusa became the first Japanese woman we know of to reach 193 earlier this year. And together, they join only a handful of couples to travel the whole world together.
Like Hayley, they also show a continued commitment to endless exploring, never staying home too long. Ric Gazarian introduced the evening with the first award for his popular Counting Countries podcast. Celebrating 10 years of bringing the best interviews with people who are aiming for 193, we thought that this is an apt award to tie in to the ETF angle – but we hope to also make this award an annual tradition. The final recipient, chosen by Ric himself, was the interview with French traveller Yael Pericard.
The voted awards allow the NomadMania community to decide among all the inspirational nominees. This year, it was clearly some amazing women who impressed our community most. The best book award was given to Hungarian UN Master Ildiko Szabo with her book ‘The World is your Playground’ which combines her travel experiences with self-help tips for travel. Meanwhile, for the first time ever, the best fixer award was also given to a woman, Chloris Ankunda of Uganda, who is rapidly gaining a reputation as the ‘go to’ person for all things Uganda.
The award for most purposeful traveller is given to the one who has contributed significantly to travelling with a (charitable or well-meaning) purpose or has created community. And it was the second case for our very own Dondon Bales, who won in a landslide vote for his efforts in developing FWT – Filipino World Travelers. Meanwhile, the best travel digital content creator award was also given to our very own Chris Joondeph.
Chris has been responsible for our fantastic Nigeria trip in September – one we are repeating in March 2027, and you don’t want to miss! Chris’ videos of life in Nigeria have been a breath of air for the much misunderstood African country and have been very popular both inside Nigeria and beyond.
The two biggest awards of the year went to two women UN Masters. In the Low Passport Index category, Kach Umandap became the second Philippines citizen of the evening to receive an award; clearly, her experience of successfully reaching 193 solely with a Philippines passport impressed the community considerably.
No less impressive is Elena Chechina’s story of travelling the world with her very young children, thereby showing that travel does not need to be seen as an ‘either/or’ dilemma – you can have your travels and your family too! Elena received the Biggest NomadMania Traveller award, becoming the 4th woman to do so since 2021.
The evening in Bangkok was to an extent a ‘star-studded’ event – apart from the award recipients of this year, many former award winners took to the stage to present an award, and NomadMania celebrated many other travel communities such as Every Passport Stamp (Stefan Krasowski), MTP (Charles Veley), Pangea (Matthew Gray) and the ‘mother of the travel communities’ Traveler Century’s Club (Ed Hotchkiss). Last year travel recipients such as Jaime Aleman, Daniel Riley and Thor Pedersen also contributed to the proceedings.
This was one more unforgettable evening and the special value was that it was a ‘one time only’ event – we did not stream it on this occasion, leaving it a memory for those who
attended. We only have 9 months to go for our next award session, the 7th NomadMania awards, in Orhei, Moldova, as part of our 7th NomadMania conference. See you there!
