NomadMania Travel Awards 2022
November 27, 2022 - 15.30 GMT

NOMADMANIA
TRAVEL AWARDS

THE TRAVEL AWARDS
WITH THE BIGGEST TRAVELLERS.

Watch the event here
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What the NomadMania Awards are about

The NomadMania Travel Awards are meant to celebrate travelling efforts for the past year. Our aim is not to make people travel for the award, but rather to award the ones who travel regardless of that and to inspire new generations of travellers!

This year we expanded and we are giving out 12 awards in 3 main categories:

  1. Golden awards - will be selected internally by the NomadMania Team and their aim is to thank our friends, supporters and partners;
  2. Silver awards - will be selected by our community, through initial proposals by the public. Everyone is eligible, regardless of whether they are NomadMania members or not. Our committee will then choose 5 nominations per award category and they will be eligible for votes exclusively by NomadMania Members.
  3. Special award - lifetime travel award is voted and awarded by our committee.

To be eligible for voting in the final round, voters must have registered with NomadMania until one month prior to the event and must have 35 or more NomadMania regions marked as visited on that date.

see the NomadMania awards schedule
15:30 GMT
Panel 1. UN Masters 2022 - travellers who finished UN 193 in 2022 + AWARD: Best NM Friend (individual) + HOST: Sam
15:50 GMT
Panel 2. Women Travellers + AWARD: Most Positive Traveller + HOST: Sarah
16:10 GMT
Panel 3. Travel Authors + AWARD: Against All Odds Traveller + HOST: Francisco
16:30 GMT
Panel 4. The NomadMania Team + AWARD: Best NM Team Member + HOST: Harry (founder of NM)
16:45 GMT
Panel 5. Politics and Travel + AWARD: Most Purposeful Traveller + HOST: Sarah
17.05 GMT
Panel 6. Intrepid Adventurers + AWARD: Best LPI (Low Passport Index) Traveller + HOST: Sam
17.20 GMT
Panel 7. Fixers + AWARD: Best Fixer + HOST: Francisco
17.40 GMT
Panel 8. NM Scholarship Recipients (from Ukraine) + AWARD: Most Intrepid Traveller + HOST: Orest
18.00 GMT
Panel 9. Special Guest + AWARD: Lifetime Achievement + HOST: Sarah
18.15 GMT
Panel 10. Digital Nomads + AWARD: Biggest Digital Nomad + HOST: Francisco
18.30 GMT
Panel 11. National Travel Clubs + AWARD: Best NM Friend (Organisation) + HOST: Sam
18.50 GMT
Panel 12. Biggest Travellers + AWARD: The Biggest Traveller 2022 + HOST: All
NomadMania Awards categories
award
golden awards
BIGGEST NOMADMANIA FRIEND 2022 (INDIVIDUAL)
Awarded to a NomadMania member (a non-team member) whose contributions to NomadMania – in any form – have really made a difference to our platform.
BIGGEST NOMADMANIA FRIEND 2022 (ORGANISATION)
Awarded to an organisation of any kind whose contributions to NomadMania – in any form – have really made a difference to our platform.
BEST NOMADMANIA TEAM MEMBER 2022
Awarded to a NomadMania Team member who has made outstanding contributions to the platform in the past year.
‘AGAINST ALL ODDS’ TRAVELLER 2022
Awarded to a NomadMania member who, despite having considerable obstacles, has overcome them to become a notable traveller.
MOST TRUSTED LOCAL FIXER 2022
Awarded to a fixer on NomadMania who gave an admirable contribution to the travelling community and gained trust of travellers. This category will transition to voting (Silver) section next year.
award
silver awards
MOST INTREPID TRAVELLER 2022
Awarded to any traveller – NomadMania member or not – whose travels in the last year have required considerable courage, risk-taking and craziness!
MOST POSITIVE TRAVELLER 2022
Awarded to any traveller – NomadMania member or not – whose positivity while travelling in the past year renders them a role-model of behaviour In the travel community.
PURPOSEFUL TRAVELLER 2022
Awarded to any traveller – NomadMania member or not – whose efforts to create community, help local communities and in general travel with a purpose in the past year render them much more than just a traveller.
BIGGEST DIGITAL NOMAD 2022
Awarded to any traveller – NomadMania member or not – whose overall contributions in the past year through digital platforms (their own blog, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook or other) make them a supreme online travel leader.
BIGGEST TRAVELLER 2022
Awarded to any traveller – NomadMania member or not – whose travels in the past year, in terms of both quantity (days on the road and number of trips) AND quality (difficulty and variety of destinations), render them a truly big traveller even by the standards of the NomadMania Community.
BIGGEST LPI (Low Passport Index) TRAVELLER 2022
Awarded to any traveller – NomadMania member or not – who doesn’t let the bureaucracy and passport/nationality issues stop them in travelling. To be eligible for this, travellers have to be from one of the countries that rank the lowest on Henley Passport Index Ranking. Full list is available on the nominations page.
award
special award
NOMADMANIA LIFETIME TRAVEL ACHIEVEMENT 2022
This award is given to any traveller – NomadMania member or not – whose lifetime travel achievements are of an outstanding level.
The Awards Committee

The first step in nominating travellers for NomadMania Travel Awards 2022 was the nominations done online by our community between August 21st until September 21st. Members of NomadMania were free to nominate anyone they wanted in six different categories, regardless whether the nominee was our member or not.

After that we needed to make some order and to decide which of all proposed nominees were the best for this year’s Awards. We formed our Committee to help us do that job and the work started. This year we wanted to have more members and less involvement in the decision making process by our team, as our aim is to make this truly community based Awards.

The selection started by reviewing the lists and our founder placing his vetoes. This is the only involvement by him in the whole process.

Committee had worked hard in the previous weeks under guidance of our manager Milana. She did not have an active role in the voting process either, except in three cases. We had situations where either a member of our Committee or a member of their family was nominated and in such cases Milana replaced that Committee member with her votes.

Basic rules that our Committee was instructed with:

  1. Nominees must be nominated for their performance last year only, not their whole life.
  2. Biggest Travellers must be nominated based on independent travelling efforts alone.
  3. Last year's winners cannot be nominated in any category this year.
  4. We will end up nominating only travellers that can be reached and that accept the nomination of NomadMania’s community.

So without further ado, we present to you the NomadMania Travel Awards 2022 Committee which worked to bring you the final nominees in 6 different categories.

hosts picture Bengt Hildebrand

He was born in 1969 and lives in Stockholm, Sweden. He’s a physician and has worked in several African countries. He’s been on the board of the Swedish travel club ”Club100” for several years and is its current webmaster. Bengt visited his final UN country (Yemen) in January 2020.

hosts picture Yui Pow Redford

First Asian woman to visit every sovereign country, and first Singaporean. UN 193 completed in 2017. Linguist, educator, business owner, nonprofit founder, and mother. Loves exploring the world through travel, language, and music.

hosts picture Ric Gazarian

On a quest to travel to every country in the world and has so far traveled to over 150 countries. He is the host of the Counting Countries podcast, Co-Founder of the Extraordinary Travel Festival and blogs at GlobalGaz.

hosts picture Jack Goldstein

Travels with Colombian, Hungarian and US passports. Runs a hotel in Bogota for the past 25 years. Passionate for long drives. Chases sites of jewish historical relevance, and remote communities.

hosts picture Billy Offland

I'm Billy Offland, 25, from Manchester UK and a trip to Eritrea away from travelling to every country in the world! I was lucky enough to grow up in a family that loved to travel and since then i've gone off solo trying to complete the goal with a big focus on nature and looking at how communities, NGO's and governments are responding to the climate and biodiversity crises.

hosts picture Eugenio Bregolat

Eugenio has spent his whole life on the move. Born in Singapore and raised on three continents, he likes to call his current location home, no matter where that may be. His latest travel adventures include climbing up the Winding Minaret of Samarra, Irak, watching sunset over the ancient Nabatean town of Mada’in Saleh, Saudi Arabia, or sipping a cappuccino outside the Teatro in Asmara, Eritrea. Originally from Spain, he currently spends most of his time in Shanghai, China.

hosts picture Gianni Bianchini

Gianni Bianchini has been a digital nomad since 2013, traveling across the world full-time with only carry-on luggage, visiting 50 countries. He is a digital nomad mentor, youtuber, blogger, photographer and podcaster. He is the founder of the “Accademia Nomadi Digitali,” a platform that assists people in embracing the remote working lifestyle.

hosts picture Erik Futtrup

Erik Futtrup, 54, proud of being recently verified in the NM region. I plan on finishing 193 in spring 2024. I travel alone, with good friends I have met in my Danish travel club and EPS, and my wife and two teenage children. I like the planning and organizing part as well and have designed adventure trips that are run today by different travel agencies. I work in IT but my main hobby is travelling.

hosts picture Laerke Helene Ehlers Mikkelsen

Laerke has grown up in a family of four generations of female travellers – and with a thirst for knowledge and political implications. Now, at the age of 19, she has visited 114 countries spanning from Syria and Chad to solo-travelling in Brunei.

hosts picture Aurélien de Saint Blancard

Aurélien was born in Paris, has lived in Beijing and now lives in Brussels. He has travelled to 75 countries and then his passion became business, as he has started his travel company, notably focusing on uncommon places. He is a member of the TCC and has organized the meetings of NomadMania in Paris and Brussels.

hosts picture Milana Bojinović

NomadMania general manager, working within the community since 2019. Her role here was organising the voting process, facilitating meetings and (very) long emails and documents to help the team work. She took an active role in the voting process only in three exceptional cases: where a member of our Committee or a member of their family was nominated, they didn't have the right to vote for obvious reasons and in such cases Milana was the one to cast the vote. Her role in the organisation of the whole Travel Awards is multilateral, however.

Meet the hosts
hosts picture Francisco Ortiz

Argentinean digital nomad and content creator. Visited 65 UN countries, including 210 NM regions. Lived in 10 countries, currently based in between Tbilisi and Dubai.

hosts picture Sam Hawthorne

Sam Hawthorne attempted to become the youngest man to travel to every country in the world, but the pandemic intervened, so he is now on 181 UN countries and the age of 23 with 401 NM regions. An avid adventurer, traveller and entrepreneur.

hosts picture Sarah McArthur

On the road since childhood, Sarah is currently based in Hong Kong. She has visited 527 nomad mania regions, 116 in countries or 147 UN+. She is going to get to 193 when the pandemic is over, with two children in tow.

Meet the team
hosts picture Harry Mitsidis

Founder. Global nomad, bowling, aviation, statistics, Eurovision Song Contest fan!

hosts picture Thomas Büchler

Minister of Internal Surveillance. UNESCO World Heritage Sites aficionado.

hosts picture Wojciech Fedoruk

Executive Committee and Vice-Minister of Internal Relations. Showing the world to his children. Fan of polar regions.

hosts picture Orest Zub

Orest is not a constant team member, but he is one of our greatest helpers and volunteers. He is the acting director of the Awards ceremony and all technical aspects of the live stream. Freedom Entrepreneur, Visited 128 UN countries including 415 NM regions.

hosts picture Milana Bojinović

NomadMania manager, in love with travel, scuba diving and writing. Under travelled.

hosts picture Daniel Zagrodzki

NomadMania IT Department. Freed from working with taxes and ERP systems - deals with all IT (small and big), loves everything outdoors - sailing, mountain hiking, freediving and sport aviation.

hosts picture William Obinyah Tetteh

Associate. William is funny, open-minded, gentle and loves to discover.