Gunnar Garfors has singled out Seoul as his favorite big city and called it “vastly underestimated.”
The Norwegian explorer, 49, who became the first person to visit all 198 countries in the world twice, shared his travel insights with UNILAD in a recent interview. Garfors, who completed his second round of global visits on December 16, 2018, has built a career as an author, public speaker, and travel advocate since leaving his two-decade post at the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation in 2021.
Garfors did not hold back on his criticism of mass tourism and the herd mentality he sees driving it. “I think the main problem with mass tourism and it’s that everyone suddenly are in too many instances want to go to the same place at the same time. You know, everybody wants to see the Coliseum or the Eiffel Tower,” he said. He continued: “We have these places all over the world. Sheep are not very innovative so we we shouldn’t really try to be one.”
The explorer pointed a finger at social media’s role in shaping travel decisions. “A lot of us do that because of social media and we have a favorite ‘influencer’ and we uncritically just follow what they tell us,” he added. Instead, Garfors urged travelers to be “a bit more original” and to “go to and discover a new place.”
When pressed for his personal favorites, Garfors named Seoul, South Korea as his top big city pick. “My favorite big city in the is probably Seoul in South Korea. It’s vastly underestimated,” he shared. He pointed to the city’s cultural exports as evidence of its global significance: “They’re bringing so much culture. With all the Kpop, they’re now into winning Oscars and they’re doing TV shows that are exported all over the world. All the newest trends, you can find a lot of them on Seoul.”
Garfors drew a sharp contrast between Seoul and its more famous regional rival. “A lot of people travel to Tokyo, and a lot less people travel to Seoul. There’s so much to see there. It’s an amazing place,” he said.
The traveler also highlighted a European destination he considers overlooked. Garfors described Gotland, a Swedish island province in the Baltic Sea, as home to “the best medieval city in Europe, if not the world.” He was referring to Visby, the island’s capital. “That’s a sort of gem that not many people go to,” he mused. “Except for Nordic people, not many people go there.”
Garfors gushed about Visby’s old town in particular. “They have the old town, which is the best part. There’s small alleyways and hidden streets and there are heaps of amazing cafes, restaurants, bars, and old castles,” he said. He added: “You have everything there. It’s so colorful and peaceful.”
Garfors’s advocacy for under-the-radar destinations comes from decades of firsthand experience. Born in Hammerfest in Northern Norway and raised in Naustdal on the west coast as the oldest of seven children, he began traveling at age 17 with an interrailing trip around Europe. He told NomadMania in a 2023 interview that he realized “the more I travelled, the more I wanted to travel.” His original mission to visit 198 countries led to an accidental second round two years later while working on a book about the world’s least-visited destinations.
In the viral moment that cemented his global reputation, Garfors set multiple Guinness World Records including visiting five continents in one day on June 18, 2012 with British friend Adrian Butterworth, circumnavigating the world via six inhabited continents in 56 hours and 56 minutes on February 2, 2018 with Dutch companions Erik de Zwart and Ronald Haanstra, and visiting 19 countries in 24 hours in September 2014 with friends Øystein Djupvik and Tay-young Pak.
Garfors maintains an active Instagram presence where followers can track his ongoing travels and research, which currently includes studying how people living alongside the equator and the arctic circle are affected by climate change.
Garfors is scheduled to continue his speaking engagements and book promotions across Norway and international markets.