Some folks have to go through a lot to remember something simple.

Slate Magazine tells the story of  the youngest person to ever hit all 321 spots on the Traveler’s Century Club’s checklist. But “hit” was the right word; some of those places he barely spent five minutes in — just enough to check it off the list.

He wound up being the record-holder for most countries visited, as well as the record-keeper for an actual ranking of the world’s most-traveled people. Sounds crazy, but it’s real.

Then something funny happened; he realized his list was being taken too seriously, people were starting to compete with each other, starting to bicker. As he said, travel is “supposed to be enjoyable and fulfilling and about bonding with new people, not creating walls.” Indeed.

Along the way, he realized what we all know in our travel souls: that travel is really about getting out there to see the world and its people, which in turn is about the depth and quality of the experience. As another “competitor” put it, “visiting the countries in a proper way, overland.”

We couldn’t agree more, and it’s what we’ve been doing all along, anyway: traveling to new and interesting places in ways that are rich in quality and human interaction, whether it’s roaming the Himalayas or scaling Africa’s highest peak.

We’re glad the “World’s Most Travelled Person” has come around to agreeing with us.