Michael Angelo Zervos: Every Country on Earth in 499 Days

0:00 – Intro — who is Michael Angelo Zervos?
0:34 – Greeks in America — diners, Coney Islands, and the varsity jacket problem
5:05 – Christopher Nolan's Odyssey — not a single Greek in the cast
6:25 – 195 countries in 499 days — how the Guinness World Record works
8:04 – A year and a half of planning — and the Brazilian who claimed he did it by accident
9:33 – What counts as "visiting" a country? The Guinness rules
11:08 – Project Cosmos — interviewing people about the happiest moment of their life
13:13 – Brand deals, sponsorships, and the reality of Guinness World Record celebrity
14:35 – Traveling as a man vs. a woman — the real differences
16:37 – Married with two kids — how he pulled this off
20:24 – The happiest moment of the trip — waking up in Ghana
21:33 – The Swiss man who came out as bisexual at a phone-free party in Zurich
23:45 – The worst moments: jailed in Liberia for photographing a building
26:57 – Deported from Nicaragua — they thought he was a journalist
27:41 – Left-wing dictatorships and the memory hole
29:50 – North Korea — getting in through a two-week window that's now closed
32:14 – North Korea as Plato's cave — the allegory of the cave in real life
33:44 – His grandfather forced to fight for communist guerrillas in the Greek Civil War
35:29 – Dennis Rodman's translator was a libertarian
36:44 – Cuba — what it's actually like on the ground
38:40 – Poverty porn, romanticizing socialism, and what Cubans actually think
43:42 – The Facebook argument: "Oh no, Starbucks is going to ruin Cuba"
45:38 – What's actually lost when wealth is generated — community and dependency
47:27 – Traveling through conflict zones: Ukraine, Palestine, Syria, Sudan
49:37 – Asking people about happiness in a war zone
50:27 – The book: published by Penguin Random House, out February 23rd
52:23 – Chicken soup for the soul meets Anthony Bourdain — what the book actually is
54:14 – Outro — follow Michael and get the book