Founder’s Journey

The Travel Hacking Cartel was founded by Chris Guillebeau, author and world traveler. Currently in the final two years of a five-year journey to every country in the world, Chris maintains a million-mile Frequent Flyer mile balance spread among six different airline programs.

Chris first learned about travel hacking while living overseas and volunteering with a medical charity for four years in West Africa. After relocating to the U.S. in 2006, Chris began actively traveling to fun places like Burma, Iraq, and Equatorial Guinea. He formally set the goal of using travel hacking to visit every country in after receiving a Master’s Degree in International Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Chris’s worldwide adventures have been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Entrepreneur, CNN, Wired, Psychology Today, Huffington Post, Writer’s Digest, Moneysense, Budget Travel, Oregonian, and thousands of blogs. His first book, The Art of Non-Conformity, was published in September 2010 by Penguin.

Because Chris is frequently roaming the planet (25+ countries a year), we have an international team of contributors manning the site, and a hometown crew in Portland, Oregon looking after the shop.

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