Drew Binsky on Earth's Most Misunderstood Countries
And what traveling the world taught him about the human soul ✨
Greetings World Citizens!
This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sits down with the globe-trotting YouTuber Drew Binsky.
Drew has visited 197 countries. Which, depending on how you count countries, territories, disputed regions, and tiny patches of land claimed by three governments and a goat, may actually be all of them. Either way, it’s an astonishing accomplishment.
But the most interesting thing Drew brought back from fifteen years of nonstop travel wasn't a passport full of stamps. It was a staggering collection of stories: drinking goat blood with Maasai warriors, wandering through misunderstood countries, meeting remarkable people in the world's most remote places—and discovering, beneath all our fascinating differences, how much human beings actually have in common. Whether he's in a village in Africa, walking through Tokyo, or sharing meals in the Middle East, Drew keeps finding the same things: people who love their families, want meaningful lives, laugh with friends, worry about the future, and hope their children will have it better than they did.
That lesson comes through especially powerfully in his stories about Iran, which Drew calls the most misconceived country in the world. It has the largest gap he’s ever encountered between a government and its people. Yet after four visits to the country, what struck him most wasn’t politics. It was hospitality. It was warmth. It was ordinary people eager to share their culture and tell their stories.
During one trip, Drew traveled with a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, and a Bahá’í. (FYI, Long before appearing on Soul Boom or visiting Iran, Drew had actually made a video about the Bahá’í Faith—a part of the story of how he got to know Rainn.) The Bahá’í was a local Iranian cameraman. At one point, the man quietly asked Drew not to tell anyone he was Bahá’í. He explained that he attended gatherings in private homes and didn’t publicly identify with his faith because doing so could endanger him and his family.
Drew was struck by the irony: a religion born in Iran, whose followers often cannot openly identify themselves there.
It’s a story that captures one of the recurring themes of the episode. Travel turns abstractions into human beings. The farther Drew travels, the less interested he becomes in stereotypes and the more interested he becomes in actual people.
Of course, his adventures aren’t all profound revelations.
Sometimes they involve fermented shark in Iceland. Or live octopus in Korea. Or drinking goat blood with Maasai communities in Kenya. Drew’s philosophy is simple: if people have been doing something for generations, he’s willing to try it at least once.
He approaches cultures not as problems to solve or places to judge, but as opportunities to learn. In a world increasingly shaped by outrage, suspicion, and algorithms that profit from division, that posture feels almost radical.
As Drew tells Rainn, “soul” to him means recognizing the humanity in others. It’s understanding that every person you meet entered this world the same way you did and will leave it the same way you will.
After visiting 197 countries, Drew didn’t return with a theory about which culture is best or which nation has everything figured out. He came back convinced that the core human experience is universal. It’s something he has witnessed, again and again, across deserts, cities, mountains, islands, and borders.
Everywhere you go, people are different — and yet, so very much the same.
And that’s a lesson worth traveling to 197 countries to learn.