I have been traveling ever since I was a year old. I traveled around parts of Europe as a child and a few countries in the Middle East through my teens. I did my first trip without family for a school MUN conference in the Hague in 1997 and my first pure fun solo trip when I was 18 years old (after graduating high school) where I went to France for the World Cup in 1998.

When planning out each year, thinking about the goals of each month, and considering whether a given day has been a success, I use the Three Life Pillars: Personal, Passion, Professional. Without a doubt travel forms a critical part of my passion pillar and Final50 has become the quintessential passion project to chronicle and inspire others to also use travel as a key part of ones own personal development and identity.

Travel truly engages ALL your senses at the same time: Sight, Sound, Smell, Touch, and Taste. Such heightened stimulation is not something you can likely experience in your daily living. By igniting all your senses, your mind and body better perceive, understand, and appreciate the environment around you. 

Travel can also put you in positions of discomfort. The guys at Yes Theory say it best, ‘Seek Discomfort’ by pushing past your limits so you can truly learn about yourself and experience ALL that life can offer. Such exposure will invariably influence your own personal development so that you can become more confident, compassionate, tolerant, grateful, resilient, resourceful etc. 

It’s like a virtuous cycle: the more you travel the more you learn about yourself, the more you learn the more you improve as a person, the better of a person you can become the more you add to the world…

Initially I traveled with family. Later I just traveled more sparingly with savings on a student budget, staying with friends, collecting airline miles/hotel points, and sharing costs on group trips. However, in 2009 I started Write Track Admissions, a global admissions consulting company, which allowed me to work and travel at the same time. 

Later I worked as an international development lawyer, which allowed me to travel frequently and far across the world. My hack was traveling to one location with the government and then using it as a base to travel to 1-2 nearby countries (i.e. Malaysia for work then fly to Myanmar and Brunei). 

Now, I balance and manage a multitude of projects remotely. which helps me continue funding my trips while staying engaged in my own career development as a lawyer and entrepreneur.

No. Traveling is a super passion. As a professional, I am a lawyer, education advocate, and tech entrepreneur. I choose my career pursuits based on the following guidelines: Fulfillment (what motivates me to wake up in the morning), Flexibility (what keeps me going throughout the day), & Impact (what helps me sleep well at night). So I am eager to keep learning and taking on projects that meet that criteria, while reserving travel as a passion. Sometimes, however, I let my passion blend into my profession.

Being limited in where I could travel because of my Iraqi passport made me feel like an outcast. That’s why I have a ton of respect for those who are trying to see the world on difficult passports (see Baderkhan). These limitations later fueled my curiosity and desire to see the world.

I have also tried to be more intentional about incorporating Education, Exploration & Entertainment in each one of my travels to make the experience even more fulfilling and memorable. This is what motivated me to create Final50, so I can share these experiences and help travelers feel an immense sense of gratitude for their inner growth and exposure to the beauty of our world. 

I love studying and learning. So after completing my BA in History at UCLA, I did my law degree (JD) at UC Berkeley Law and MPhil at the Univ. of Cambridge in International Relations. Later I returned to graduate school to do my MPA at Harvard. 

Professionally, I worked in transactional law, international development, administrative law, and EdTech through my admissions company. I also love public speaking, story branding, and motivational talks! Like I said before, I hope that my career will always remain exciting and compliment my passion for travel.

Growing up and traveling on an Iraqi passport was definitely challenging. I remember when briefly transiting through countries required a visa, secondary holds were the norm, and the frustrations of making the team for numerous high school tournaments  only to be denied travel due to restrictions in countries like Jordan, Kuwait, KSA, and the UAE. 

In fact, I recall one trip where I was flying from LA to Cairo. When I got to my first layover in NYC they told me that my second layover in Austria would not accept transiting Iraqi passengers. Mind you I was 15 years old, traveling alone for the first time. I was re-routed to the only country that would allow my ‘type’, Morocco. In Casablanca, I waited in a small lounge for 17 hours — not allowed to access the rest of the airport — before I was put on a smoking filled flight to Cairo. So you can imagine my relief when I finally got the U.S. passport. I went from a pariah to a global citizen overnight. Yet I was exactly the same person. 

Don’t get me wrong, I was still questioned as a U.S. citizen after 9/11 because I was a Muslim. Male. Arab. And I still get profiled in airports. Yet, while my experiences have been frustrating and humiliating, they have ultimately galvanized my lifelong desire to see each and every country. I have the utmost compassion and empathy for those who face discrimination not because of who they are but because of where they were born. For that I will never forget my roots and always strive to be the best Iraqi-American global ambassador on my travels across the world.