Meet the 28-year-old London banker who is the youngest person to travel to all 196 countries

LONDON - He visited all 196 countries by the age of 24, covering most countries within five years. Last year, he received a Guinesss World Record for becoming the youngest person in the world to travel to all sovereign countries.

However, for James Asquith, now 28 and working at Deutsche Bank in London, that was never the plan.

"It was never the purpose to race around and hop into every country to tick it off," he told Business Insider. Instead, he got the idea after he began travelling with his father, a pilot for BMI.

"I thought, 'I want to see more,' and eventually decided I wanted to go everywhere," he said.

From an early age, Asquith, who was born in Sussex but has spent most of his life in London, has been saving his money, starting with "hoarding cash and doing little jobs where I could" such as washing neighbourhood cars at age 12 to asking for money instead of presents at birthdays and Christmas.

With "a decent amount of cash saved up" at the age of 18, he took a gap year before starting university to travel to Southeast Asia with friends.

What started as a three month trip sparked an around-the-world tour that lasted five years, leading Asquith to visit Afghanistan during a war and travel by jeep into Somalia.

From getting lucky on the stock market to working in bars and hostels in South America, scroll down to see how Asquith became the youngest person in the world to visit every country.