You might think physics lab instructor Scott Shelley spends his days pondering the trajectories of hypothetical objects in motion, but really, he’s plotting how to get to North Korea.
Shelley, who has worked at Lafayette since 2013, is just one stop away from joining the exclusive club of individuals who have visited every country in the world. A well-known site for globetrotters verified 357 people to have accomplished the feat, though the exact number is unknown.
“The question I get a lot is, ‘Oh, are you traveling for work?'” Shelley said. “No, I’m always traveling for discovery, experiences, pleasure.”
“The real answer is, I don’t know,” he continued. “I’m just curious what places are like.”
His office shelves are cluttered with trinkets and ephemera from across the globe. A large metal board by his door hosts a colorful spread of magnets, one for each of his travels. He has several boxes of laser-etched glass cubes, each containing a hologram-like depiction of an iconic landmark, though he said he stopped collecting them after growing weary of TSA tearing his suitcase apart to investigate the heavy objects.
“I have a collection mentality, I guess,” Shelley said. “Now I decided to collect memories of places.”
Shelley said he caught the traveling bug as a young adult, after taking a cheap solo flight to London on the airline for which his step-father worked.
“You’ve got money for the first time — let’s go on a trip somewhere,” Shelley said. “Of course, it starts just like Europe and easier destinations, and then I branched out a little bit after that.”
At a certain point, Shelley said, he thought to himself, “How cool would it be to go to 100 countries?” And after visiting 100 countries, he set his sights on conquering the world.
Shelley said the feat seemed entirely impossible. Then he stumbled upon Every Passport Stamp, a Facebook community of travelers.
“The whole purpose of the group was to share information about how to get visas or how to travel to challenging places,” Shelley said. “I met a lot of people who were farther along than I was and thought, ‘Oh, well, if they can do it, I can totally do it.’”
Just a decade later, Shelley has nearly achieved his goal, though checking off the last country on his list has not proved to be an easy task.
“I’ve actually had multiple trips planned over the last three years,” Shelley said of his trip to North Korea. “Nobody’s been able to enter for four years because of COVID. There’s a tentative plan, apparently, to reopen in December, so I’m watching that.”
Shelley said the vast majority of his flights have been at “next to no cost” due to his strategically employed frequent flier miles.
“When I found this out, I told him, ‘Dude, I thought you were independently wealthy and just volunteering at Lafayette because you liked it,’” said Eugene Gabay, a friend of Shelley’s and a former admissions office employee.
Shelley said one of the perks of working at Lafayette is that his job is compatible with his passions.
“Having an academic schedule is fantastic because I’ve got blocks of time when I know that I can take off,” Shelley said. “You can look five years ahead and look at the academic calendar and say, ‘Oh, I have spring break in 2028 between March 7 and March 14,’ and then try to slot something into that time slot.”
Though Shelley said he mostly keeps his work life and travel life separate, he appreciates the ways his experiences allow him to connect with international students.
“It gives me a chance, with at least some of the students, to say, ‘Hey, oh, you’re from Afghanistan. I’ve been to Afghanistan.’ And they’re just like, ‘… what?’” Shelley said.
Gabay first met Shelley through Friendship Partners, a program connecting Lafayette’s international students with staff members. Also something of a globetrotter, Gabay recalled telling Shelley about the 50 countries he’d visited.
“He had this unusual look,” Gabay said. “Most people are like, ‘That’s a lot.’ So I was like, ‘How many have you been to?’ And he said 130. And I said, ‘Oh. Okay. 50 is nothing.’”
