The “Irish Anthony Bourdain” Is Finally Ready for TV. Maybe.

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In March of 2017, Johnny Ward finally made it to Norway. While not terribly far from his home country of Ireland, it was the last stop on a long bucket list: the 197th country he visited out of the 197 countries in the world. It took him just 11 years to traverse the entire planet from the time he started in earnest. And yet, that accomplishment isn’t even the most remarkable thing about the 41-year-old adventurer.

Perhaps it’s the three ultramarathons he’s run in the Sahara that make him so interesting. Or maybe it’s the two months he spent rowing across the Atlantic during the pandemic. It could be that he’s been tapped for an Anthony Bourdain-style TV show that he’s currently filming in Türkiye. Or is it that he just became the first person ever to complete the Ultimate Explorer’s Grand Slam? 

That last challenge involves not only visiting every country in the world, but also climbing the highest peak on each of the seven continents and reaching both the North and South Poles. For good measure, he also summited Mont Blanc and Mount Kosciusko — Western Europe and Australia’s tallest peaks, respectively. They technically didn’t count toward the Grand Slam, but he wanted to “avoid confusion.”

No, the most remarkable thing about Ward is that he’s accomplished all of that, yet he’s already gearing up for his next big adventure. For him, it’s not about where he’s been, but where he’s going next.

“I’d Either Be a Millionaire or in Prison”

I was first made aware of Johnny Ward thanks to a couple industry types who’d traveled with him to Mauritania and hitched a ride aboard the infamous ore train back in 2023. A quick scroll of his Instagram gives you an idea of what he’s about; his blog, One Step 4Ward, a bit more. He’s been just about everywhere, and seemingly done everything (not a figure of speech in this case), but instead of coming off like some sort of hyper-curated, social media-obsessed travel influencer, he seems like a normal, down-to-earth guy with some out-of-this-world goals. That has everything to do with where he came from — which, in his own words, wasn’t much.

Ward was born on the Aran Islands, a small group of three isles off the coast of western Ireland. Not long after, he and his mother moved to the town of Kilkeel on the opposite side of the country, fleeing what Ward describes as a “very tricky situation” with his father. They changed their last name and his two-parent household became one. They lived on welfare until his teenage years when his mother became a social worker.

“Life was happy,” Ward says. “Broke, but happy. We didn’t have a car or anything until I was 15. We didn’t have central heating. But my mom always supported me and it was a happy childhood, just without money.” Even then he craved freedom, but travel didn’t exactly feel realistic, the situation being what it was. In fact, he was 14 before he left Ireland for the first time, on a boat to France.

“My mum jokes now that things have turned out okay,” he says. “She always thought I’d either be a millionaire or in prison.” Fortunately, he landed closer to the former camp.

The Globetrotter Gives Back

After studying international economics at university in England, Ward flew to the U.S. to work at a summer camp, and he has been traveling the world nearly nonstop ever since. He started his travel blog in 2009, and after three years, during which he hopped around to various countries teaching English and picking up odd jobs, the site was bringing in enough money to support him.

Ward started his website during the glory days of blogging — a couple years after sites like Twitter and Tumblr debuted — and built up a passionate audience before social media proliferated and everyone had their own newsletter. He was getting into cool shit in far-flung locales, and people wanted to know how they could do cool shit, too.

Prior to monetizing his blog, Ward had become accustomed to traveling on a modest budget. He spent a lot of time in dinky pubs, on buses — places generally conducive to making local acquaintances — and in traditionally untouristed countries. When readers started reaching out, asking how they could do the same, it presented an interesting opportunity. He began calling on that network of acquaintances (many of whom had by then become friends) and, with their help, organizing group trips. Fast forward to today: his trips now sell out almost immediately.

Ward has built a reputation for guiding trips to destinations that many people have historically shied away from for one reason or another, countries like Yemen and Syria. But this wasn’t part of any grand branding plan.

“I [thought], okay, if I’m going to go there, I know a lot of people want to come with me,” he explains. “Why don’t we make some money and travel with some cool people at the same time?”

From that idea emerged a set of secondary opportunities. First, it allowed him to show others the human side of misunderstood countries like Syria, and what they have to offer travelers. “The country itself is historic and beautiful. Damascus may be one of the most romantic cities in the world — romance in terms of it being this old-world place. The food’s great. Architecture is beautiful,” he says. “So it’s nice for people also to be able to see [that] instead of just basing everything on what they’ve heard in the news over the last 15 years.”

Second, it allowed him to give back. Ward’s mother has Parkinson’s disease, so for her 70th birthday he organized a climb up Mount Fuji, a marathon in the Serengeti and a tandem bike across Jordan, all of which helped raise $50,000 for Parkinson’s research. When a friend diagnosed with cancer couldn’t afford treatment due to the circumstances in his country at the time, one of Ward’s tour groups raised $10,000 to cover his medical costs. (“He’s fine now,” Ward says. “I’ll see him next week.”) Beyond those personal missions, he’s spearheaded around 25 other charitable projects, helping raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for malaria clinics, water wells and schools in Ethiopia, Burma, Sri Lanka and Thailand. He’s led large food donations to Afghanistan and, later this year, will oversee water projects in Mongolia and Pakistan.

“I grew up in poverty, obviously, on welfare. My dad was in prison and all the rest. I got a chip on my shoulder about that,” he says. “Then as I got older, as I traveled around the world, seeing what real poverty is, it’s all relative. [My childhood] was shitty and poor, of course. But it’s all relative. I still had shoes on my feet. We didn’t have a car or cable TV, of course not, but I still had shoes on my feet. When you’re traveling and you see what true poverty is, it put that in perspective.”

“Travel gave me everything,” he adds. “​​Everything I have is down to me exploring the world. I’ve taken a lot from travel — it’s my duty to give back.”

Ward’s nontraditional career has come with its fair share of trials and tribulations. He’s endured more than a few stints in international jails (once getting arrested for smuggling himself from the Ivory Coast into Liberia during the Ebola crisis) and even found himself in the middle of a prison break in Guinea. But as with everything, the lows only make the highs more rewarding. Summiting Everest, for example. He’s learned to take it all in stride.

“Life’s short, and to experience everything is just a gift,” he says. “If you have the opportunity to do it — to not do it, it’s like spitting in the face of the people who can’t.”

The Journey Continues, With Camera in Tow

Recently, Ward notched another first, an achievement he considers greater than climbing Everest. At the tail end of 2024, he and his wife, Jaa, welcomed their first son, Aiden. In fatherhood, the world conqueror has met his latest — and greatest — challenge. And he’s loving it.

“That was my real bucket list, to have a baby with my wife,” says Ward, who now calls Thailand home. “And now I just feel very content with my life.” But if you think that would be cause for Ward to settle down, think again.

“Nothing in moderation, as I say. That’s my motto,” he laughs. “I just want to make sure that I live an adventurous life and help the people around me do the same thing.”

“I certainly won’t be trying to kill myself,” he adds. “I might drive a little bit more carefully. Wear a helmet when I ride my motorbike.”

Currently, Ward is gearing up for a world-first cycle from Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, to the Gates of Hell in August. In December, he’s running another trip to Mauritania. Even though riding the ore train is now illegal, he “knows a guy who knows a guy.” Next winter he plans to visit Oymyakon in Siberia, the coldest permanent settlement on earth, because he’s already visited the hottest place on earth, and what’s the point of doing one if not the other?

Then there’s the show he’s shooting. It’s a bit of a contradiction given that Ward never set out to be in the spotlight and he certainly doesn’t aspire to be famous (and seemingly despises those who do), but sometimes the spotlight finds you.

That’s more or less what happened when he met “a cool cameraman,” a Turkish man named Selim, at a conference otherwise full of “dickheads” and “full-on narcissists” (read: reality TV stars and Instagram influencers) almost a decade ago. The two clicked.

As fate would have it, Selim also owned his own production company. “‘Johnny, I’m going to make you the Irish Anthony Bourdain,’” he told Ward, who was unconvinced. Coincidentally, at this time, TRT — effectively the Turkish BBC — was trying to get its own travel show off the ground. Selim vouched for Ward and, just four months ago, they finally filmed the pilot episode of Where to Next. It premiered at the end of March.

“I thought I did an awful job. I was so cringe and self-conscious on camera,” he says. But thanks to what he chalks up to good editing rather than his aptitude for TV, it was greenlit for six episodes, and then six more. The first season is being filmed exclusively in Türkiye, though, if all goes according to plan, season two will be international. He hopes to use it as a platform to feature the countries he’s always traveling to — that is, all the countries others are staying away from. 

In the end, maybe the most intriguing thing about Johnny Ward is that he’s not in it for the accolades, despite the many he’s already racked up. He could probably be in the Guinness World Records a few times over, but he doesn’t care about that. 

“I don’t try to play any games or algorithms, and I’ve never applied to be on TV or any of that stuff,” he says. “I just want to live my life, live a cool life. And if people want to follow, knock yourself out.”

Photos courtesy of Johnny Ward