Blind backpacker traveling the world visits Israel

A blind and mostly deaf British backpacker who seeks to visit every country on Earth can now check Israel off his list.

Tony the Traveller, as 39-year-old Tony Giles calls himself, arrived in the Jewish state in November, his 124th country. Giles says he has already visited all seven continents and has even traversed the Arctic Circle.

During his trip Giles visited Jerusalem’s Old City, including the Damascus Gate and the Western Wall, which he said was interesting to him from “a historical and spiritual point of view.”

“I travel alone because it’s the biggest challenge I can get, and traveling by myself I get to interact with more people,” he told the BBC while in Israel.

“If I travel with someone, particularly someone sighted, they’d be doing all the work, they’d be doing all the guiding, and I wouldn’t get to touch as many things and find as many things as I do by myself.”

Giles said his unique circumstances require patience. “You get lost all the time. It’s very difficult if you’re looking for something specific when you can’t see.”

But the main appeal in traveling the globe appeared to be meeting new people.

“You might get 10 people walk past and then someone will stop. ‘Are you lost, do you need help?’ And then you can interact with them. That’s how it works.”