Arjun Malaviya, a 19-year-old student from Westlake Village, traveled 118 countries before turning 20.
It started during a gap year: Malaviya set out on his expedition on his 17th birthday in July 2023. Over 13 months, with occasional trips back home — Westlake Village in Southern California — he sojourned through some of the world's most populated cities and its most remote islands. He spent time in Bali's rice paddies, sipped tea with a Taliban guard in Afghanistan and bathed under the green skies of the aurora borealis in Norway.
What's next for the world traveler: Now that Malaviya is a student at UCSB, he's planning future trips to squeeze in during vacations. He hopes to be an inspiration to other curious young people who may be apprehensive or fearful about being on their own in a new place where they may not speak the language. Malaviya has a mantra for that: "Get comfortable with being uncomfortable."
Arjun Malaviya is an overachiever and a planner. So, when he told his parents that he wanted to save up for a solo gap year to travel the world, they weren't all that surprised.
Now, at 19 years old, he's got five completely full passports and a slew of remarkable life experiences under his belt. Malaviya told NPR that he's the youngest solo traveler to visit 100 countries.
"I was 17 years and 228 days old when I reached my 100th country," he said, adding that he celebrated the milestone in Nadi, Fiji, by visiting the colorful Sri Siva Subramaniya, one of the largest Hindu temples in the Southern Hemisphere. Another superlative: Malaviya said, based on his research, he's also "the youngest person to visit every country in Oceania." (NPR has not independently verified these claims.)
Arjun Malaviya enjoying the milky way limestone mud bath in the rock islands of Palau.
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The intrepid teen said he's hot on the heels of Lexie Alford, who holds the Guinness World Record for being the youngest person to visit every sovereign country in the world. By the age of 18, Alford had only visited about 70 nations.
Malaviya set out on his expedition on his 17th birthday in July 2023. Over 13 months, with occasional trips back home — Westlake Village in Southern California — he sojourned through some of the world's most populated cities and its most remote islands. He spent time in Bali's rice paddies, sipped tea with a Taliban guard in Afghanistan and bathed under the green skies of the aurora borealis in Norway.
All the while, Malaviya said he had one goal: to meet the locals and make a genuine connection. He preferred visiting small villages rather than glitzy locales, wanting to see how people truly live.
"The big thing that I took away is that people are more similar than different," he said.
Arjun Malaviya befriended a group of Taliban members in Kabul, Afghanistan. "Everyone treated me with so much kindness," he told NPR.
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"Even if it's in Afghanistan and you're sitting down and talking to a religiously devout Muslim goat herder, you'll see that he still has a lot of the same desires and life that someone here might have; A better life for his kids, a consistent job and education for his kids and the ability to explore within his own country and just take vacations."
Building up confidence and life skills, from Seoul to Kabul
Malaviya launched his grand tour in Seoul, South Korea: From all he'd read, the country would be a safe and tourist-friendly launching pad with outstanding public transportation systems. He moved on to other Asian countries including Japan, Myanmar and India.
His lodgings included a mix of Airbnbs, hostels, hotels and family friends' homes. He traveled light, outfitted with an iPhone, a small gym bag and a standard-sized backpack. And though Malaviya is fluent in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and has studied Japanese, Malaviya said Google Translate proved to be one of his most valuable tools. Using the app on his phone, he said he was able to engage in deep conversations with strangers. It especially came in handy in places like Afghanistan, Venezuela and Syria, where people opened up to him about what everyday life looked like under authoritarian regimes.
He said they impressed upon him the idea that, while news coverage may dwell on the economic and humanitarian hardships of a place, there is still a lot of beauty and cultural richness that can be taken in by visitors if they give it a chance.
"As a tourist when you go to a lot of these places you don't feel all of the negatives that the government imposes on the people who live there," he said. " So, just because we say that a government is bad, that doesn't need to dissuade you from visiting that country as a tourist."
In Damascus, Syria, which was still under Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship when Malaviya visited, he said he met with an impassioned bed-and-breakfast owner who spoke openly about his wish for Assad to be overthrown so more people like him could take in the wonders of his country.
Other highlights included a free Madonna concert on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, where Malaviya said he happily lost himself amid the enormous crowd of fans who showed up. On the Korean peninsula, he fulfilled "a lifelong dream" of visiting the DMZ, the demilitarized zone that separates South Korea from North Korea. He also got to bathe in the milky mud baths in Palau, an island in Micronesia.
Arjun Malaviya visited several of the most popular sights during his stop in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, including Christ the Redeemer.
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The islands of Oceania as whole, Malaviya said, contained some of the most breathtaking and pristine landscapes he's ever seen. However, he said his trip to the island nation of Nauru — the third-smallest country in the world and one of the least-visited countries on Earth – was slightly depressing. "It was sad for me to see how much the country is struggling," he said, referring to the small republic's reliance on foreign aid to sustain its economy.
Arjun Malaviya travelled to Odessa, Ukraine in November 2023. He told NPR the city was attacked by Russian bombs shortly after arriving, forcing him to run to in a nearby bomb shelter.
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The most harrowing stop came in November 2023 as the war between Ukraine and Russia raged.
"I was in Moldova and someone told me Odessa was just four hours away. I thought that would make a great day trip since, from what I'd read, most of the fighting was taking place in Kyiv and Lviv. But I get there and we start getting bombarded with [Russian] bombs," he said.
He scrambled to find cover in a nearby bomb shelter before fleeing back to Moldova, but not before taking a selfie.
The final region he toured was the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran, "which I actually loved," he said. Malaviya explained he'd waited to visit this part of the world "because I felt like it was a build up where I had to use all my skills that I had gained in the first 10 months of travel."
Arjun Malaviya pictured with an Iraqi guard. Iraq was one of the last countries visited by Malaviya during his 13-month long odyssey.
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The opposite of helicopter parenting
So how does a teenager persuade his parents to embark on such a daunting adventure? Research — lots and lots of research, Malaviya's mother, Anita Venkataraman, told NPR.
Arjun Malaviya told NPR he was blown away by the beauty of the Bolivia's salt flats. "The moisture on the surface of the salt flats causes a beautiful reflection to show," he explained.
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"When he started speaking to us about what he planned to do and how we planned to execute it, it became quite clear that he had put more thought into it than the casual tidbits we had heard from him," Venkataraman recalled.
The pitch was straightforward: He'd start off in easily navigated counties where communication home would be most reliable. He'd check in every two days. He wouldn't stay out past 10 p.m. if he could help it. And he'd finance the entire trip on his own.
Malaviya was just 15 years old when he initially proposed the idea in 2022. And despite some trepidation, both of his parents agreed to the odyssey within a couple of weeks. It took him two years of working a series of odd jobs — tennis lessons, a minimum-wage administrative assistant job and working at his parents' software company — to raise the funds to set off on his journey, he said.
"That was one of the things I made clear to my parents. That I wanted to pay for the entire thing on my own. I didn't want to ask them for any money," he said. (All in all, Malaviya said he spent $22,500 on the entire voyage.)
Venkataraman said the isolation of the COVID pandemic is what really ignited her son's wanderlust. In her view, Malaviya has always been an intuitively curious and independent person who craved social interaction. Being cooped up for much of his adolescence was frustrating for him, she said. But he took advantage of the situation, graduating a year early from high school in 2023 and getting a two-year head start on university by completing all of his general education coursework at a local community college.
Arjun Malaviya, pictured inside of Saddam Hussein's Babylon Palace in Iraq.
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"I think as parents, a lot of times we don't want our kids to even fail. We just want them to be successful," she said. "But I do think there's a lot that kids learn from failing at things. Doing things, taking a chance and then failing, but then picking themselves up and going for it."
Venkataraman described her son as responsible and knowledgeable about the various visa and documentation requirements for different countries. That's why it was easy for her to be his "cheerleader, offering "support with a little bit of caution."
That support did not waiver, even when Malaviya called to notify his parents that he'd been "sort of kidnapped" in Myanmar. A stranger had offered to show the boy around the town and offered him a home-cooked meal, but then refused to let him leave his house until Malaviya forked over $100.
"It was scary of course," his mother said, but she and Malaviya put the incident in a more comprehensive context. "I understand that there are people with so little, that they resort to things that perhaps if they had some, they wouldn't, normally resort to," she said. Plus, she added, the experience made Malaviya even more careful and aware of his surroundings.
Arjun Malaviya on a boat ride with local children in Papua New Guinea.
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Encouraging other young people to take up travel
Malaviya is currently a junior at University of California in Santa Barbara, studying engineering. Although he's not traveling at the moment, he's still committed to meeting people from backgrounds different from his own — on and off campus. And he's planning future trips to squeeze in during vacations. He's now up to 118 countries.
He hopes to be an inspiration to other curious young people who may be apprehensive or fearful about being on their own in a new place where they may not speak the language. Malaviya has a mantra for that: "Get comfortable with being uncomfortable."
Copyright 2025 NPR
Farmworkers drink water in the shade of a tent as they weed a bell pepper field in Southern California during a heat wave. A new study shows that rules designed to give the state's outdoor workers access to shade, water and rest on hot days has saved lives.
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Topline:
It's long been understood that working outside in hot weather can be dangerous: Even ancient Egyptians worried about dehydration for workers building the pyramids. Now, a growing body of research is quantifying that danger — and suggesting ways to better protect workers.
Why it matters: A suite of new analyses has found that regulations that provide basic safeguards like water, shade and rest for workers in hot conditions can help lower the numbers of heat-driven injuries, workers' compensation claims and even deaths.
How have regulations helped? The most recent study, published in December in the journal Health Affairs, looked at California's rule protecting outdoor workers from heat, the oldest such rule in the country. Researchers found the regulations led to at least a 33% drop in heat-related deaths among workers after 2010 — an estimate of several dozen lives saved each year.
Read on ... to learn more about the ways the government can protect workers.
It's long been understood that working outside in hot weather can be dangerous: Even ancient Egyptians worried about dehydration for workers building the pyramids.
Now, a growing body of research is quantifying that danger — and suggesting ways to better protect workers.
The risks extend beyond obvious concerns like dehydration and heatstroke.
"Heat makes people slower to react and worse at making decisions," says Adam Dean, a labor economist at George Washington University. "That means farmworkers driving a tractor or a construction worker operating equipment are more likely to have a fatal accident on a hot day."
But a suite of new analyses has found that regulations that provide basic safeguards like water, shade and rest for workers in hot conditions can help lower the numbers of heat-driven injuries, workers' compensation claims and even deaths.
The studies all use different datasets and methods but come to a similar conclusion, says Barrak Alahmad, an environmental health scientist at Harvard University and an expert on occupational health risks.
"States with heat standards have lower risk of heat injuries, of heat fatalities and other outcomes compared to states that don't have these heat standards," Alahmad says.
The most recent study, published in December in the journal Health Affairs, looked at California's rule protecting outdoor workers from heat, the oldest such rule in the country. Researchers found the regulations led to at least a 33% drop in heat-related deaths among workers after 2010 — an estimate of several dozen lives saved each year.
The outcome "delivers a clear message," says Dean, the study's lead author. "Heat standards, if they're adopted and effectively enforced, can significantly reduce worker deaths."
The federal rules, first proposed under Biden, are now under review by the Trump administration. Their future is uncertain.
While the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has recognized for decades that heat poses risks to workers, there is active debate among worker advocates and business groups about how best to provide protections: via stringent, highly specific regulations, or with broader guidelines that allow employers to take the lead in crafting efforts specific to their own industries.
The new studies could help inform any new rules, says Jordan Barab, who was deputy assistant secretary of labor at OSHA under the Obama administration. Though the basic measures to protect workers have been well-known for decades, it's invaluable, he says, to "show that when a state actually implements these requirements that they actually have saved lives."
The California example
Federal regulators first noted that heat could put American workers at risk in the 1970s and '80s. But for years, OSHA prioritized regulating other workplace hazards. Heat issues were managed under the agency's more generalized rules, such as the "general duty clause," which required employers to maintain workplaces "free from recognized hazards."
But some states, like California, decided to go further. In 2005, after the highly publicized deaths of several farmworkers due to heat exposure, California passed the nation's first state-level regulations to protect outdoor workers from excessive heat. Requirements kicked off when temperatures exceeded 85 degrees Fahrenheit (the threshold has since been lowered further).
The rules set out to provide some simple protections: access to water, shade and rest on hot days.
For many years, California was the only state with such heat rules, setting up a natural experiment: Would heat-related worker deaths fall in California, compared to neighboring states with similar weather conditions but no such protections?
The new study suggests that, at first, the rules didn't make much of a difference. During the first few years, researchers did not find a decrease in heat-related death rates in California compared to neighboring states.
"When California first adopted a standard in 2005, it was ineffective," Dean says.
But that would soon change.
In 2010, the state strengthened the rule and deaths began to drop, the study found — eventually falling by more than 30%, with even more dramatic reductions in recent years.
The changes to the rule, Dean says, were critical. Though the initial rules required employers to provide water and shade, in practice, inspectors sometimes found problems — like undrinkable water.
So, the state clarified. Water had to be drinkable and free. And there needed to be enough shade for all workers during breaks. California also ramped up workplace inspections and launched an educational campaign to train the state's many outdoor workers about their rights.
"A critical lesson is that merely passing a heat standard is not enough," Dean says. "It was only after the state launched a statewide enforcement campaign that we started to see deaths decrease relative to the surrounding states."
The rules could have been even more effective with more consistent enforcement, says Garrett Brown, who until 2014 worked for Cal/OSHA, the state agency tasked with enforcing the rule. Even though the number of inspections increased, he says, limited staffing caused ongoing enforcement challenges.
It could have been "even more health protective for workers if there was an even more robust enforcement program," Brown says.
A growing body of evidence
The California study joins two other analyses with similar findings published in the past year.
Together, they provide important insights that could help in the design of future rules, says Alahmad. He led an analysis of heat-influenced worker injuries, published earlier this year, which found that states with heat rules had lower injury rates than those without.
Another recent study found workers' compensation claims were lower in states with heat standards compared to those without.
The next step for researchers is to suss out the most important parts of those regulations, Alahmad says: "What elements are actually most effective?"
That will be key information for regulators across the country. More than a dozen states and cities proposed new heat protection rules in 2025.
What movies are nominated? Sinners leads the way with a record-breaking 16 nominations, while Leonardo DiCaprio-led One Battle After Another has a hefty 13 nods. Both are also nominated for best picture.
Read on ... to see where you can watch the nominated movies and learn more about many of them.
Below, you can find details and coverage of the 14 films nominated in six major categories: best picture, best actor and actress, best supporting actor and actress, and best director. Dive in!
Sinners
The gist: Ryan Coogler's movie stars Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who open a 1930s juke joint. And opening night does not go as planned when a bloodthirsty menace appears outside. (Vampires — we're talking about vampires.)
16 nominations: actor in a leading role, actor in a supporting role, actress in a supporting role, casting, cinematography, costume design, directing, film editing, makeup and hairstyling, original score, original song, best picture, production design, sound, visual effects, original screenplay
The gist: Paul Thomas Anderson's action thriller stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a washed up ex-revolutionary whose past comes to haunt him. DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Teyana Taylor are all nominated for their performances.
13 nominations: actor in a leading role, actor in a supporting role, another actor in a supporting role, actress in a supporting role, casting, cinematography, directing, film editing, original score, best picture, production design, sound, adapted screenplay
The gist: Guillermo del Toro's take on the Mary Shelley classic. Jacob Elordi plays the creature and Oscar Isaac is the scientist.
9 nominations: actor in a supporting role, cinematography, costume design, makeup and hairstyling, original score, best picture, production design, sound, adapted screenplay
The gist: Timothée Chalamet plays a working-class heel aiming to become a table tennis champion in the 1950s.
9 nominations: actor in a leading role, casting, cinematography, costume design, directing, film editing, best picture, production design, original screenplay
The gist: Stellan Skarsgård is a filmmaker attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughters, proving that at the very least, the tension between art and parenthood is complicated. Skarsgård, Renate Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning are all nominated for their performances.
9 nominations: actor in a supporting role, actress in a leading role, actress in a supporting role, actress in a supporting role, directing, film editing, best international feature film, best picture, original screenplay
Where to see it:In theaters. Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.
The gist: A young English couple meets, falls in love, has children and suffers an unspeakable tragedy. One of them happens to be William Shakespeare, who goes on to write Hamlet. Jessie Buckley plays his wife.
8 nominations: actress in a leading role, casting, costume design, directing, original score, best picture, production design, adapted screenplay
The gist: Directed by Richard Linklater,Ethan Hawke plays lyricist Lorenz Hart on the worst night of his life — the opening of Oklahoma! on Broadway — after his long-term collaborator Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) has forged a new partnership with Oscar Hammerstein II.
2 nominations: actor in a leading role, original screenplay
The gist: Rose Byrne plays a therapist shouldering all the responsibility of caring for her ill daughter while her emotionally absent husband is away for work.
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Countless VHS tapes line the walls inside Whammy Analog Media in Echo Park.
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Physical media has been making a comeback. Whammy Analog Media, an Echo Park storefront specializing in VHS tapes, has been providing a place for enthusiasts and newcomers to embrace the antiquated format.
Why now: Whammy hosts their first quarterly VHS swap meet of the year this weekend. Peruse VHS classics and rarities at this event in Echo Park.
The backstory: Whammy owner Erik Varho never stopped collecting VHS tapes. With an abundance of tapes in his possession he started selling them online in 2020, and in 2022 he opened a storefront to cater to the needs of all VHS enthusiasts.
Physical media has been making a comeback. Whammy Analog Media, an Echo Park storefront specializing in VHS tapes, has been providing a place for enthusiasts and newcomers to embrace the antiquated format.
From tape collector to curator
Whammy founder Erik Varho always wanted to open his own store — he just didn’t have a clue as what it would be. A die-hard videotape lover, Varho never stopped collecting them, even after major releases ceased printing in 2006.
Shelves full of VHS tapes inside Whammy Analog Media.
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In 2020, fresh out of work and with VHS tapes lining the walls of his studio apartment, he started selling his tapes via Instagram.
“I was pleasantly surprised that people were actually out there buying them,” Varho said.
With the success of his online sales, Varho was able to open a brick-and-mortar store in 2022. Varho intended it to just be a retail store, but the space, he thought, was perfect for an indoor screen.
“I just kind of dove headfirst into the microcinema aspect of it,” Varho said.
Whammy’s been hosting events celebrating that grainy quality of the Video Home System — or VHS — ever since.
A crowd watching a projected VHS film inside Whammy Analog Media.
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A small crowd gathers to watch a film inside Whammy Analog Media.
One regular event is the WhammyVHS Swap Meet. The quarterly meet-up brings together video vendors from across Southern California to showcase their wares.
Bad Taste specializes in lowbrow horror and cult films, whileCinefile Liquidations sells vintage posters, records and other film ephemera.
“It's just kind of a place for people to display their craziest, weirdest, rarest finds and just have a place to talk about them and hang out,” Varho said.
Those rare finds include Image of the Beast from 1981, the third installment in a Christian apocalyptic thriller series about the rise of the antichrist and an evil A.I.
Whammy recently projected the film as part of its “Stuck on VHS”series, which showcases works that were only released direct to video.
A rewinding renewal
Shoppers look through various stacks of tape inside Whammy Analog Media.
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Besides an entire store, Varho also owns a storage unit filled to the brim with VHS tapes. Those who RSVP to Sunday's swap meet get a free mystery VHS tape upon entry.
He says the most frequent question he gets is if they sell VCRs. They do, but they run out pretty quickly.
Varho takes it as a good sign and says lately customers have been skewing younger and younger.
"People who didn't even grow up with VHS who are just interested in exploring movies in that way. It's a fun time to be into VHS for sure,” Varho said.
Sunday's event includes a screening of a mystery VHS.
“I can’t reveal what we’re playing, but it’s always stuff that is going to be attention-grabbing and usually pretty silly,” Varho said.
Details
Whammy! VHS Swap Meet Location: 2514 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles (in the back) When: Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. Free admission, RSVP here
How it works: The annual competition invites filmmakers from around the world to reimagine often long-forgotten literary classics, films, cartoons, music, and visual art that are now in the public domain.
About the winner: Titled Rhapsody, Reimagined, the roughly two-minute video captures the King of Jazz's surreal quality: Cookie-cutter rows of musicians, showgirls, office workers and random furniture cascade across the screen as influential bandleader Paul Whiteman's winking face looks on.
One of the most unusual of the creative treasures to enter the public domain this month is King of Jazz. The plotless, experimental 1930 musical film shot in early Technicolor centers on influential bandleader Paul Whiteman, nicknamed "The King of Jazz."
In one memorable scene, the portly, mustachioed Whiteman opens a small bag and winks at the camera as miniature musicians file out one after another like a colony of ants and take their places on an ornate, table-top bandstand.
A new video based on clips from King of Jazz has won this year's Public Domain Film Remix Contest — an annual competition that invites filmmakers from around the world to reimagine often long-forgotten literary classics, films, cartoons, music, and visual art that are now in the public domain. This means creators can use these materials freely, without copyright restrictions. In 2026, works created in 1930 entered the public domain.
Titled Rhapsody, Reimagined, the roughly two-minute video captures the King of Jazz's surreal quality: Cookie-cutter rows of musicians, showgirls, office workers and random furniture cascade across the screen as Whiteman's winking face looks on.
"I wanted to transform the figures and bodies into more dream-like shapes through collage and looping and repetition," said Seattle-based filmmaker Andrea Hale, who created the piece in collaboration with composer Greg Hardgrave. For video artists, Hale said discovering what's new in the public domain each January is a thrill. "We're always looking for things to draw from," Hale said. "Opening that up to a bigger spread of materials is amazing. That's the dream."
A massive repository of content
The Internet Archive, the San Francisco-based nonprofit library behind the contest, digitizes and provides public access to a massive repository of content, including many materials used by contest participants. "These materials have often just been in film canisters for decades," said digital librarian Brewster Kahle, who founded the Internet Archive in 1996.
This year's submissions range from a reworking of the 1930 film The Blue Angel starring Betty Boop — another public domain entrant this year — instead of Marlene Dietrich, to an AI-generated take on the 1930 Nancy Drew book The Mystery at Lilac Inn.
Kahle said the Internet Archive received nearly 280 entries this time around, the highest number since the competition launched six years ago. "Things are not just musty, old archival documentation of the past," Kahle said. "People are bringing them to life in new and different ways, without fear of being sued."
The public domain in the era of AI
Lawsuits have become a growing concern for artists and copyright holders, especially with the rise of generative AI. Recent years have seen a surge in online video takedowns and copyright infringement disputes.
Media companies are trying to address the problem through deals with tech firms, such as Disney and OpenAI's plan, announced late last year, to introduce a service allowing users to create short videos based on copyrighted characters, including Cinderella and Darth Vader.
"On the one hand, these licensing agreements seem quite a clean solution to thorny legal questions," said Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School. "But what's exciting about the public domain is that material, after a long, robust 95-year copyright term, is just simply free for anyone — without a team of lawyers, without a licensing agreement, without having to work for Disney or OpenAI — to just put online," Jenkins said.
Jenkins also pointed out an interesting twist for people who create new works using materials from the public domain. "You actually get a copyright in your remix," she said. "Just like Disney has copyrights in all of its remakes of wonderful public domain works like Snow White or Cinderella." (The Brothers Grimm popularized these two characters in their 19th century collection Grimm's Fairy Tales. But their roots are much deeper, going back to European folklore collections of the 1600s and beyond.)
However, this only applies to works created by humans — U.S. copyright law currently doesn't recognize works authored by AI. And Jenkins further cautioned that creators only get a copyright in their new creative contributions to the remix, and not the underlying material.
This year's Public Domain Film Remix Contest winner Andrea Hale said she's using a Creative Commons license for Rhapsody, Reimagined. This means the filmmaker retains the copyright to her work but grants permissions that allow other people to freely use, share, and build upon it. "I'm keeping with the spirit of the public domain," Hale said.
