An American travel influencer and Instagram star is being sued after she claimed to be the first woman to visit every country in the world.
Cassie De Pecol, originally from Connecticut, US, has amassed 500,000 Instagram followers as well as countless brand deals and media appearances from her travels, recently claiming that she is “the first woman to travel to every country in the world”.
She has also gained substantial media coverage on CNN, Forbes, The New York Times, and Today.
However, several people have contested the claim since De Pecol made it around 2017 - including Audrey Walsworth, an 87-year-old who claims she had visited every country on earth years before De Pecol, having started her mission in 1969.
Walsworth says she has visited all 193 UN-Recognized countries, and all 327 Travelers Century Club (TCC) territories, making her the world’s best-travelled woman.
Many believe that the first woman to visit every country was Dorothy Pine, who was born in Kansas in 1920 and spent decades travelling with her husband Robert, visiting all countries on the Travelers Century Club (TCC) list by 2005.
Now US collective Travelers United is suing De Pecol under Washington DC’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CPPA). The group argues that her claims are “unfair and deceptive” and can be seen in her advertising and marketing materials.
“We hope that other nonprofits will be emboldened to bring similar lawsuits,” said Lauren Wolfe, a lawyer acting for Travelers United, “but, more importantly, the FTC should be taking this on. I think that this should be a political issue.
“Both parties want to see more regulation on social media platforms. The FTC should have an entire department focused on truth in influencer advertising.”
Guinness World Records has confirmed that De Pecol broke the records for the “fastest time to visit all sovereign countries (female)” and “fastest time to visit all sovereign countries (overall)” in 2017, but these were speed based rather than being a “first” - and both have since been beaten by Taylor Demonbreun.
Several fellow adventurers have said they have tried to alert De Pecol to the false claim in the past, but she has either not responded or blocked them.
Another “every country” achiever, Germany-based Nina Sedano, told the Washington Post: “I said, ‘I have also travelled to all the nations and did it by the end of September 2011, and even I was not the first woman to do that. She didn’t react.”
Fellow travel influencer Lee Abbamonte told the Post: “She told me she was going to become the first woman to go to every country. I actually emailed her back, [saying] there have been at least three or four that have done it, and I know a couple of them.
“I never actually got a response after that email back in 2015. I think she rubbed a lot of people the wrong way and she handled things poorly.”
The strapline on De Pecol’s website says that she is the “first woman on record to travel every country in the world”.
Her bio goes on to say: “In 2017, Cassie De Pecol fulfilled her lifelong dream of travelling to every country in the world, breaking two Guinness World Records, and gaining recognition in the National Woman’s History Museum, becoming the first woman on record to travel every country in the world.”
“This complaint is yet another baseless attack on me and my accomplishments,” De Pecol told the Washington Post. “I intend to vigorously contest what regrettably appears to be a rehash of the same untenable allegations that have been levelled against me in the past.”
The Independent has approached Cassie De Pecol for comment.
