Dancing Around the World, Paid For, Everything Inclusive

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Published on: November 15, 2008

If you did not hear about Matt Harding yet, then it is about time. He is the guy that became famous for “dancing on the Internet”, okay, there are a bunch of guys that are “famous” doing that, but he is the one who did it in public at places around the whole globe.

??mattdanceani The story goes like this…

  1. A 32 year old deadbeat who was born in Connecticut, USA and ended up working for a company in Brisbane, Australia decided in 2003 to quit his job and use the money he had saved to do a trip through Asia until he was broke.
  2. During the usual posing for tourist photo graphs and home videos as proof for his friends and family that he was at the places he said he was, a friend suggested to do his funny dance, the only dance Matt knows and do that instead of the usual boring posing.
  3. mattdancingani2 He did that for the rest of his trip until he ran out of money. He published his short videos on a web site that he mainly created for his family to check what he was doing and where.
  4. The stuff went somehow “viral” on the Internet thanks to social media. It also caught the attention of a company called Stride Gum, who thought that doing more of this kind of videos sponsored by the Stride Gum brand would be a fantastic idea. Matt thought so too, especially when he was told that Stride pays for the whole thing, everything inclusive.
  5. The result is his second video, which made him even more famous.
  6. Seeing one dude dancing alone got kind of old when Matt had an idea. How about having people dancing with him, people who contacted Matt over the Internet. Stride thought too that it is a great idea and off he was for the third trip around the globe.
  7. That video is the 2008 video?? and made Matt even more famous. So famous in fact that he was asked to talk at social media conferences etc.

His 2006 and 2008 videos were viewed over 11 Million times EACH on YouTube alone! “Nicht schlecht Herr Specht” as we say in Germany to something like that.

Here are some interesting facts about the locations that Matt visited.

Three videos were released, labeled 2005, 2006 and 2008. Each with the results of an entire trip lasting several months to over one year. The first video from 2005 included 20 locations, the video from 2006 included 36 and the last one from 2008 included a whopping 69 places.

There is also an out-takes video for the 2006 trip with a few locations that are unique and did not make it into the final video. That means that the actual number of places visited is higher than the ones I mentioned.

Unique Places shown in his 3 Videos

  1. Abu Simbel, Egypt
  2. Agra, India
  3. Ala Archa Gorge, Kyrgyzstan
  4. Alhambra, California
  5. Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  6. Angkor Wat, Cambodia
  7. Antseranana, Madagascar
  8. Area 51, Nevada
  9. Atlanta, Georgia
  10. Auckland, New Zealand
  11. Auki, Solomon Islands
  12. Austin, Texas
  13. Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
  14. Bangkok, Thailand
  15. Batik, Morocco
  16. Beijing, China
  17. Bengal Jungle, India
  18. Berlin, Germany
  19. Brisbane, Australia
  20. Brussels, Belgium
  21. Buenos Aires, Argentina
  22. Cape of Good Hope, South Africa
  23. Chakachino, Zambia
  24. Chicago, Illinois
  25. Christmas Island, Australia
  26. Chuuk, Micronesia
  27. Cologne, Germany
  28. Delhi, India
  29. Demilitarized Zone, Korea
  30. Dubai, United Arab Emirates
  31. Dublin, Ireland
  32. East Jerusalem, West Bank
  33. Easter Island, Chile
  34. Ephesus, Turkey
  35. Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
  36. Giant’s causeway, Northern Ireland
  37. Guam
  38. Gurgaon, India
  39. Half Moon Caye, Belize
  40. Hanoi, Vietnam
  41. Haute-Picardie, France
  42. Impenetrable Forest, Uganda
  43. Istanbul, Turkey
  44. Kilimanjaro Summit, Tanzania
  45. Kjeragbolten, Norway
  46. Kuwait City, Kuwait
  47. Lancelin, Australia
  48. Lemur Island, Madagascar
  49. Lisbon, Portugal
  50. Lisse, The Netherlands
  51. London, England
  52. Los Angeles, California
  53. Luang Prabang, Laos
  54. Machu Picchu, Peru
  55. Madrid, Spain
  56. Mexico City, Mexico
  57. Miami, Florida
  58. Mokolodi, Botswana
  59. Monte Alban, Mexico
  60. Montreal, Quebec
  61. Monument Valley, Arizona
  62. Moscow, Russia
  63. Mulindi, Rwanda
  64. Mumbai, India
  65. Munich, Germany
  66. Mutianyu, China
  67. Neko Harbor, Antarctica
  68. Nellis Airspace, Nevada
  69. New York, New York
  70. Panama Canal, Panama
  71. Paris, France
  72. Paro, Bhutan
  73. Petra, Jordan
  74. Poria, Papua New Guinea
  75. Prague, Czech Republic
  76. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  77. Rock Islands, Palau
  78. Routeburn Valley, New Zealand
  79. Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
  80. San Francisco, California
  81. Sana’a, Yemen
  82. Sao Paulo, Brazil
  83. Seattle, Washington
  84. Seljalandsfoss, Iceland
  85. Seoul, South Korea
  86. Siberia, Russia
  87. Singapore
  88. Sossusvlei, Namibia
  89. South Shetland Islands
  90. Soweto, South Africa
  91. Stockholm, Sweden
  92. Stone Town, Zanzibar
  93. Suhbaatar, Mongolia
  94. Sydney, Australia
  95. Tagaytay, The Philippines
  96. Taipaei, Taiwan
  97. Tel Aviv, Israel
  98. Teotihuacan, Mexico
  99. Thimphu, Bhutan
  100. Tikal, Guatemala
  101. Timbuktu, Mali
  102. Tokyo, Japan
  103. Tongatapu, Tonga
  104. Tsavo, Kenya
  105. Vancouver, British Columbia
  106. Vava’u, Tonga
  107. Venice, Italy
  108. Very Large Array, New Mexico
  109. Wadi Rum, Jordan
  110. Wainivilase, Fiji
  111. Warsaw, Poland
  112. Washington D.C., USA
  113. Westport, Connecticut
  114. Yangon, Myanmar

Unique Countries of Islands

  1. Antarctica
  2. Argentina
  3. Australia
  4. Belgium
  5. Belize
  6. Bhutan
  7. Bolivia
  8. Botswana
  9. Brazil
  10. Brunei
  11. Cambodia
  12. Canada
  13. Chile
  14. China
  15. Czech Republic
  16. Ecuador
  17. Egypt
  18. Fiji
  19. France
  20. Germany
  21. Guam
  22. Guatemala
  23. Iceland
  24. India
  25. Ireland
  26. Israel
  27. Italy
  28. Japan
  29. Jordan
  30. Kenya
  31. Kuwait
  32. Kyrgyzstan
  33. Laos
  34. Madagascar
  35. Mali
  36. Mexico
  37. Micronesia
  38. Mongolia
  39. Morocco
  40. Myanmar
  41. Namibia
  42. New Zealand
  43. Norway
  44. Palau
  45. Palestine
  46. Panama
  47. Papua New Guinea
  48. Peru
  49. Poland
  50. Portugal
  51. Russia
  52. Rwanda
  53. Solomon Islands
  54. South Africa
  55. South Korea
  56. Spain
  57. Sweden
  58. Taiwan
  59. Tanzania
  60. Thailand
  61. The Netherlands
  62. The Philippines
  63. Tonga
  64. Turkey
  65. Uganda
  66. UK
  67. United Arab Emirates
  68. USA
  69. Vietnam
  70. Yemen
  71. Zambia
  72. Zanzibar

Places he visited Twice

  1. Brisbane, Australia
  2. London, England
  3. Los Angeles, California
  4. San Francisco, California
  5. Sydney, Australia
  6. Tokyo, Japan*

Places he visited on every trip

  1. New York, New York
  2. Seattle, Washington

??

*Tokyo actually appears three times in his videos, but only in two of them and not three. Tokyo is the only real duplicate within any of his videos. Tokyo appears twice in the 2008 video. Once in location #29 and the second time in location #42.

Also, if you look at the overall data, he rarely made it to the same place twice. 8 places that he visited more than once, out of 114. … not bad.

Link to my megamix video?? on YouTube, also available for download in .AVI (XVID/MP3) format and 640×480 resolution via Mediafire.com at this URL.

gnomdex8 Here is a link to Matt’s presentation at the 2008 Gnomdex conference, which was held between August 21 and 23, 2008 in Seattle, WA, where he talks about what he did and how he did it to travel around the world not only once or twice, but three times. Once on his own expense and twice on somebody else’s.

Gnomedex is by the way the tech- or geek-conference organized by Chris Pirillo, who is also notoriously known for his online video stuff and live chat.

What is odd to me now is the fact that just when I decided to write this post about Matt, his web site went offline. WhereTheHellIsMatt.com does not resolve at all. There is a cached version of the site in Google, with a date of either November 8 or 9, so the site was up about a week ago. I hope that this down-time is only a temporary glitch. However, if I would be Matt, I would have a word with the hosting company (unless that company happens to be the sponsor for his web site hosting hehe)

I put up the link to his web site anyway, hoping that it will be up very soon.

Other Links

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

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