A Mercer University alumnus has accomplished something few have done: traveled to all 50 U.S. states and all seven continents.
Double Bear Brad Lindsey had never even traveled outside the Southeast until he was a medical student at Mercer School of Medicine. His friend and classmate Billy Bedingfield was looking at medical rotations in Scotland and encouraged Lindsey to go with him.
Lindsey ended up doing a month-long rotation in gastroenterology at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh while Bedingfield did cardiology at another hospital. They stayed at a bed and breakfast during their rotations, and since they were off on Fridays, they had plenty of time to sightsee.
“It was just an amazing experience, and it set me off,” Lindsey said. “I told Billy afterward, ‘You kind of created a monster. I really want to do more of this.’”
Lindsey, who completed his undergraduate degree in biology at Mercer in 1995, graduated with his Doctor of Medicine in 1999. But he wasn’t able to travel in earnest until 2004 after he completed his residency. He is now a neurologist at Southwell’s Tift Regional Medical Center in Tifton, the same hospital where he was born.
“By 2008, I realized, ‘Well, gosh, I’m getting a lot of states here,’” Lindsey said about his decision to visit all 50 states. “So that became the goal. And then I thought, ‘Well, I want to do more,’ and whenever I started traveling internationally, I decided I wanted to get more countries, and I needed to start seeing the continents.”
He marked off his last state, New Jersey, in 2018 and went back around the country to visit all 50 capitals, including the Capitol buildings. He met that goal in Salem, Oregon, in 2023.
“I love my own state, obviously, but I have to say there have been some real surprises in North Dakota. For a state that is usually people’s 50th state, it has a lot to offer. It’s just spread out. You have to find it,” he said, mentioning the Enchanted Highway featuring large, metal sculptures. “Also, I really liked Ohio. It has some really unusual, cool features. I love Alaska.”
Lindsey completed his seventh continent in January, when he went to Morocco in Africa for his birthday.
“But I still want to see a lot more everywhere,” he said.
Next month, he’s headed to Japan for the first time to see the cherry blossoms.
Lindsey travels about six times a year and always on his birthday and work anniversary. He travels by himself or with friends and family. Sometimes he uses a tour company, and other times he makes the plans himself. He doesn’t prefer one way of traveling over the other. They all have their own benefits.
“I like the mix. The guided tours have taught me how to plan,” he said. “But what I do like about my own tours is I can do things that they necessarily wouldn’t do. Like if I wanted to go to the first Kentucky Fried Chicken, they wouldn’t typically go there, and I can.”
Lindsey took a cruise to Antarctica in January 2020, which was summer in the Southern Hemisphere.
“With a cruise to Antarctica, the schedule is never the same because it’s depending on weather, and sometimes you don’t even get onto the actual continent. You get on the islands,” he said. “But we got on it three times, and the first time was on my birthday. Half of the hiking tour that was going that day was French, so everyone’s saying happy birthday to me in English, and then they sang it in French.”
Travel “makes everything come alive,” Lindsey said.
“I love to see new places, experience new things. I love history. It’s great to read about, for example, the Colosseum, or the history of the Hanseatic League, but then you go, and you see it in the actual historical location. When you see the tomb of Elizabeth I, it makes it that much more real, just to go and experience it,” he said. “Plus, it’s so nice to see how big the world is and how much similarity there is but also how many differences.”
