Liverpool: A hairdresser has earned himself the nickname "Nomad Barber" after he clipped, trimmed and groomed his way around 21 different countries giving people haircuts in amazing locations.
The award-winning men's hairdresser, Miguel Gutierrez who now owns two salons - one in London and another in Berlin - embarked on a life-changing adventure in 2013 and has travelled over 20 countries including Greece and Kurdistan in northern Iraq acuminating his craft.
Miguel Gutierrez decided to travel the world giving haircuts and shaving beards until his funds dried up so that he could see how his ancient 5,000-year-old trade varied from place to place.
26 at the time of starting the expedition, the Nomad Barber and a cameraman set off for a year-long backpacking trek around the world.
His first destination was Athens, before heading on to Turkey and then making his way through the Middle East and India then across Asia. He observed his colleagues in Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Nepal and Dubai.
For Gutierrez, the most unusual spot he visited was in Kurdistan, in northern Iraq, near the Iranian border after travelling through a dozen checkpoints.
As he went further, Gutierrez sought out barbershops and learnt their techniques and then filmed their practices.
Gutierrez would set up shop on beaches, in parks, in streets and unusual places and offer haircuts to locals and tourists, and engage them in conversation while he documented his entire adventure in a web series.
He told MailOnline Travel: “It started off as a passion project as I wanted to go around the world and document the whole cultural level and background of different barbers around the world.”
The trip was largely impromptu with the route changing spontaneously to allow him to meet new people. Due to this, he found it quite exhausting.
Gutierrez said: “It was a struggle by month six. We took over 50 overnight buses in a year and were always editing and planning for the next shoot.”
“It was continuous work, it was really tiring, I wasn't in a proper sleep cycle, it aged me dramatically.”
To fund this grand tour he crowd-sourced money on Kickstarter, maxed out three credit cards and gained sponsorship from a clippers company.
Gutierrez continued travelling even after he finished his hair-raising expedition, visiting another nine countries, bringing his grand total to 30.
After scrutinizing each country's hair care culture, he said he thought India had the best because “they have the caste system over there and a lot of the barbers have kind of been born into it, through their fathers and grandfathers doing it.”
Although he readily acknowledged that it did not really matter “how you got into it, whether you were born into it, or your family got you into it or you chose to go into it, everyone kind of goes through the same experiences and deals with the same type of clients every day.”
According to Gutierrez though, while Turkish and Middle Eastern men would go to the barber's every three days or so, he found that it was those in Dubai who took utmost care of their appearance and were always well-groomed helping them with career advancement.
Currently, Gutierrez is excitedly looking forward to his next trip.
He said: “I'm going to be between here and London and then probably going to do a bit more travelling as well.”
He plans to go to destinations he missed the first time round, “I want to go back to Asia so I will probably visit Japan, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines, and then back to the States, Brazil, Argentina... there's so many places!”
