If you’ve been anywhere near Youtube or Facebook in recent months and, let’s face it. most of us have, you may well have witnessed The Gratitude Dance, a charmingly endearing series of clips showing what looks to be one man’s trip around the world and his attempts to persuade a bunch of locals to join in his silly dance.

At first glance it may appear to be type of pointless nonsense that gap-year travellers get up to the first time they leave their own country but it quickly becomes obvious it’s a little more than that.  Check it out below before we go any further:

As you can see it’s thing to behold; there’s a great, uplifting soundtrack, it’s well put together and the protagonists have clearly made the effort to visit some of those less travelled countries.  It’s no lazy trip through South East Asia or Australia – you can see clips from Bhutan, Zanzibar, Kuwait, Iceland and a memorable one from the Demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

The momentum behind the idea and the video seems to have been the concept of a couple of Canadians called Matt Ashdown and Bradley Morris who conceived The Gratitude Dance before the trip began.  Not only is it entertaining but it’s also a message about promoting happiness.  Although it may look very ‘spur of the moment’, a lot of planning went into the 42 country, 14 month trip;  people who signed up to Matt’s website after seeing his previous videos were emailed in advance when he came to their country to let them know when and where he would be dancing and filming.  Some countries were more difficult than others and I’ll leave you with the following video from Matt himself to help explain how it all came about: