About Mark Around the World

Mark Vogel was born in New York City and grew up with a strong interest in history, culture, and global exploration. His father, who was raised on the Lower East Side, spent his career teaching science to public middle school students, instilling in Mark a respect for education and critical thinking. His mother grew up on the Upper West Side and worked for many years as a graphic artist designing book covers. While Mark was in high school, she returned to school herself, earning a degree in psychology and later opening a private psychology practice.

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Mark’s family roots trace back to Belgium, Russia, Poland, and Ukraine, and his personal connection to history runs deep. His maternal great-grandmother, who lived in Antwerp, was murdered during the Holocaust at Auschwitz, and several other relatives were also killed during that period. These family tragedies shaped Mark’s understanding of identity, memory, and the importance of preserving cultural narratives.

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He grew up in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx, where his parents owned a two-family home. Throughout the 1980s, they rented the second unit to a wide range of tenants from different backgrounds. Living side by side with people from diverse cultures helped shape Mark’s lifelong interest in how people live around the world and fostered his comfort navigating unfamiliar environments, a foundation that would later influence both his career and his travels. Over time, these experiences gave Mark a perspective shaped by decades of lived experience, grounding his travels in context, curiosity, and cultural understanding rather than trends alone.

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One particularly extraordinary chapter of Mark’s childhood placed his family unexpectedly at the center of a major Cold War incident. In 1983, his parents rented the apartment to a Russian couple they had found through a local newspaper ad. The tenant, Gennadi Zakharov, worked at the United Nations. Shortly after the tenant moved in, the FBI informed Mark’s parents that Zakharov was suspected of being a KGB agent. For several years, federal authorities monitored him, and in 1986 Zakharov was arrested and charged with espionage.

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What transformed the case from a local story into a global crisis was what happened next. Just days later, Soviet authorities arrested Nicholas Daniloff, an American journalist living in Moscow, accusing him of spying for the United States. With Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev preparing for a high-stakes summit aimed at reducing nuclear weapons, the arrests threatened to derail diplomatic progress. Ultimately, both countries released the men without trial in a negotiated exchange, allowing the summit to move forward.

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Experiencing this moment had a profound impact on Mark and sparked a lasting interest in politics, government, and international affairs. He went on to major in political science in college and completed internships with New York City government, the New York State Legislature in Albany, and the White House in Washington, D.C. After graduation, he worked on political campaigns and for elected officials, gaining firsthand insight into how policy and governance operate behind the scenes.

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Mark later shifted his focus toward entrepreneurship, co-founding Elegant Medical Alert, an e-commerce company created to offer stylish, modern medical ID jewelry. The idea was simple but personal. Many people needed to wear medical identification but avoided it because the available options felt unattractive or stigmatizing. Elegant Medical Alert set out to change that by combining safety with design.

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Today, Mark brings together his love of history, culture, design, and exploration as the founder of Mark Around the World. Through the platform, he travels globally to spotlight unique destinations, thoughtfully chosen hotels, and memorable travel experiences, while also helping travelers, especially kosher-observant ones, discover where to find kosher food wherever they go. What began as curiosity has evolved into a mission, showing that travel is not just about where you go, but about understanding the stories, people, and traditions that make each place meaningful.