Hossain Sharif, known in the travel world as Magsman, was born and raised in a village in Cumilla, Bangladesh. His early love of books and good cinema shaped his thinking, his outlook on life, and the way he sees the world, and sparked a curiosity to experience unfamiliar places for himself.
He completed an MBA at the Faculty of Business Studies, University of Dhaka, and a master’s in Bank Management at the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management. He received an award in a mathematics olympiad organized by Prothom Alo and achieved an IELTS band score of 7. Although he received offers for higher education in Germany and Russia, he chose to continue traveling in Asia rather than follow a conventional career path.
Across Asia, he has explored more than 100 cities, stayed in hostels and with local people, and traveled through hitchhiking, couchsurfing, and volunteering. Alongside his journeys, he writes travel literature for Bengali newspapers. His work and travel experiences have appeared in Prothom Alo, Ajker Patrika, Protidiner Bangladesh, Desh Rupantor, Shomoyer Alo, and other publications. Prothom Alo featured his experience of exploring more than 100 Asian cities on a budget.
His travel writing has been read more than 300 million times across social media and online platforms, and his travel videos have been watched hundreds of millions of times. For him, travel means getting closer to people’s lives, cultures, nature, and stories. Through writing and video, he shares those experiences with readers and viewers.
He is now looking beyond Asia toward Africa, China, South America, and more distant places still unfamiliar to him.