Maria Fonseca found her way to mortuary school the way a lot of people do: Someone died.

"Unfortunately, three years ago, I lost a cousin," she says.

The funeral director who helped her family grieve left an impression. Fonseca didn't know anyone in the funeral industry, and she asked to shadow him. Then she decided to follow in his footsteps.

"I want to be there to support [families] whenever they're going through the worst moment in their life," she says.

Stefan Krasowski had a dream: to visit every country on Earth before he turned 40. That dream took him around the world, from the crystal blue crater lakes of Djibouti and the ancient Roman ruins of Tunisia to the foothills of the Himalyas in Bhutan.

But as Krasowski's 40th birthday approached, there was just one country that eluded him: Syria.

When he found out last month that the country's tourism minister had approved his visa, he dipped into his considerable stockpile of credit card points and hopped on a plane.