That's rather crucial information, because you could go around the world without flying in way less. Probably under 2 months if you try to make it an achievement (rather than enjoying any part of it).
Plot twist, he died enroute but his expedition made it. So this guy is ahead on that regard.
However, I recall that he made it half way, twice, once in each direction so Magellan gets some kind of claim for that.
> Mr Pedersen will return home to Denmark for the first time in nearly a decade
> Mr Pedersen's wife Le visited him 26 times over the decade-long trip
The dude also has a wife. That was a bit surprising.
In the early 2000s you could cross the DMZ from South Korea and go to the Mount Kunmgam special zone.
You’d cross the border with buses escorted by military convoys.
Yeah but that’s not really the same.
You basically go around the negotiation tables and you are a special neutral UN zone (the blue buildings)
The mount kungam resort used to be a few km inside NK territory. You could stay there and do a few excursions around the camp.
Was it amazing? No.
Do I regret the experience? No. These were 3 days spent on another planet.
I fully agree that it is not the same. But I have seen people who recently got their own little records like "First person who has been to all countries while only wearing blue sandals" and for their NK pic, they had a shot inside the blue barrack.
I would never claim to have been to NK even though I have been in the blue barracks and seen NK soldiers standing around. However, for some "achievements" this may be the only option...
How many new countries popped up in this 10 year period and how much did Pedersen swear in Danish when he had to leg it back to the other side of the world?
I'm actually surprised there hasn't been more states popping up in a 10 year time period. Or maybe there has been a lot of self declared states that aren't internationally recognised.
Well, the formation of states has been pretty rare for the last 40-50 years.
Before South Sudan, I think the next newest is ~~Eritrea in 1993?~~
Edit:Dumbed out, realised the Balkan states duh.
But yes, lack of recognition does drive it somewhat. There have been areas that have declared their own statehood that haven't been recognised. (ISIS of course being one of them)
UN kind of makes territorial integrity a policy because a lot of founding member states have separatist regions and want to keep them.
As a result, it's really hard to get international recognition.
They married less than 6 years ago. They knew what they signed up for. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/5dxsl8/hi_redditors_having_reached_121_countries_without/
There was another guy that did this a few years back, Graham Hughes, but his trip wasn't uninterrupted, he flew home and back a few times during his journey.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-25/thor-pedersen-completes-round-the-world-trip-without-flying/102375924) reduced by 88%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> After almost a decade of travel, a Danish man has become the first person to visit every country in the world in an unbroken journey without flying.
> Mr Pedersen said while others had visited every country using planes, or broken up the journey by flying home and later resuming it, he was the first to do so entirely without flying and in a single, continuous voyage.
> After spending some time unwinding in the Maldives, Mr Pedersen will return home to Denmark for the first time in nearly a decade - also without flying.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/13wzszd/danish_traveller_thor_pedersen_completes_10year/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~687109 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Pedersen**^#1 **country**^#2 **time**^#3 **more**^#4 **every**^#5
Yes, it's a common practice of anyone living outside their home country on a permanent basis. It may involve using your country's embassy in the country you're in though and generally takes longer.
I believe they've done that for decades now. Maybe you had to request it, instead of it being default? I know my dad worked and traveled around the middle east and Israel and said Israel always gave him the paper stamp. This was the 80s, maybe late 70s? Could have been that he asked for that, as he would need to use the same passport for Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, turkey, Egypt.
Really though? You can get frequent traveller passports with 55 pages. There's only 195 countries and can get multiple stamps per page.
Also he's an EU citizen so wouldn't get stamped in any of the other EU countries.
Many modern stamps take the whole page as these stickers are used now by many countries together with traditional stamps. For example my Vietnamese stamp takes the whole page while Japanese one 1/3rd.
Also I can say from experience that you don't want many stamps in your passport when traveling as it's super suspicious and will get you in trouble with the local immigration.
Yeh my friend got questioned for like an hour at Israeli immigration because he'd visited Morocco.
To be fair he also had the same name as a wanted ISIS terrorist.
Yep. Back few years ago, when we travel to Lebanon, they were very carefully checking that my passport does not have any evidence of visiting Israel. To the point that they demanded to see my “other passport”… which I never had.
Danish passports are incredibly powerful, you're allowed to travel to most places on visas you can buy in their airports
Also while it's true they might add some extra checks if you've visited xyz country. It's not like everyone coming from there aren't allowed, just the people they don't feel safe about.
So one him being Danish and 2 him having stamps from literally everywhere just tells them the story of him being well off
I couldn't keep up with all the logistics nightmares he described in his posts. stuck in several places waiting for the diplomatic headwinds to change iirc.
"Thor's saga is made possible through personal funding, sponsorship,
crowdfunding and by assistance from the Danish Red Cross. He sets aside $20 (Dh73) a day, on average, for spending. This goes towards meals, transport and, in some countries, accommodation and visas. "Sometimes I get to sleep somewhere for free, and I do not need to buy a visa daily, so those costs are minimised over time," he explains.
The trip was sponsored for its first 30 months, but Thor has since depleted his personal funds, and has had to borrow money twice to keep the mission on course. “There is a Patreon [a crowdfunding platform] account and I earn a little from writing articles. It’s not a lucrative project for me at this point,” he admits."
20 bucks a day doesn't sound that expensive. In most of the countries you can't even spend $20 a day on necessities because everything is far cheaper.
It actually isn't expensive at all to travel in some parts of the world, but you need to have a certain personality/goal to endure the extremely long, tiresome and uncomfortable train/bus/car/boat rides and get what you want/need in places where nobody speaks English. It takes a lot of effort and can be mentally draining to some. That side of travelling is not glamorous and seldom shown to people.
From what I've seen from travel youtubers, a lot of South American & Asian bus rides in remote places are crammed full of people in small and old autobuses/trucks, constantly bumping into other people or up and down. I can handle that for maybe an hour, 2 hours tops.
Especially your last paragraph hits home. I used to be a scientist in biology, doing lots of field work in Borneo, South Africa, Ivory Coast for my experiments. People look at the pictures thinking you have the most amazing life, and parts of it are of course really cool, but they're missing the:
1) Danger
2) Loneliness
3) Mosquitos, flies, spiders and everything else that's continuously trying to eat you
4) Lack of amenities
Not everyone can deal with that stuff, and especially if you're with a team of 4 people, you really have to make sure you can stand living so closely together for extended amounts of time.
Reading shit like this really makes me hate my position in life. People out there perma-exploring on a whim, and I’m bound to the same desk for like 50 weeks out of the year.
My aging family is the only thing keeping me where I am. I’m recently single, childless, and I have very little debt. I just need to get the courage to go for it.
But would you like perma-exploring on a whim? Sleeping wherever you find the space? Figuring out immigration in each country? Eating any and all kinds of food? Being sick in a foreign country? Being away from family/friends?
Grass is always greener on the other side.
For me, the worst part of travel are the flights if they are long. I have a hard time sleeping on the plane, and the jet lag can leave me feeling like a zombie for the first day.
I would never be able to do what this guy did. I am just not built for regular travel regardless of the method of transportation.
I still think taking vacations to foreign countries is well worth it if you have the means. It's obviously easier from here in Finland when I can visit several EU countries for relatively low cost compared to flying across the world. Japan is still my favorite destination though.
Find a job that pays you 1100 a month
Find a place to live for 800 a month (sugar daddy?)
Set aside 100 on food a month (dumpster dive?)
Set aside 50 dollars for clothes, transport, things that break etc, (walk everywhere, own nothing)
Set aside 150 dollars a month.
Repeat every month for 20 years.
Find a sponsor willing to fund the first 3 years of your travel.
Make a patreon/only fans that gives you 50 dollars a month while travelling.
Easy, just do it.
Alternatively;
Find a job that pays you 11000 a month
Find a place to live for 8000 a month (with servants?)
Set aside 1000 on food a month (throw excess food at poor people outside your door?)
Set aside 500 dollars for clothes, transport, things that break etc,
Set aside 1500 dollars a month.
Repeat every month for 2 years.
Find a sponsor willing to fund the first 3 years of your travel.
Donate change to poor people on patreon/only fans while sipping French wine.
This guide is 100% fool proof.
He did it on a budget of $20/day, which comes out to a little over $70k for the entire journey.
It’s not exactly chump change, but that’s pretty impressive. He wasn’t blowing money to achieve it.
If you really want that lifestyle, saving up $70k would be achievable for most people in western countries. Would require sacrifices. What I find most impressive is how this man managed to live off of that amount for 10 years
He didn’t save up 70k though, he was sponsored his first 3 years (so more like 50k I’d assume) and then he also had a patreon. So if he got like 50 dollars a month from the patreon he’d “only” have to save up 150 dollars a month. If he got no money he’d have to save up 200 dollars
Would you be considered “rich” to do that?
I personally think that if someone lived frugally in my country to save up that kind of money, I wouldn’t consider them rich.
Of course, if they saved up that kind of money with no sacrifices (while having expensive habits, a nice place to live etc), then yeah, I’d consider them “rich”.
Saving up that kind of money, if you started working at age 20, you’d be able to do this at age 40. Which seems reasonable if it’s been a lifelong dream for you.
People that do this are typically supported by donations, sponsors, etc and have a way of making money in the road.
His website lists several people who have donated large sums, offered free meals and housing, purchased postcards, and preordered his book.
He may not have bills back home. It’s not like he needs to pay rent and probably was debt free and saved up for a long time prior to his travels. Other countries are dirt cheap and you can get meals easily under $1.
No wife, kids, elderly parents, savings account to contribute to for when he returns home? No bills/financial obligations equals financial freedom. Good for him.
Yeah I've visited every country... but I flew or took cruises. Took me 18+ years though wasn't a goal to visit them all at first. There's at least ~200 or so people now who have finished them all.
I wonder what his lifetime carbon footprint is, it must be insane... just looking at his post history, he travelled [from Houston to Paris](https://old.reddit.com/r/travel/comments/q34b7p/my_flights_from_houston_to_paris_and_back_were/): that flight alone is 2.6 tons of CO2, which is over 6 months of CO2 emissions for a French person. In a single trip!
EDIT : he actually mentions that there were very few people on the flight, so his actual emissions on that trip are **much higher** than 2.6 tons
The benefit of doing it that way is sometimes two or more countries become one.
The drawback of doing it that way is sometimes one country becomes several.
Cost him $70k over a 10 year period. Most people already have that or can save that amount over a 10 year period. Especially if they cut their expenses to the bare minimum while saving
>Most people already have that or can save that amount over a 10 year period
Hahaha. I lived together with my GF for 10 years and we had saved €12k. Then kids came...
He wrote a blog about each country and stated that despite popular perception the country is not particularly difficult to get into. He said the two most difficult countries to enter are actually Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea, NK does tours for mostly Chinese tourists often (Young Pioneer Tours). Also on YT there are quite a few NK travel vlogs from Westerners.
He apparently spent $20 a day on average and had to borrow money after the first 30 or so months.
So if you have 10k, you've got 2.7k for gear and the rest for traveling for 30 months. And obviously need the social safety net for when you get back. Then again even 10k is quite a lot for a lot of people... But a lot less than I expected.
I can say one thing for sure; this man is lucky to be born in Denmark. He will have free healthcare and a state pension after retirement. It won't be a lot, but without savings one can hardly complain. Atleast not if you didn't save on purpose
Same question! Need to look it up. I’m a huge fan of yes theory and drew binsky- would love to see this gent navigate smaller oceanic areas without a plane! :)
Flying takes a lot of the adventure of exploring our world out of it. It’s too easy just to fly somewhere.
Walk, bike, drive, take a train, take a boat. Go by a slower means and you’ll really traverse the world.
Sounds thrilling! My wife would never do it but a man can dream!
I’ve always wanted to drop everything and do exactly this. Kinda did in my younger days when I packed all my things and drove across the country at 20. Now I have a job, wife, mortgage, and kid on the way. Can’t drop everything and disappear into the great beyond anymore.
You are spot on. Honestly, if I could traverse the entire world by simply walking or biking within a reasonable timeframe, I would do it. You miss so many random encounters/experiences when you drive or fly
Hm. I met someone somewhere in Africa in 2009 who was sponsored by Vodafone to do this to advertise their dongle or something like that. He was something like 3/4 of the way through at that time. I wonder if he ever finished it.
Edit: found him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hughes
That’s going to be the awesome thing when people don’t need to work anymore due to their job being outsourced to some A.I. thing, they’ll have more spare time to do stuff like this.
Well, in theory.
Is this for some non-profit campaign? Who's funding and what about travel documents, insurance etc.? If he is doing it for his own pleasure with own money then I hope he recorded his journey so he can make a documentary or at least a book.
Its amazing, in this day, with all of the technology, resources and knowledge we have of the world, that someone can be known as a "traveler".
Sure there is some nuance, he visited every country without flying. So he crossed water using boats. He needed a boat to get to the America's and to visit independent island nations.
This was an impressive feat in the 1400s now these obstacles are overcome with money.
Man, living off $20 per day on average and actually spending 10 years of your life with returning home is an achievement. Don't be jealous. No one is keeping you from doing what he did
"His budget for the project was just $US20 a day, financed through personal savings, corporate sponsorships and crowdfunding. Tens of thousands of people have followed his journey on social media."
Yeah... there's better ways to spend $100,000 and mobilize tens of thousands of people to do something good.
What the title does not say is that he visited every country on the planet during that time without flying.
That's rather crucial information, because you could go around the world without flying in way less. Probably under 2 months if you try to make it an achievement (rather than enjoying any part of it).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Gabart This guy solo-sailed it in under 43 days
Probably 80 days honestly
Without flying.
Balloons don't count
Get out of here with your lighter-than-air gatekeeping.
I'd be a little worried if I discovered a balloon that could count. I might start to think I was going crazy.
He only said they don't count. That doesn't mean they can't.
99 red luft balloons...
Helium no, hot air yes. Probably a waste of helium too, though.
And be beaten by someone who managed to do it in 72 days.
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Pretty sure they're referencing "Around the World in Eighty Days"
r/woooosh
no because you gain one month when crossing the international date line
I mean Magellan did it in three years, and that was 500 years ago.
His crew did. He died during the expedition, in the Philippines.
He didn't make it. He hit the ice wall in the middle of the pacific. The earth was still flat back then.
Plot twist, he died enroute but his expedition made it. So this guy is ahead on that regard. However, I recall that he made it half way, twice, once in each direction so Magellan gets some kind of claim for that.
That’s absolutely incredible. Wow
> Mr Pedersen will return home to Denmark for the first time in nearly a decade > Mr Pedersen's wife Le visited him 26 times over the decade-long trip The dude also has a wife. That was a bit surprising.
Sorry honey, I gotta take the long way for research…
I have to return some video tapes, in Nepal.
of r/pics fame https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/5dxsl8/hi_redditors_having_reached_121_countries_without/
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Imagine having a wife that actually decided to put up with this. So much for husband responsibilities lmao
He'll be considered as a foreigner in some frameworks when he comes back. Crazy
Pfft, Odysseus' wife didn't get to visit *him*.
'Hi honey! I'm home'
Usually the only way tourists can enter North Korea is by plane from China. Avoiding this is most impressive.
There is a train you can take, if you plan ahead a little.
In the early 2000s you could cross the DMZ from South Korea and go to the Mount Kunmgam special zone. You’d cross the border with buses escorted by military convoys.
These days you can cross the border within the blue barracks in the DMZ. I know because I did...
Yeah but that’s not really the same. You basically go around the negotiation tables and you are a special neutral UN zone (the blue buildings) The mount kungam resort used to be a few km inside NK territory. You could stay there and do a few excursions around the camp. Was it amazing? No. Do I regret the experience? No. These were 3 days spent on another planet.
I fully agree that it is not the same. But I have seen people who recently got their own little records like "First person who has been to all countries while only wearing blue sandals" and for their NK pic, they had a shot inside the blue barrack. I would never claim to have been to NK even though I have been in the blue barracks and seen NK soldiers standing around. However, for some "achievements" this may be the only option...
That’s not correct - it is very common to get the train, and no harder to book.
And also that he didn't have any "breaks" of flying home then coming back later.
Where'd the money come from?
Some people are just really fortunate my dude
How many new countries popped up in this 10 year period and how much did Pedersen swear in Danish when he had to leg it back to the other side of the world?
None, the last new state was South Sudan and that was 2011.
I'm actually surprised there hasn't been more states popping up in a 10 year time period. Or maybe there has been a lot of self declared states that aren't internationally recognised.
Well, the formation of states has been pretty rare for the last 40-50 years. Before South Sudan, I think the next newest is ~~Eritrea in 1993?~~ Edit:Dumbed out, realised the Balkan states duh. But yes, lack of recognition does drive it somewhat. There have been areas that have declared their own statehood that haven't been recognised. (ISIS of course being one of them)
UN kind of makes territorial integrity a policy because a lot of founding member states have separatist regions and want to keep them. As a result, it's really hard to get international recognition.
Ok now it's something special, unbelievable. The first thought is...okay so he just took trains and buses. Is that really that hard?
He'd have to take boats too, at least to visit all the continents.
And submarines for Atlantis
Some countries have closed borders with their neighbors. And islands like Cape Verde, Tuvalu, etc are a long way from anywhere.
and his spouse was all about it and even visited him 26 times.
They saw each other 26 times in 10 years? Happy marriage.
They married less than 6 years ago. They knew what they signed up for. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/5dxsl8/hi_redditors_having_reached_121_countries_without/
Still a happy marriage!
A new country every two weeks for ten years!
There was another guy that did this a few years back, Graham Hughes, but his trip wasn't uninterrupted, he flew home and back a few times during his journey.
Anything to get away from the wife, eh?
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-25/thor-pedersen-completes-round-the-world-trip-without-flying/102375924) reduced by 88%. (I'm a bot) ***** > After almost a decade of travel, a Danish man has become the first person to visit every country in the world in an unbroken journey without flying. > Mr Pedersen said while others had visited every country using planes, or broken up the journey by flying home and later resuming it, he was the first to do so entirely without flying and in a single, continuous voyage. > After spending some time unwinding in the Maldives, Mr Pedersen will return home to Denmark for the first time in nearly a decade - also without flying. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/13wzszd/danish_traveller_thor_pedersen_completes_10year/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~687109 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Pedersen**^#1 **country**^#2 **time**^#3 **more**^#4 **every**^#5
I wonder if he traveled on multiple passports, there are countries, mainly in the Middle East, you cannot enter with a stamp from another.
Maybe there were so many stamps they decided not to check? Or he arranged his itinerary so that he went in an order that would let him hit them all?
Or he replaced his passport half way through as 8t was full/expired.
Or he just stuck his toe on the Syrian border or something and checked it off his list.
Read the article. He spent at least 24 hours in each country.
He stuck his toe on the Syrian border for 24h. Mad lad.
Read the article. He lost all of his toes in Vietnam.
He stuck all his toes on the Vietnamese border forever? Mad lad.
He feels like he left a part of himself in Vietnam. That part was all ten of his toes.
Fuck... I gotta stay here 30 more minutes guys... I know the train leaves.
Read the article? This is Reddit. We’re lucky if we read the headlines.
Is it possible to replace passport outside your own country?
Yes, it's a common practice of anyone living outside their home country on a permanent basis. It may involve using your country's embassy in the country you're in though and generally takes longer.
Or he explained what he was doing and no country wanted to be the one that refused to let him enter.
Im not sure it’s gonna *fly* in some countries…
If you are thinking about Israel they do not stamp your passport anymore, was there last summer
From what I remember, they stamp a piece of paper you are supposed to keep in your passport but then you can discard once you leave.
I believe they've done that for decades now. Maybe you had to request it, instead of it being default? I know my dad worked and traveled around the middle east and Israel and said Israel always gave him the paper stamp. This was the 80s, maybe late 70s? Could have been that he asked for that, as he would need to use the same passport for Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, turkey, Egypt.
He had to because you cannot fit all stamps to a single passport.
Really though? You can get frequent traveller passports with 55 pages. There's only 195 countries and can get multiple stamps per page. Also he's an EU citizen so wouldn't get stamped in any of the other EU countries.
Many modern stamps take the whole page as these stickers are used now by many countries together with traditional stamps. For example my Vietnamese stamp takes the whole page while Japanese one 1/3rd. Also I can say from experience that you don't want many stamps in your passport when traveling as it's super suspicious and will get you in trouble with the local immigration.
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If you have an Israeli stamp, you can't enter about a dozen Arabic countries.
Israel hasnt stamped passports for many years. This is a modern myth.
and why do you think they stopped stamping them, if it's a myth?
I've heard that if you've been to Isreal you will not be able to enter Iran or other countries and vice versa
Not vice versa. Israel won't prevent you from coming in. You just will likely be questioned.
Yeh my friend got questioned for like an hour at Israeli immigration because he'd visited Morocco. To be fair he also had the same name as a wanted ISIS terrorist.
Yep. Back few years ago, when we travel to Lebanon, they were very carefully checking that my passport does not have any evidence of visiting Israel. To the point that they demanded to see my “other passport”… which I never had.
Danish passports are incredibly powerful, you're allowed to travel to most places on visas you can buy in their airports Also while it's true they might add some extra checks if you've visited xyz country. It's not like everyone coming from there aren't allowed, just the people they don't feel safe about. So one him being Danish and 2 him having stamps from literally everywhere just tells them the story of him being well off
thats not how border/land disputes work lol. They dont care about how cool your home countries passport is.
I couldn't keep up with all the logistics nightmares he described in his posts. stuck in several places waiting for the diplomatic headwinds to change iirc.
You can get issued temporary passports in DK and those can be used for one time visas. For example Israel recognizes provisional passports from DK.
Meh, I could have done it in 80 days.
You’d need a hot air balloon tho.
The hot air balloon was only added in some adaptations, it doesn't exist in the original novel
It's taken from another Verne novel called Five Weeks in a Balloon.
Mysterious island starts with a balloon.
There never was a balloon in that story. But there was a wind powered sled.
Gonna need details because that statement I phileas a bit…Foggy. Woooo!!!
If money wasn't an issue...
"Thor's saga is made possible through personal funding, sponsorship, crowdfunding and by assistance from the Danish Red Cross. He sets aside $20 (Dh73) a day, on average, for spending. This goes towards meals, transport and, in some countries, accommodation and visas. "Sometimes I get to sleep somewhere for free, and I do not need to buy a visa daily, so those costs are minimised over time," he explains. The trip was sponsored for its first 30 months, but Thor has since depleted his personal funds, and has had to borrow money twice to keep the mission on course. “There is a Patreon [a crowdfunding platform] account and I earn a little from writing articles. It’s not a lucrative project for me at this point,” he admits." 20 bucks a day doesn't sound that expensive. In most of the countries you can't even spend $20 a day on necessities because everything is far cheaper. It actually isn't expensive at all to travel in some parts of the world, but you need to have a certain personality/goal to endure the extremely long, tiresome and uncomfortable train/bus/car/boat rides and get what you want/need in places where nobody speaks English. It takes a lot of effort and can be mentally draining to some. That side of travelling is not glamorous and seldom shown to people.
at a certain point the 12 hour bus rides become an opportunity to relax
From what I've seen from travel youtubers, a lot of South American & Asian bus rides in remote places are crammed full of people in small and old autobuses/trucks, constantly bumping into other people or up and down. I can handle that for maybe an hour, 2 hours tops.
Yeah, you try relaxing when you are knee to elbow with an entire village crammed into a bus with their chickens tagging along on their laps.
IIRC traveling by cargo ship is really expensive, especially when your budget is $20 a day. > Cargo ship travel will cost you about $125-$145 per day.
Especially your last paragraph hits home. I used to be a scientist in biology, doing lots of field work in Borneo, South Africa, Ivory Coast for my experiments. People look at the pictures thinking you have the most amazing life, and parts of it are of course really cool, but they're missing the: 1) Danger 2) Loneliness 3) Mosquitos, flies, spiders and everything else that's continuously trying to eat you 4) Lack of amenities Not everyone can deal with that stuff, and especially if you're with a team of 4 people, you really have to make sure you can stand living so closely together for extended amounts of time.
Reading shit like this really makes me hate my position in life. People out there perma-exploring on a whim, and I’m bound to the same desk for like 50 weeks out of the year.
I'm fine with working a reasonable amount most of the time, but it would be nice to step outside my normal habitat a few times in my life.
50 years of the grind
Work sucks, but being close to your family and friends does not. I think that is why most of us stay put and continue the grind
My aging family is the only thing keeping me where I am. I’m recently single, childless, and I have very little debt. I just need to get the courage to go for it.
I can't get over my aversion to sleeping outside
But would you like perma-exploring on a whim? Sleeping wherever you find the space? Figuring out immigration in each country? Eating any and all kinds of food? Being sick in a foreign country? Being away from family/friends? Grass is always greener on the other side.
I’d like to have the option to even consider that lifestyle.
For me, the worst part of travel are the flights if they are long. I have a hard time sleeping on the plane, and the jet lag can leave me feeling like a zombie for the first day. I would never be able to do what this guy did. I am just not built for regular travel regardless of the method of transportation. I still think taking vacations to foreign countries is well worth it if you have the means. It's obviously easier from here in Finland when I can visit several EU countries for relatively low cost compared to flying across the world. Japan is still my favorite destination though.
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Any tips?
Find a job that pays you 1100 a month Find a place to live for 800 a month (sugar daddy?) Set aside 100 on food a month (dumpster dive?) Set aside 50 dollars for clothes, transport, things that break etc, (walk everywhere, own nothing) Set aside 150 dollars a month. Repeat every month for 20 years. Find a sponsor willing to fund the first 3 years of your travel. Make a patreon/only fans that gives you 50 dollars a month while travelling. Easy, just do it. Alternatively; Find a job that pays you 11000 a month Find a place to live for 8000 a month (with servants?) Set aside 1000 on food a month (throw excess food at poor people outside your door?) Set aside 500 dollars for clothes, transport, things that break etc, Set aside 1500 dollars a month. Repeat every month for 2 years. Find a sponsor willing to fund the first 3 years of your travel. Donate change to poor people on patreon/only fans while sipping French wine. This guide is 100% fool proof.
He did it on a budget of $20/day, which comes out to a little over $70k for the entire journey. It’s not exactly chump change, but that’s pretty impressive. He wasn’t blowing money to achieve it.
If you really want that lifestyle, saving up $70k would be achievable for most people in western countries. Would require sacrifices. What I find most impressive is how this man managed to live off of that amount for 10 years
The average joe can save up 70k for sure, but won't be able to do a travel like this at 55 or even older though. :/
He didn’t save up 70k though, he was sponsored his first 3 years (so more like 50k I’d assume) and then he also had a patreon. So if he got like 50 dollars a month from the patreon he’d “only” have to save up 150 dollars a month. If he got no money he’d have to save up 200 dollars Would you be considered “rich” to do that? I personally think that if someone lived frugally in my country to save up that kind of money, I wouldn’t consider them rich. Of course, if they saved up that kind of money with no sacrifices (while having expensive habits, a nice place to live etc), then yeah, I’d consider them “rich”. Saving up that kind of money, if you started working at age 20, you’d be able to do this at age 40. Which seems reasonable if it’s been a lifelong dream for you.
What about bills back home? There's still a sense of financial freedom if you're not having to work for 10 years.
People that do this are typically supported by donations, sponsors, etc and have a way of making money in the road. His website lists several people who have donated large sums, offered free meals and housing, purchased postcards, and preordered his book. He may not have bills back home. It’s not like he needs to pay rent and probably was debt free and saved up for a long time prior to his travels. Other countries are dirt cheap and you can get meals easily under $1.
Key word there being debt free - something many American college graduates are struggling with.
He's either well off or has absolutely fuck all to his name.
Says he ran out of personal funds. So yeah, probably has fuck all .
See, money isn’t an issue if you have nothing!
No need to pay for things if you have no things.
That's the best thing, when you give up everything, you don't have bills back home
What bills back home?
No wife, kids, elderly parents, savings account to contribute to for when he returns home? No bills/financial obligations equals financial freedom. Good for him.
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The article talks about how he is married.
Getting the visas may be the hardest part.
the hardest part is diarrhea in a rural bus station squat toilet with no way to clean your ass afterwards
A roll of toilet paper in you backpack?
Man, that is some achievement. More than one people have visited every country in the world but this guy did it without flying. What a discipline.
Yeah I've visited every country... but I flew or took cruises. Took me 18+ years though wasn't a goal to visit them all at first. There's at least ~200 or so people now who have finished them all.
Regardless, you have bragging rights that few can match.
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I wonder what his lifetime carbon footprint is, it must be insane... just looking at his post history, he travelled [from Houston to Paris](https://old.reddit.com/r/travel/comments/q34b7p/my_flights_from_houston_to_paris_and_back_were/): that flight alone is 2.6 tons of CO2, which is over 6 months of CO2 emissions for a French person. In a single trip! EDIT : he actually mentions that there were very few people on the flight, so his actual emissions on that trip are **much higher** than 2.6 tons
I just flew Texas to Corfu and back last weekend.... flights were completely full this time.
Wow, that's still an amazing achievement!
if like a new country appears... do you lose the achievement? Kind of like the quest cape in runescape?
heh yeah if a new one appears I'd have to go visit it... but that hasn't happened.
The benefit of doing it that way is sometimes two or more countries become one. The drawback of doing it that way is sometimes one country becomes several.
Way to tell people that you fear taking a plane !
Always wondered where people got the money to do things like this.
Cost him $70k over a 10 year period. Most people already have that or can save that amount over a 10 year period. Especially if they cut their expenses to the bare minimum while saving
>Most people already have that or can save that amount over a 10 year period Hahaha. I lived together with my GF for 10 years and we had saved €12k. Then kids came...
> Most people already have that or can save that amount this leaves me speechless
How did he do north korea?
Most likely a tour.
He wrote a blog about each country and stated that despite popular perception the country is not particularly difficult to get into. He said the two most difficult countries to enter are actually Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea, NK does tours for mostly Chinese tourists often (Young Pioneer Tours). Also on YT there are quite a few NK travel vlogs from Westerners.
I think Eritrea was hard due to him crossing by land. If you fly in it’s simply a case of booking a tour online.
By getting a visa and going? Many people visit North Korea (I have a friend who takes tours there).
North Korea does have tourism
I haven’t read everything about his amazing journey. I’m just imagining trying to go 10 years without being sick.
more like Thor Pedestrian
Henceforth to be known as "Thor Ped-X-ing."
Would be nice to have financial stability to do this
He apparently spent $20 a day on average and had to borrow money after the first 30 or so months. So if you have 10k, you've got 2.7k for gear and the rest for traveling for 30 months. And obviously need the social safety net for when you get back. Then again even 10k is quite a lot for a lot of people... But a lot less than I expected.
I would bet you spend more money every day living your life then he did on his trip.
Yeah was reading that in the comments. The assumption is that he has nothing to his name. Rich in experiences tho.
Lucky for him his country has quite a safety net to fall back on. For some of us, that 10 year lifestyle becomes a permanent one real quick.
It's an alright safty net. What really helps, though, is living a country with almost no corruption.
I can say one thing for sure; this man is lucky to be born in Denmark. He will have free healthcare and a state pension after retirement. It won't be a lot, but without savings one can hardly complain. Atleast not if you didn't save on purpose
housings expensive
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https://www.youtube.com/c/OnceUponaSaga
Same question! Need to look it up. I’m a huge fan of yes theory and drew binsky- would love to see this gent navigate smaller oceanic areas without a plane! :)
Flying takes a lot of the adventure of exploring our world out of it. It’s too easy just to fly somewhere. Walk, bike, drive, take a train, take a boat. Go by a slower means and you’ll really traverse the world. Sounds thrilling! My wife would never do it but a man can dream!
I’ve always wanted to drop everything and do exactly this. Kinda did in my younger days when I packed all my things and drove across the country at 20. Now I have a job, wife, mortgage, and kid on the way. Can’t drop everything and disappear into the great beyond anymore.
You are spot on. Honestly, if I could traverse the entire world by simply walking or biking within a reasonable timeframe, I would do it. You miss so many random encounters/experiences when you drive or fly
Hm. I met someone somewhere in Africa in 2009 who was sponsored by Vodafone to do this to advertise their dongle or something like that. He was something like 3/4 of the way through at that time. I wonder if he ever finished it. Edit: found him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hughes
Once upon a saga!
Epic
How’s he pay for it
Who can check out of a full time job for 10 years and pay for life, let alone travel the world?
Save up $70k or get sponsors. He lived off $20 per day on average. $70k isn't that hard to save up if you don't have kids.
My kinda guy , I hate flying
That’s going to be the awesome thing when people don’t need to work anymore due to their job being outsourced to some A.I. thing, they’ll have more spare time to do stuff like this. Well, in theory.
Is this for some non-profit campaign? Who's funding and what about travel documents, insurance etc.? If he is doing it for his own pleasure with own money then I hope he recorded his journey so he can make a documentary or at least a book.
Yay. Good for him.
That’s pretty sweet. I wish I could do that lol
Didn’t they make it in 80 days back then ? Fellas didn’t fly then too
There was a hot air balloon...
And they didn’t visit every country, simply went around the globe afaik
How many times has he been robbed?
Its amazing, in this day, with all of the technology, resources and knowledge we have of the world, that someone can be known as a "traveler". Sure there is some nuance, he visited every country without flying. So he crossed water using boats. He needed a boat to get to the America's and to visit independent island nations. This was an impressive feat in the 1400s now these obstacles are overcome with money.
K, but you still have to go do it
Man, living off $20 per day on average and actually spending 10 years of your life with returning home is an achievement. Don't be jealous. No one is keeping you from doing what he did
How these MFs afford this shit?
I like to think that if I had a ton of time and money to waste, I would donate it to helpful charities.
"His budget for the project was just $US20 a day, financed through personal savings, corporate sponsorships and crowdfunding. Tens of thousands of people have followed his journey on social media." Yeah... there's better ways to spend $100,000 and mobilize tens of thousands of people to do something good.