Danish traveler Torbjorn Pedersen claims he is the initially particular person to stop by each individual nation in the planet — with out traveling.
It really is a feat that took 10 a long time to attain — with common costs of about $20 a day, he stated.
“In some international locations like Singapore, I have to devote additional than $20 a working day. But in other international locations like Bolivia, $20 is extra than more than enough,” 44-yr-outdated Pedersen informed CNBC.
When he was not sleeping on trains and ships, in hostels or his hammock, he stayed with host households, he said.
Pedersen said via the year hundreds of people opened their residences to him just after he became well known on social media.
“In fact, I have usually had to say ‘no’ to persons simply because I experienced also lots of presents or due to the fact it was inconvenient,” Pedersen stated.
He has even been invited various moments to remain at 5 star hotels, he claimed.
Pedersen’s 10 years-prolonged adventure was funded by geothermal electric electrical power generation company Ross Electrical power, who despatched him about $600 every thirty day period, he explained.
“They just felt [my plan] was definitely nuts, and they needed to guidance it. What I did is section of planet history, and they wished to be a element of it,” Pedersen explained.
Pedersen took about a ten years to check out 203 territories about the earth.
Selena Wright
To visit 203 territories, Pedersen said he traveled about 382,000 kilometers (237,363 miles) and used 20 unique modes of transportation, together with:
- 351 buses
- 67 minibuses
- 219 taxis
- 46 motorbike taxis
- 87 shared taxis
- 4 shared motorbike taxis
- 28 4-wheel travel automobiles
- 9 vans
- 158 trains
- 19 trams
- 128 metros or subways
- 43 rickshaws or tuktuks
- 40 container ships
- 33 boats
- 32 ferries
- 3 sail boats
- 2 cruise ships
- 1 horse carriage
- 1 law enforcement automobile
- 1 large functionality yacht
Pedersen expended the most time in Hong Kong in which he lived for 772 times through the pandemic, and the shortest time — just 24 several hours — in Vatican Town.
The finest and worst moments
Pedersen experienced planned to continue to be in Hong Kong for about a 7 days when he arrived in January 2020. But his designs took a drastic switch when the pandemic broke out.
At the time, he was just nine nations around the world shy of achieving his aim, he explained.
“I have been making an attempt to carry out this intention for this kind of a very long time,” he stated. “I did not know if I was going to be caught for 5 months or 5 a long time.”
“Each and every day I experienced a rationale to give up and go dwelling. And each and every working day I experienced to discover a way to convince myself to keep preventing,” he claimed.
Pedersen invested the most time in Hong Kong, staying 772 times since of the Covid -19 pandemic.
Torbjorn Pedersen
Pedersen claimed getting trapped in Hong Kong was the “worst time” of his life, but now he explained he sights the city as his second household.
“I truly feel a lot more at dwelling in Hong Kong than I do in Copenhagen, ” he mentioned. “On a single aspect it was the ideal time of my lifetime, and on the other aspect it was an absolute nightmare.”
Near-demise working experience
Pedersen stated a single of the most harrowing activities transpired on a journey to the border amongst Cameroon and the Congo.
Right after driving on a dust road for hrs on close with “a wall of trees on equally sides,” he said his taxi was stopped by three adult men that had been “drunk out of their minds.”
“From the moment a single of the uniformed men saw me as I stepped out of the motor vehicle, you could just see fire in his eyes,” Pedersen said. “There was so significantly rage and emotion. It was as though the complete history of Western colonialism was my fault.”
Really don’t do it … it is basically too considerably and also hard.
Torbjorn Pedersen
on other individuals who want to comply with his path
Pedersen served as a soldier in Denmark and a United Nations peacekeeper in Eritrea and Ethiopia, but he said this was the initially time experienced been aggressively held at gunpoint during his journey.
“They had their fingers on the induce, so I realized in my heart that I was likely to die that night, and I knew for positive that was the conclusion of the highway for me,” he stated.
But following about 45 minutes, the soldiers abruptly permit them go, he mentioned.
“We raced again to the taxi and drove for a few kilometers ahead of I advised the driver to halt. I received out and sat on the roadside, crouched down and started off shaking for about 10 minutes.”
Pedersen also shared reminiscences he reported he would under no circumstances fail to remember, including browsing the Solomon Islands in which he shared his laptop computer with villagers who experienced no obtain to energy or working h2o.
“About 80 men and women sat close to my laptop computer and watched a war movie ‘The Thin Crimson Line’ whilst I leaned back and appeared at palm trees … and stars earning a roof throughout us.”
“I in no way seemed at my laptop computer in the identical way yet again,” he explained.
Largest lessons
For all those who want to abide by in his footsteps, Pedersen has this information: “Do not do it.”
“It has appear at a extremely, quite substantial value and has taken a enormous chunk of my lifetime. I invested a whole lot of methods acquiring to the conclude. And it can be just way too substantially and way too tricky,” he explained.
Pedersen in Ethiopia.
Torbjorn Pedersen
“Do a thing which is more smart. Do some thing that is fun and pleasant,” Pedersen reported candidly.
He also talked about how to get the most out of every vacation expertise.
“Listen and appear. Smell and taste. Use all your senses and check out to suck everything up like a sponge,” he explained. But “depart practically nothing driving apart from for your footprints.”
