A great place to mention Karl Bushby whom is on his way from Punta Arenas, southern Chile to his home in the UK since Nov 1998 by mostly hiking.
He crossed the Darien Gap, the Bering sea walking on ice / glaciers / swimming, as well as swimming the Caspian sea.
In Mongolia he trained to work with camels
Had a lot of issues of course with Russia due to crossing the Bering sea, and maybe the war, as well as covid lockdown in countries, limited days issued for visas etc.
And he just left Turkey and entered Europe! so the only major challenge is swimming the channel.
And there's a documentary apparently coming out soon.
I followed his journey live on https://www.onceuponasaga.dk/ and it was a weird mix of inspirational and very sad. He was clearly struggling with severe depression towards the end of it, but he could not bring himself to stop, so there he was, squatting in a filthy boat for weeks on end with cockroaches crawling over his toothbrush, while he waited for the country's sole oceangoing cargo ship to be repaired so he could get the hell out of there.
I'm struck by his quotes. They sound like basic advice. "People are generally good, few people want to hurt you" etc. Normally people say this without thinking but with him it's backed up by so much experience. It's hard to share experience. I remember seeing a man whose son was murdered in a shooting. He kept trying to describe his pain, using simple, profound language. I felt sorry for him because of course few people in the audience could relate to him. So his words kind of went in one ear and out the other, at least for me. It's hard to know how deeply truthful something is unless you've lived it. I imagine that this guy in the article may feel very lonely sometimes. Plus it's hard to be "post adventure" etc. Olympic athletes and astronauts etc always talk about how hard it is to be on the other side of the mountain. "What now?"
How many hours did he spend being interviewed for visas etc?
Some countries I cross off my 'worth visiting' list simply because they have a Byzantine and expensive visa process which is going to use at least a week of time and effort to navigate whilst I was only planning to visit the place for a week in the first place!
And some countries have a 'not allowed if you've ever been to this other country' rule, making it very hard to visit them all.
Thanks for that link, but Denmark's "189" seems to be out of 227 ("all 227 possible travel destinations for which travel restriction information exists in the IATA database"), while 195 is the number of "states recognised by the UN".
As an Indian, this was also my immediate thought but then I read the About section, I figured it was easy/ier for him. The not allowed if visited another place rule must have been easier to circumvent with some planning.
"Then came his eureka moment: “I discovered that no one had ever gone to every country in the world completely without flying [in one unbroken trip].” (A British man, Graham Hughes, has set foot in every country without flying, but took two breaks from the journey for personal reasons.)"
Readit News
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Bushby
Not sure if I feel honoured or guilty by being able to set his plans back a day or 2 by introducing him to the local nightlife...
https://www.amazon.com/Impossible-Journey-incredible-through... (not an affiliate link)
And there's a documentary apparently coming out soon.
I followed his journey live on https://www.onceuponasaga.dk/ and it was a weird mix of inspirational and very sad. He was clearly struggling with severe depression towards the end of it, but he could not bring himself to stop, so there he was, squatting in a filthy boat for weeks on end with cockroaches crawling over his toothbrush, while he waited for the country's sole oceangoing cargo ship to be repaired so he could get the hell out of there.
https://www.onceuponasaga.dk/blog/489-most-definitely-possib...
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/1472149777/
I visited every country in the world without flying. Here are eight things I learned
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/apr/21/i-visit...
Some countries I cross off my 'worth visiting' list simply because they have a Byzantine and expensive visa process which is going to use at least a week of time and effort to navigate whilst I was only planning to visit the place for a week in the first place!
And some countries have a 'not allowed if you've ever been to this other country' rule, making it very hard to visit them all.
Danes have visa-free entry to 189/195 countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henley_Passport_Index
So I guess that he had to do about 6 visa interviews.
In Holland this was a valid reason to request two passports, like if you frequently travel to both Israel and Egypt. They are mutually exclusive.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hughes