Extraordinary people: Graham Hughes was the first to travel around the world without a plane. Extraordinary people: Graham Hughes traveled with minimal expense and maximum risk

On March 1, 2014, the section "Travel" in the Guinness Book of Records was replenished with a new amazing fact. The achievement of the Englishman Graham Hughes, who traveled around the world for four years without ever using an airplane, took its rightful place among the incredible events on the pages of the book.

If you are very lucky, you will live 30 thousand days, that is, approximately 82 years. For the first 5800 days, you will still be too young to conquer the world. At the end of life, when there are about 8 thousand days left, there is no longer enough strength for anything. It turns out that there are only 16,200 days of real conscious life. And with every sunset there is a countdown of these priceless days. So argues Graham Hughes, whose expedition called "Odyssey" stretched for four years, or 1461 days, each of which was filled with adventures, victories and difficulties, losses and invaluable experience.

The idea to make an unprecedented journey on a global scale came to Graham's mind 10 years ago during a trip to Southeast Asia. By that time, in the piggy bank of the young red-bearded Liverpool, there were about 70 countries where he visited while hiking. A childhood dream to visit countries atypical for ordinary people, like Bangladesh, Myanmar or Brunei, has grown into an adult desire to show people that the world is more accessible and safer than it seems, that traveling alone, quickly and cheaply, crossing land borders and oceans is quite real .

Preparation for the journey lasted no more than six months. As soon as Graham's dream matured and received approval from the British media community, he compiled a route that included 200 states (although Hughes included separately all parts of his native United Kingdom), was vaccinated and agreed on the conditions for staying on a ship crossing the Atlantic.

It is impossible to pre-order visas for all countries of the world: many of them expire in a month. It is difficult to plan what time the ferry will depart from the coast of Cuba or the regular bus will leave for Kathmandu. Graham Hughes went to conquer the continents with a light heart, hope for good luck and thoughts about his beloved Mandy.

Let's try to run through the waves of the exciting "Odyssey" in order to catch a little the spirit of the traveler's wanderings of the 21st century. At the time of the start, Briton Graham is 30 years old, he is a director and TV presenter, who knows a little Spanish and French. With a sense of humor and self-irony, Hughes is all right. He is not shy about his expressions, loves to hang out, blogs and shoots short videos about his adventure. When traveling, he spends no more than $10 per night on lodging and sometimes works on fruit plantations to eat.

Today, behind Hughes, who on January 1, 2009 from hot Buenos Aires went to conquer the planet, there are more than 250 thousand kilometers. The brave traveler walked and traveled by public transport through a string of countries in South and North America, sailed on a ship across the Atlantic Ocean, reaching the coast of Iceland. In March 2009, Graham visited his native land in the UK, then traveled through Europe to Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.

The final mark was placed on the southeast coast of Africa in a state that officially appeared only during the travel of Graham Hughes - in the Republic of South Sudan. Thus, there are 201 countries in the overall Liverpool standings.

A British passport gives you the green light to enter most countries, but obtaining a visa to some countries in Africa and Asia is a nightmare with monstrous paperwork. The most difficult task was to get to the islands, for example, to the Maldives or the Seychelles, especially when pirates scurry around. Graham notes that the captains of all the ships on which he had to sail during his Odyssey were friendly to him, but Captain Andrei was really remembered - thanks to him, the Briton was able to get to the islands of Samoa, Eastern Samoa and the Kingdom of Tonga. At times, the captain went up to the bridge and turned on the brutal music of the German band Rammstein very loudly, embarrassing the Filipino sailors from his team, who prefer Elton John. Our traveler was amused.

Graham spent four days on an open fishing boat from Senegal to Cape Verde and was arrested on the way back. The story is both stupid and funny at the same time. In order to swim 600 kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean, Graham Hughes plunged into a fishing boat with a leak in the bottom and a single engine constantly stalling, in the company of ten other fishermen. The authorities of Cape Verde were so impressed by such stupidity that they initially mistook the fishermen for short-sighted smugglers.

Graham survived his second arrest and six days in a prison cell in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The third detention awaited the British on the border of Estonia and Russia. In Narva, the traveler decided to cheat and ford the river in order to take a few steps across the territory of our country without a visa, but was detained by Estonian border guards on the way back. Everything ended peacefully: “I pretended to be a fool and said that I had read the map incorrectly. I’m good at lying and don’t get nervous in situations like this.”

The Estonian border guards were so gracious that they even gave Graham a pie and orange juice while he waited for a lawyer. However, the few meters that Hughes walked across Russian territory and which were recorded by the GPS navigator were not confirmed by the Guinness Book of Records Commission, which recorded the achievements of the British. In 2013, the traveler had to look into our country again, only in a cold winter and absolutely legally.

THE MAIN THING IS A HAT!

In 2009, Graham Hughes managed to visit 133 countries. During this time, there were inspiring months that gave pleasant discoveries, such as Madagascar, which enchanted the traveler, and depressive ones, when the number of new countries was equal to zero, for example, November, which passed in fruitless attempts to return from Mauritius to Africa.

By the end of 2010, the total number of countries visited reached 184. Graham takes a break and takes a plane to Australia to celebrate Christmas with his girlfriend. He will spend the next New Year holidays on the island of the former cannibals of Fiji, however, in a very friendly family, with whom he will cook a barbecue of meat with palm leaves and coconut.

Sometimes Graham literally stepped into the territory of another state with only one foot. But what about the study of local traditions and communication with the indigenous people? Graham claims in his blog that he does not sit and complain that the hotel is closed and there is nowhere to go, he always moves around the countries with local guides, sleeps and eats with them, and this is how he immerses himself in the true life of the natives. However, four years is far from enough to make a conscious and long journey through each of the countries of the world.

Graham's mascot was a kangaroo-skin akubra hat. She not only became the “calling card” of the red-bearded champion, but also served as excellent protection from the sun and rain and a pillow on the road.

Graham's most pleasant impressions were Iran, Uzbekistan, Colombia and the country of lemurs, which touched the depths of the soul, with four letters "a" - Madagascar. And the biggest incentive in setting a record for Odysseus-Graham was his Penelope-Mandy, who supported her lover in every way, helping with visas, finding cheap accommodation and faith in the implementation of the plan. However, the relationship, which lasted more than 10 years, still could not withstand such a long journey.

But the finale of the Odyssey expedition should not be compared with a melodrama, but with a Hollywood film about treasure hunters. In December 2012, Graham again finds himself in Egypt. Having met with African friends, at midnight he climbs over the fence of the Giza necropolis, where the world-famous Sphinx and pyramids are located, and climbs the greatest of them, the pyramid of Cheops. “As we sat on top of the last wonder of the ancient world, early morning prayers echoed in desert harmony far from the hustle and bustle of the city. It was the perfect ending to an incredible journey. The fact that I was able to visit so many countries without flying is certainly an achievement, but it was the people I met along the way that made it truly valuable, ”says Graham. As a result of "natural selection" not only on the island, but also on social networks on the Internet, where voting for the best of the best was actively held, Graham received the main prize of $100,000. SOS-Island, or “The Island Where the Smartest Survive”, impressed Graham so much that at the end of March 2014 he went on another adventure. Now - to one of the Panama Islands, where he plans to spend a whole year.

(c) Yulia Govorova

To achieve inclusion of his world tour in the Guinness Book of Records, 33-year-old Briton Graham Hughes must re-visit Russia. He himself told about this on Sunday in London to the British TV channel Sky News. According to Hughes, the compilers of the collection of outstanding achievements refused to register his result, as he claimed to have traveled to Russia without a valid visa.

Last year it was reported that Hughes was claiming the world record without the aid of any air vehicle. As reported, to overcome almost 256 thousand kilometers, he used buses, taxis, trains, ferries, and also moved on foot. However, according to the blog entries of the traveler himself, representatives of the Book of Records contacted him this month and informed him that it was not yet possible to enter into the register an entry about his circumnavigation called "Expedition Odysseus".

The organization, according to Hughes, drew attention to media reports that he "sneaked into some countries" and indicated that they could not accept his application, as they did not support "illegal activities" in order to achieve a record. On his website, the traveler wrote that "he was detained while trying to slip into Russia." According to him, he "tried to ford the Narva River from Estonia to the Russian Federation." In his published correspondence with the Guinness Book of Records, Hughes also noted that "on the way back across the border, he was picked up by the Estonian police and interrogated."

As noted by the Briton, he never hid this fact and spoke about this incident with the press and on his website. As Hughes pointed out, in four years of wandering, this was the only time he crossed the border in a place where there were no official border posts. “In fact, they didn’t arrest me, didn’t charge me with any crime, and released me an hour later,” the native of Liverpool recalled his experience with the Estonian police. However, he admitted that if someone decides to repeat his feat, they should know from the very beginning that the borders must be officially crossed.

Hughes will visit Russia again on Monday to formally complete his test, Sky News reported. To do this, he will travel 25 hours by train from London's Victoria Station to Polish Gdansk, after which he will board a bus that is supposed to transport him across the border. Hughes intends to officially complete his circumnavigation in the Kaliningrad region, for which, as he wrote in his blog, he recently applied for a Russian visa. "I should have done this four years ago," Hughes said.

At the same time, the Briton could, without obtaining a visa, quite legally and without using air transport, visit, for example, St. Petersburg, ITAR-TASS reports. To do this, it was only necessary to become a passenger of one of the ferries plying in the Gulf of Finland between the northern capital of Russia and Tallinn in Estonia, as well as Helsinki in neighboring Finland. In many port cities of our country, there is a 72-hour visa-free regime for foreign tourists in organized groups if they arrive by cruise ship.

British citizen Graham Hughes claims to have set a world record by visiting every sovereign nation in the world without using air travel. A Voice of America correspondent joined the traveler as he entered South Sudan, the world's youngest state and last on his list.

During his Odyssey, as he calls it, his passport is swollen with visas. Waving it, Graham Hughes proclaimed himself the first person to visit 201 states in the world.

The 33-year-old Briton, originally from Liverpool, has been on the road for almost four years. At the same time, he moved only by land and by sea.

"Today is the 1426th day of the Odyssey expedition - my attempt to set a world record and become the first person to visit every country in the world without resorting to flying," he announces.

The money for the trip was given to him by relatives and friends. With a limited budget, he had to hitchhike, spend the night with strangers and eat only local food. With a cowboy hat on his head and three small, worn-out bags, Hughes says that when he first announced his plans, no one believed that he would be able to realize his plans.

“Most people thought I was a little crazy, a lot of people thought it was impossible,” he says. - As a rule, people asked: how are you going to get to Afghanistan or Iraq or Somalia. But, to tell the truth, it was with these countries that there were no special problems. ”

According to him, when he crossed the Turkish-Iraqi border, Iraqi border guards did not demand a visa from him and let him into the country for ten days.

The hardest places to reach were island nations like Sao Tome and Principe and Nauru, where cargo ships only go once a month. But in his desire to set foot on the soil of every state in the world, Hughes was adamant.

During the expedition, he had the opportunity to observe the last launch of the space shuttle in the United States and travel around Africa. But not everything went smoothly: in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he was arrested for six days on suspicion of espionage. Another arrest took place in Cape Verde.

However, for Hughes, the main thing was not the places, but the people he met along the way.

“The main outcome of my trip was the confirmation of my faith in humanity,” he says. “The people I met were very friendly and hospitable.”

Last year, he had to fly home after it turned out that his sister was terminally ill. He continued the journey after her death. Another sad moment was the breakup with his girlfriend, with whom he had been together for ten years. This happened already in the last months of his expedition.

Already in the first year of his journey, he set a world record by visiting 133 countries around the world. Since then, he has been able to boast of visiting all 193 UN member states, as well as places such as Palestine, Kosovo and Taiwan, which only a few countries recognize as sovereign states.

According to Hughes, he was inspired by the example of Briton Michael Palin from the famous comedian group Monty Python. In the 1980s, he became the host of the TV series Around the World in 80 Days.

Hughes says he always wanted Palin to actually do what his program's title said.

“I wanted him to go everywhere, and as I got older, the more I traveled on my own, the more I realized that this is quite an achievable goal. If a person is determined enough, then he can do it, and I proved it. I succeeded."

In the future, he would like to live in Liverpool. But until he is ready to hang up his hat and stop traveling, which, from his point of view, is the best thing in the world.

An interesting story caught my eye of the Englishman Graham Hughes, who, during a trip lasting almost four years, visited all the countries of the world. What makes this fact special is that he never used an airplane.

He is indeed the first person to realize such a path, using only land and sea transport. According to Graham, one of the things that planted the idea of ​​traveling in his mind was Around the World in 80 Days, which he watched as a child and was disappointed that the host missed so many countries.

At first glance, there is nothing complicated in Graham's undertaking - it would seem that you just pay for a ticket, take a train or a steamer and have time to check the boxes of the countries you have viewed. At first it was like that: Graham traveled 12 countries in South America in two weeks and the thought arose in his head: “It will be an easy trip.”

However, when he got to the Caribbean, problems began. It seems that the islands are all nearby, but in reality he spent a lot of time trying to move from island to island. Often there was simply no regular sea communication, which is why Gram had to travel on passing merchant and cargo ships. It took him two months.

The problem with transport communication constantly haunted him throughout his journey through the abandoned corners of the planet. I don’t know what Graham’s budget is (he himself describes it as extremely modest), but in any case, he did not have the funds to charter a yacht or boat. Therefore, sometimes he had to live among the natives on some small island in Oceania, waiting for some opportunity to get to the mainland, or at least another part of the archipelago.

The easiest way was in Europe - there are no borders and visas, just take a train or bus, go wherever you want. An interesting fact is that Gram was only formally in Russia. For some reason, he did not want to apply for a visa and resolved the issue simply - he forded (or swam across) the river between Narva and Ivangorod.

“Ticking the box”, he was caught on his way back by vigilant Estonian border guards, mistaking him for a smuggler who shuttles between Estonia and Russia with a load of cigarettes. I don't know if the honest eyes of the traveler or his Liverpool accent influenced the Estonians, but Graham was released in an hour on all four sides.

This fact, by the way, became an obstacle to registration in the Guinness Book of Records, so Graham went to Russia this year quite legally, even confirming his stay with a photograph in a hat with earflaps.

To get to Cape Verde, Graham had to hire Senegalese fishermen who took him on their boat. For several days they sailed in a direction unknown to him, scooping water from a current boat, without a walkie-talkie or other signal means.

When they finally sailed, Grem and his fishermen were arrested by the border guards on suspicion of smuggling people across the border. A few days later, they sorted it out, and Graham, having prayed, decided to sail back with the same fishermen on the current boat, but, as it turned out, they went on a spree with the money received in local taverns.

He was rescued by a German who was about to sail to the continent on his yacht. Having reached Africa, Graham continued on his way, but after a while he ended up in a prison in the Congo, where he was mistaken for a spy.

Truth prevailed and he was released. All of Africa was a big problem, but it was even worse in Asia and the Middle East, due to visa issues. Graham had only 60 countries to visit, but he was stuck in Kuwait and Dubai for a long time.

Graham notes that the people of the East are very good-natured. For example, according to Western propaganda, he expected to see Iran as a gloomy totalitarian place, when it turned out to be one of the most hospitable and warmest countries in the world.

The island countries of Southeast Asia and Oceania were also very difficult in terms of transport. Literally in every case, I had to negotiate with some people, look for a passing boat.

Graham was very tired and more than once thought about completing his journey ahead of time. Prisons, third-world customs corruption, and the death of a sister from cancer crippled his morale, but he decided not to give up and finish this epic journey.

In the end, Graham Hughes ended his journey with the final stamp on his passport. It took him almost four years to visit all the countries of the world. Officially, he is considered the first person to visit 201 countries without ever taking a flight.

How will you feel when you leave your personal comfort zone: being thousands of miles away from home, alone with nature or alone in a crowd of strangers? Fear, despair, or maybe happiness? Are you ready to take a risk, as the world-famous and, of course, desperate man Graham Hughes did? Unusual people live among us, but to notice them, you need to take a closer look.

Extraordinary people: Graham Hughes traveled with minimal expense and maximum risk.

When 133 countries were left behind the adventurer (as well as a lot of experienced adventures and dangers, meetings with unusual people), the brave man had already set a world record. Moving only by land and water transport, Graham often had to rely on his intuition and trust complete strangers. After all, he overcame a significant part of his journey by hitchhiking, the purposeful wanderer had to spend the night with strangers. In order to become a champion, Graham had to give up using any personal means of transportation. To get to the West African Republic of Cape Verde, he had to travel all the way in a boat, and to North Korea - to crawl in a plastuna.

Extraordinary People: Graham's Odyssey lasted 4 years.
Photo En.wikipedia.org/Graham Hughes

Extraordinary People: To become the record holder, Graham spent less than $100 a day.
Photo: Theodysseyexpedition.com/Graham Hughes

Extraordinary People: Today, the adventurer is known around the world as the host and director of Gram's World.
Photo: Theodysseyexpedition.com/Graham Hughes

His Odyssey ended in South Sudan. After proving to the world that the impossible is possible, the professional adventurer made his act in the name of faith in humanity, as he admitted to VOA News. According to Graham, most of all in the journey he appreciated meeting unusual people, and only then hitherto unseen places.

This is how 33-year-old Liverpool resident Graham Hughes discovered the world and fulfilled his dream of becoming a travel show host. And we justify ourselves by the lack of time, instead of exploring at least the most beautiful and unusual corners of our homeland?