Simply travelling the world just isn’t good enough for some people. Perhaps if you’re on your gap year then it’s not advised to try and beat these records, but you can marvel at them nonetheless.
Oldest Backpacker
The oldest backpacker in the world is John Waite, 89. Since his wife’s death in 1982, John has been backpacking around the world, with only one change of clothes in his rucksack.
Youngest Traveller
Some people never manage to see more than two or three continents in a lifetime, but Vaidehi Thirrupathy begs to differ. At a mere 205 days old (that’s just over six months!) she is the youngest person ever to see all seven continents.
Travellers club
In America, the Traveler’s Century Club is for people who have visited more than 100 countries. Since the 1950s, it has gained over 2,000 members, of whom 9 have travelled every country in the world.
Travel costs
How much would you spend to visit every country on earth? Extremely wealthy businessman Kashi Samaddar spent £350,000 to achieve this feat. He claims that the most difficult aspect of his challenge wasn’t with big countries (such as the USA, England or European countries) but rather smaller countries “who don’t know what they should be doing.” He says trying to get a visa for Moldova was most difficult to obtain, which took nearly three years. Overall it took him six years, ten months and seven days to complete.
Around the world with no planes
However this wasn’t good enough for filmmaker Graham Hughes, who achieved the same feat but without the use of aeroplanes. Eventually Graham completed his challenge in four years, but recently came across some difficulties when the Guinness Book of Records rejected his record.
According to Guinness World Records, “any person attempting the trip must take public transport such as scheduled flights, buses, trains and ferries to arrive in countries. The record-breaking authority also defines visiting a country as ‘setting foot within its border.” Graham officially entered Russia by wading through a river, but the situation has now been rectified and he is awaiting the result of his appeal.
Longest drive
Emil and Liliana Schmid hold the record for the longest distance driven. In total, they’ve driven the equivalent of 50 times around the world, or 413,000 miles. They originally set off in 1984 and are still driving, so who knows what they’ve got left to discover.
Most popular country…really?
France is the most visited country in the world, with 76.8 million people wanting to sample la vie française each year.
Longest & shortest flight
The longest direct flight in the world is New York to Singapore – that’s a whopping 18 hours and 50 minutes! At the other end of the spectrum, the islands of Papa Westray and Westray are only 14km apart which takes two minutes on a flight. We’ll take the latter…
Another mode of transport
If you’d prefer another mode of transport however, why not copy Rob Thomson and skate your way there? His 8,000 mile trip from Leysin, Switzerland to Shanghai, China, only took one year and three months…
Think you could beat that?
