The Impossible Journey by Thor Pedersen: After 3,576 days of travelling, I know the world's a safe place
The Impossible Journey Thor Pedersen Robinson £25, 308pp
As a child growing up in Denmark, Thor Pedersen dreamed of being a great explorer, his mind filled with images of tangled forests, abandoned temples and lost empires.
After a spell working as a United Nations peacekeeper, he started a career in shipping and logistics. In 2013, his father sent him an article about an Englishman who had gone to every country in the world, travelling by land and sea, although he had paused his trip several times to fly home. Bored with his job, and eager for adventure, Pedersen, right, decided he would do similar, but with no interruptions and definitely no sneaky flights home.
Armed with a modest amount of sponsorship, and having been appointed a goodwill ambassador by the Danish Red Cross, he set off in 2013 with a list of the 201 countries he needed to visit.
His plan was to pass through a country every seven days, and he calculated the journey would take no more than four years to complete. Looking back, he writes, 'I was delusional from the very first seconds of the project.'
He criss-crossed Europe before travelling on a container ship from Iceland to Canada, and then journeying through North, Central and South America. In each new country, he noticed, he would be told he was lucky to have survived the place he had just come from, and how dangerous his next destination was.
His real problems started in Africa. He contracted malaria in Liberia and found it almost impossible to get an entry visa to Equatorial Guinea, 'a tiny, paranoid petrol state'. When he finally got there, he was bitten by chimpanzees. A part of the journey that should have taken six weeks had lasted nine months.
On the top of a windswept Mount Kenya, he proposed to his long-suffering doctor girlfriend, Le, who was visiting from Denmark. By now, his enthusiasm for his journey had waned, but he ploughed on through Asia, before gearing up to tackle the far-flung Pacific islands. Arriving in Hong Kong in January 2020, he was puzzled to be handed a face mask.
Pedersen spent the pandemic years in Hong Kong; with only nine countries still to go, he refused to give up on his quest. Finally, in May 2023, he made it to Sri Lanka and then the Maldives, the final countries on the list. After 3,576 days and having covered 380,000km, he could go home – by boat, of course.
The Impossible Journey is never less than entertaining, but gets bogged down in endless struggles with unyielding bureaucrats for the visas he needs. When he does write about watching hundreds of dolphins frolicking off the coast of the Solomon Islands, or wild days drinking vodka with the locals in Turkmenistan, the book really comes alive.
Now married to Le, and with a baby daughter, he is proud to be the first person to visit every country in the world without taking a flight, but admits: 'The project damaged me, and I cannot be sure I'll ever be right in my head again.' What he remembers most about his travels are the people he met, and the kindness they showed him. His conclusion is that 'the world is far safer than people realise'.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
01-06-2025
- The Guardian
How to make clam chowder – recipe
I ate a lot of clam chowder in Massachusetts last summer. Thick and comfortingly creamy, it might feel a tad wintry were it not for the sweet, briny clams, which sing of sea breezes and sunshine. Though the name derives from the French chaudière, or cauldron, chowder is New England through and through, and best eaten in the fresh air, whether that's in Cape Cod or Capel-le-Ferne. Prep 40 min Soak 20 minCook 30 min Serves 4 2kg live clams, or defrosted in-shell frozen clamsSalt and black pepper200g thick unsmoked bacon, or pancetta1 onion 2 medium waxy potatoes 1 bay leaf 2 tbsp plain flour 150ml double or whipping cream A knob of butter Though they're abundant along our coastline, clams aren't terribly popular in this country. Fishmongers and some supermarkets (eg Morrisons) often have live clams; they can also be found online, and in the freezer section of bigger supermarkets and in Asian food stores. Unfortunately, US-style tinned clams in juice aren't that widely available in the UK, and seeing as it's those cooking juices that make this dish, Italian jarred clams in brine don't really work here. To prepare the clams, discard any with broken shells and give the rest a good scrub. If using live clams, rather than frozen and defrosted ones, put them in a large bowl or sink, fill with very salty (like the sea) water and soak for at least 20 minutes to filter out any sand. Repeat if necessary, but I've never had to do this. Drain the clams, get rid of any grit they've ejected, then put them in a large bowl or sink of fresh water to expunge any excess salt while you prepare the remaining ingredients. If you're using defrosted frozen raw clams, give the shells a quick onceover for cleanliness and skip to step 4. Cut the bacon into smallish dice – unsmoked is traditional here, and smoked will give the dish an entirely different flavour profile. Either way, try to use thick-cut bacon, because those wafer-thin rashers increasingly favoured by supermarkets tend to disappear in soup. Peel and finely chop the onion, and wash and chop the potatoes into roughly 1cm dice (no need to peel them first, unless they're particularly filthy). Drain the clams, then put them in a large pan with 600ml water. Cover, bring to a boil, cook until they're all open, then tip into a colander set over a bowl to catch the liquid. When the clams are cool enough to handle, take the meat out of the shells (discard any that remain resolutely shut tight). You probably won't need to chop the picked clams, because those sold in this country tend to be far smaller than American ones, but roughly chop the clams if any are on the large side. Strain the clam cooking liquor through a couple of layers of paper towel (or cheesecloth), then measure it and add enough water to bring it up to 1.2 litres. Put a medium saucepan on a medium heat, then gently fry the bacon in its own fat until it begins to render. Add the onion, fry until soft, then turn up the heat slightly. Once both the onion and bacon are beginning to colour, add the bay leaf and flour, and cook, stirring, for a couple of minutes. Pour in the clam liquid bit by bit, stirring to dissolve the flour, then add the chopped potatoes and simmer for about 10 minutes, until tender. Stir in the cream, clams and butter. Season to taste with salt, if necessary, and plenty of black pepper, then serve immediately, ideally with a large hunk of bread (or if you're on the US west coast, in a sourdough bowl). If you're making the soup base ahead of time, don't add the clams (or the cream and butter, for that matter) until you reheat the base, because overcooking will make the clams rubbery (keep the meat in the fridge until needed). Similarly, if you know you've made too much base, freeze the excess before adding the clams and dairy to the pot (you can freeze the clam meat separately). Felicity Cloake's new book, Peach Street to Lobster Lane: Coast to Coast in Search of Real American Cuisine, is published next week by HarperCollins at £16.99. To order a copy for £15.29 go to
Time Out
29-05-2025
- Time Out
The major Indian city named the best in Asia for green space and access to nature
Talk about a city of contrasts. Mumbai is the richest city in India but also home to the country's biggest slum. And while it's packed with soaring skyscrapers, malls, and residential blocks, you'll find that the city is more beautiful and green than you'd expect. Take it from the locals: 79 percent of them rated Mumbai's green spaces and access to nature as 'good' or 'amazing' as part of a Time Out survey of 18,500 city-dwellers worldwide. That put the Indian city 16th on a ranked list of 20 cities in the world for the best and most accessible green spaces. Objectively speaking, Mumbai is far from the greenest city in India – urban centres like Chandigarh and Mysore easily surpass it if we're strictly talking about green cover. Nevertheless, it holds it own – it was named a 'Tree City of the World' by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and Arbor Day Foundation in 2021 for its efforts in preserving urban forests. The city is also dotted with over 200 lovely parks and gardens and has undertaken efforts to transform its wastelands into palm gardens. If you're keen to see where locals are taking a breather, check out spots like the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. It's three times the size of New York City's Central Park and home to more than 35 species of mammals, 274 species of birds, and 170 species of butterflies – a great spot for wildlife lovers. If immaculately manicured gardens are your thing, then you'll love the Hanging Gardens with its colourful flowers and animal-shaped hedges. Here's our pick of the 12 best parks in Mumbai. Mumbai is also blessed with gorgeous beaches, the most iconic being Juhu Beach, where you can snack on street food and enjoy a spectacular sunset. The city bustle getting too much? Escape to quieter stretches like Versova Beach or Aksa Beach. The only other Asian city to rank on the Time Out list is China's capital Beijing at No. 17. 78 percent of locals gave its green spaces and access to nature a positive rating – a good sign that the 'Beijing Garden City Plan' is going well. Announced in 2024, it outlines the city's plan to add more leisure parks, urban forest, pocket parks, and small nature spots where residents can relax and unwind. Here's how Mumbai and Beijing stacked up against other cities worldwide. Top 20 cities in the world for green space and access to nature: 1. Medellín, Colombia, 92 percent 2. Boston, US, 88 percent 3. Sydney, Australia, 87 percent = London, UK, 87 percent 5. Austin, US, 86 percent = Edinburgh, UK, 86 percent = Melbourne, Australia, 86 percent 8. Denver, US, 84 percent 9. Abu Dhabi, UAE, 83 percent = Cape Town, South Africa, 83 percent = Chicago, US, 83 percent 12. San Francisco, US, 82 percent = Stockholm, Sweden, 82 percent 14. Montreal, Canada, 81 percent = Munich, Germany, 81 percent 16. Mumbai, India, 79 percent 17. Beijing, China, 78 percent 18. Zurich, Switzerland, 77 percent = Ottawa, Canada, 77 percent 20. Brisbane, Australia, 76 percent
Daily Mail
18-05-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE I visited every country in the world without flying - these are the surprisingly friendliest places
Travelling to every country in the world is already one of the globe's hardest challenges. But for Thor Pedersen, it wasn't quite hard enough. The 45-year-old Danish adventurer became the first and only person to visit every country in the world without taking a single flight in 2023. His mammoth voyage to 203 countries took him a decade (3,576 days) to complete. He spent at least 24 hours in each country and says that the challenging journey across 380,000km 'took him to the brink of his sanity'. Thor has now written a book about his adventure, 'The Impossible Journey'. In an exclusive chat with MailOnline Travel, the traveller reveals where he faced 'grave danger', the most logistically challenging country to travel to and the destinations which hold a special place in his heart. The idea for Thor's incredible voyage was sparked by an email from his father in 2013. He says: 'My father sent me a link to an article about extreme travellers who'd been to every country in the world. And I started digging into it and I found out that no one had accomplished a journey of visiting every country without flying and that struck me like a lightening bolt.' Once the idea was formed, Thor set out planning his route and admits that he was 'quite naive' about the difficulties when he left home. Of all the places he visited, he reveals that Equatorial Guinea, on Africa's west coast, presented the biggest logistical challenges. 'I had no idea that Equatorial Guinea was going to be difficult. I overlooked it in my research. It almost broke me,' says Thor. 'Equatorial Guinea is just notorious for not giving visas. It just didn't need tourists, it's a wealthy oil state and it's a paranoid dictatorship. The borders were shut and I went from one embassy to the next and got denied over and over again. Often in the most cruel and unnecessary ways with people screaming at me and belittling me. It took me three months before I finally had the visa.' That logistical nightmare occurred soon after one of the worst moments from Thor's trip where he reveals he felt 'certain he was going to die'. The traveller was accosted at a checkpoint in Cameroon by three drunk men armed with guns close to the border with Congo. Thor tells MailOnline: 'That was the only moment where I was 100 per cent certain that I was going to die. I had absolutely no doubt that it was the end of the road for me and there was no way out of it.' While the traveller escaped the encounter, the moment left an impression and came at a time when he was at his 'lowest point' on the adventure. Thor says: 'I spent part of my journey thinking "maybe I shouldn't be doing this".' Another challenging moment came while Thor was 'onboard a container ship in the North Atlantic during winter'. He says: 'The weather acted up to a degree where you couldn't stand on your legs without holding on to something. You couldn't lie down on the bed without ending up on the floor. You could barely eat a meal because you would be out of hands. And there was ice in the water and the ship wasn't ice class. We were also pretty close to where Titanic went down and that storm lasted for four days.' But despite the difficulties, Thor reveals that during his decade of travels the good moments far outweighed the bad. And while he met fantastic people everywhere, there are two countries he picks out as the friendliest in the world, which many may be surprised by. Thor reveals: 'I could single out Uganda. In Uganda, I found an openness and a kindness where I almost expected to get a hug just walking down the street. 'And in Pakistan, they have a saying that's something along the lines of "The guest is God". They don't mean that you're a god or anything like that, they just mean that the guest should be respected and treated with the utmost courtesy. If you're a guest you do nothing at all. They do everything for you and in many cases, you can find it hard to pay as well because you're a guest.' Despite having 203 countries and territories under his belt, Thor says that there's nowhere he wouldn't want to go back to. However, there are two countries that he's in 'no great hurry to return to'. He explains: 'I ended up spending two months in Tuvalu (in the Pacific Ocean) because I couldn't leave. I really feel I've seen that country. But on the other side of that, I'd like to go back and meet some of the people I met the first time around. And the Vatican is not high on my list. I spent 24 hours in the Vatican and I really don't have a good reason to go back.' After reaching the Maldives, the last country of his decade-long journey, Thor is now back in Denmark and lives with his wife and daughter. He jokes that his family are now 'having to deal with having him around all the time'. While the traveller learned many lessons over the course of his trip, it's the kindness he received that's stayed with him the most. He reveals: 'I look at the world map and I realise that I haven't been to a single country in the world where I didn't receive some sort of kindness or support from local people. 'In a conventional lottery, you buy a ticket and your chances of losing are almost 100 per cent, you expect to lose. But when you're dealing with people, it's reversed. You're winning, of course it's possible to lose, but the odds are overwhelmingly in our favour. You'll find kindness in all the places you wouldn't expect to.'
