A former shipping and logistics worker from Denmark has been travelling the world for the past three years, vowing he will not return home until he visits all 203 countries around the globe.
To make his adventure even more challenging, Torbjørn C Pedersen has decided he will not travel by plane and that he must try to survive on a budget of 20 dollars (about 140 kroner) a day.
His goal is to spend at least 24 hours in each country, and he is already halfway through – currently staying in Kenya, the 121st destination on the list.
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Not smooth sailing
Pedersen claims that nothing like this has ever been done before, and that is part of the reason he got inspired to try.
However, the Dane is also travelling as goodwill ambassador for the Danish Red Cross and promoting the organisation’s work around the globe.
His journey has not always been smooth sailing as he reveals on his blog Once Upon a Saga.
He got seriously ill with malaria, could not find his way off Greenland, was harassed in central Africa, and thought it was all over when a container ship he was travelling on got caught in a storm.
He has also had numerous difficulties in obtaining visas – the hardest of all was to get into Equatorial Guinea, when he had to wait three months for a visa.
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Proposed on top of Mt Kenya
“It is an extremely gruelling journey that requires much more than I ever thought,” Pedersen told Ekstra Bladet.
“I have often felt tired and sometimes I lost my courage. When you are tired, hungry, frustrated and alone, it can be hard to find motivation.”
Pedersen left Denmark at the age of 34 in October 2013, and his best guess is that he will return as a 40-year-old sometime in 2019.
During his stay in Kenya, Pedersen proposed to his girlfriend Le on the top of Mt Kenya.
