'The Impossible Journey': memoirs of the first person to visit every country without ever flying

CapeTalk's John Maytham speaks to Thor Pedersen, author of The Impossible Journey: An incredible voyage through every country in the world without flying.

Listen below:

195 countries. Over a decade of travel. Not a single aeroplane in sight. This is the story of one man's journey to become the first to visit every country in the world without flying, all while being in a long-term relationship and travelling for 10 years.

Pedersen's journey began on 10 October 2013, when he set out from Denmark, and concluded on 26 July 2023 at his final destination, the Maldives.

The book is a memoir of the 3756 days, 380,00 kilometres, 37 container ships, 158 trains, 351 buses, 219 taxis, 33 boats, and 43 rickshaws Pedersen used to make this adventure happen. 

When Pedersen set out on the adventure of a lifetime, he never dreamed of the people he'd meet and the places he could go. But embarking on this epic voyage took him to the brink of his sanity, wiped out his funds and tested the relationships he held dear.

Over the years, he encountered grave danger in the form of drunken armed men as well as the high seas, with giant waves crashing in over the ship from all sides, and being stranded in Hong Kong on modes of transport he's never heard of before.

Pedersen has slept on the street and dined in the homes of billionaires. The author visited countries stricken with war zones and once had to take an 11,919 km detour, revisiting seven countries, traversing Baluchistan in Pakistan, escorted by armed guards, because he was denied a visa while in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where he learnt that life becomes unnecessarily complicated without the luxury of flying.

Pedersen invites the world to share in this once-in-a-lifetime adventure, the lessons, stories and unique perspectives on humanity he learned along the way of an epic journey - you might find it inspiring, as many already have.

So, why did Pedersen do this? The adventurous author explains...

"It's the kind of thing that's good to look back on... I met an incredible amount of different people around the world, I had great conversations with tens of thousands of people, I grew as a person which is an education second to none... there's a lot of good stuff when I look back... it's the kindness and generosity that was shown by people all around the world, that's the good stuff." 

- Thor Pedersen, Author

"The why changed... in 2013, I wanted to be the first in history to reach every single country in the world completely without flying but that goal was watered down over the years when I started to lose focus on why that was so important. I was promoting the Red Cross globally as a good will ambassador of the Danish Red Cross and that had some value and kept me going. I was trying to shine some light on every country I went through to sort of give people something else than what they see in mainstream media."

- Thor Pedersen, Author

Along Pedersen's journey, he also stopped by South Africa and thinks it's a lovely country but before getting here, he notes his "roughest time" that almost made him give up on his journey...

"South Africa gets a bad rep for being a dangerous country and of course, people are familiar with how beautiful it is - the amazing wildlife, rainbow nation and rich history... but I spent several months in Central Africa which was the roughest time for me... I did want to underline that I was close to giving up when I was in Central Africa, not because of the kind people or the children I played football with but due to mindless bureaucracy and the power play with people in uniforms and eventually that part of the world spat me out and I came down to more pleasant territory and one of those countries were South Africa... the first City I visited was Pretoria..."

- Thor Pedersen, Author

Spoiler alert: Pedersen's love journey with his now wife beat every obstacle thrown at them as a couple while Pedersen was travelling. 

For more, Maytham highly recommends that you give this a read.

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the full conversation.