By Matt Blake
- Graham Hughes, 33, used buses, taxis, trains and his own two feet to travel 160,000 miles in exactly 1,426 days - all on a shoestring of just $100 a week
- Yesterday he trudged into Juba, the capital of South Sudan, to end the epic journey that began in his hometown of Liverpool on New Year's Day 2009
- Spent four days 'in a leaky boat' to reach Cape Verde, was jailed for a week in Congo, and was 'saved from Muslim fundamentalists by a Filipino ladyboy'
- His lowest point was when his sister, Nicole, died of cancer two years ago
- He says: 'I think I wanted to show that the world is not some big, scary place, but in fact is full of people who want to help you'
If anything can be said about record-breaking globetrotter Graham Hughes, it's that - throughout his travels - he's always kept his feet firmly on the ground.
The 33-year-old adventurer, from Liverpool, has become the first person to visit all 201 countries in the world - without using a plane.
Hughes used buses, taxis, trains and his own two feet to travel 160,000 miles in exactly 1,426 days - all on a shoestring of just $100 a week.
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He spent four days 'crossing open ocean in a leaky boat' to reach Cape Verde, was jailed for a week in the Congo for being a 'spy', was arrested trying to 'sneak into' Russia and had to be 'rescued from Muslim fundamentalists by a Filipino ladyboy called Jenn'.
And yesterday ended the epic four-year journey by crossing into Juba, the capital of South Sudan, which did not even exist when he set off from his hometown of Liverpool on New Year's Day 2009.
'I love travel, and I guess my reason for doing it was I wanted to see if this could be done, by one person traveling on a shoestring,' he told the Christian Science Monitor. 'I think I also wanted to show that the world is not some big, scary place, but in fact is full of people who want to help you even if you are a stranger.'
He has traversed the borders of all 193 members of the United Nations plus Taiwan, Vatican City, Palestine, Kosovo, Western Sahara and the four home nations of The United Kingdom - all without flying.
Guinness have now confirmed that Hughes, who filmed the expedition for a documentary and raised money for charity WaterAid, has achieved the world record for the 'Most countries visited in one year by scheduled ground transport'.
'The main feeling today is just one of intense gratitude to every person around the world who helped me get here, by giving me a lift, letting me stay on their couch, or pointing me in the right direction,' Hughes added.
While all land transport had to have either wheels, hooves or sturdy rubber soles, he made the longer-haul voyages mostly by hitching lifts on cargo ships.
He even managed to blag a lift on a friendly cruise ship to the Dominican Republic.
Other highlights include dancing with the Highlanders of Papua New Guinea, befriending orangutans in Borneo, riding through the badlands of Kenya on an 18-wheel truck, meeting the Prime Minister of Tuvalu - and 'warning schoolchildren in Afghanistan about the dangers of men with beards'.
He says people tend to wonder how he got into the further-out countries like North Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan, but he says they were the easy ones.
Far tougher was negotiating routes into tiny island nations like Nauru, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the Maldives and the Seychelles 'where there were sometimes pirate threats'.
He says there were low points on the trip such as 'sitting in a bus station in Cambodia at one in the morning or riding some awful truck over bad roads' when he thought: 'Why am I doing this?'
The lowest point came when his sister, Nicole, died of cancer two years ago aged just 39. He broke the trip to hurry home to see her.
'I’d done 184 countries and had only 17 to go and I thought why not leave it there? (...but) she told me not to stop,' he added.
But having finished his journey, he has no intention of buying a plane ticket any time soon and says he now plans to 'keep in the spirit of the adventure' and travel through Africa some more before getting the ferry home from Ireland just in time for Christmas.
VIDEO: Graham FINALLY makes it to South Sudan! For more of his journey, click here...
AROUND THE WORLD IN 1,426 DAYS: GRAHAM HUGHES' TRIP... IN ORDER!
SOUTH AMERICA
1. Uruguay
2. Argentina
3. Paraguay
4. Bolivia
5. Chile
6. Peru
7. Ecuador
8. Colombia
9. Venezuela
10. Brazil
11. Guyana
12.Suriname
THE CARIBBEAN
13. Trinidad & Tobago
14. Grenada
15. St. Vincent & The Grenadines
16. Barbados
17. St. Lucia - Martinique**
18. Dominica
19. St. Kitts & Nevis
20. Antigua & Barbuda
St. Martin/Sint Maarten
British Virgin Islands
US Virgin Islands
21. Dominican Republic
22. Haiti
23. Jamaica
CENTRAL AND NORTH AMERICA
24 Mexico
25 Guatemala
26 El Salvador
27 Nicaragua
28 Honduras
29 Costa Rica
30 Panama
31 Belize
32 The United States of America
33 The Bahamas - The Conch Republic**
34 Cuba
35 Canada
EUROPE
36 Iceland - The Faroe Islands**
37 The Netherlands
38 Belgium
39 France
40 England*
41 Wales*
42 Ireland
43 Northern Ireland*
44 Scotland*
45 Luxembourg
46 Germany
47 Denmark
48 Sweden
49 Norway
50 Finland
51 Estonia
52 Russia
53 Latvia
54 Lithuania
55 Belarus
56 Poland
57 The Czech Republic
58 Slovakia
59 Hungary
60 Romania
61 Moldova
62 Ukraine
63 Bulgaria
64 Greece
65 Macedonia
66 Kosovo*
67 Montenegro
68 Serbia
69 Albania
70 Croatia
71 Bosnia & Herzegovina
72 Slovenia
73 Austria
74 Liechtenstein
75 Switzerland
76 Italy
77 Vatican City*
78 Malta
79 Tunisia (Africa)
80 San Marino
81 Monaco
82 Andorra
83 Spain
84 Portugal
AFRICA
85 Morocco
86 Western Sahara*
87 Mauritania
88 Senegal
89 Cape Verde
90 The Gambia
91 Guinea-Bissau
92 Mali
93 Guinea
94 Sierra Leone
95 Liberia
96 Côte D’Ivoire
97 Ghana
98 Togo
99 Benin
100 Burkina Faso
101 Niger
102 Nigeria
103 Cameroon
104 Chad
105 Central African Republic
106 Equatorial Guinea
107 Gabon
108 Saõ Tomé & Principé
109 Congo
110 Democratic Republic of Congo
111 Angola
112 Namibia
113 South Africa
114 Botswana
115 Lesotho
116 Swaziland
117 Mozambique
118 Zimbabwe
119 Malawi
120 Zambia
121 Tanzania
122 Comoros
123 Madagascar - Reunion**
124 Mauritius
125 Rwanda
126 Burundi
127 Uganda
128 Kenya
129 Ethiopia - Somaliland**
130 Somalia
131 Djibouti
MIDDLE EAST AND ASIA
132 Saudi Arabia
133 Egypt (Africa)
134 Sudan (Africa)
135 Jordan
136 Palestine*
137 Israel
138 Syria
139 Lebanon
140 Turkey
Iraqi Kurdistan**
141 Iraq
142 Cyprus (Europe)
Northern Cyprus**
143 Libya (Africa)
144 Algeria (Africa)
145 Georgia
146 Armenia
147 Azerbaijan
148 Kazakhstan
Karakalpakstan**
149 Uzbekistan
150 Kyrgyzstan
151 Tajikistan
152 Turkmenistan
153 Afghanistan
154 Iran
155 Kuwait
156 Bahrain
157 Qatar
158 United Arab Emirates
159 Oman
160 Yemen
161 Eritrea (Africa)
162 Pakistan
163 India
164 Bangladesh
165 Bhutan
166 Nepal
Tibet**
167 China
168 Mongolia
169 South Korea
170 North Korea
171 Japan
172 Taiwan*
173 Vietnam
174 Cambodia
175 Thailand
176 Laos
177 Burma
178 Malaysia
179 Singapore
180 Indonesia
181 Brunei
182 The Philippines
183 East Timor
West Papua**
OCEANIA
184 Papua New Guinea
185 Solomon Islands
186 Australia
New Caledonia**
187 Vanuatu
188 Fiji
Wallis & Futuna**
189 Tuvalu
190 Kiribati
191 Marshall Islands
192 Samoa
American Samoa**
193 Tonga
194 New Zealand
195 Nauru
Northern Mariana Islands**
Guam**
196 Micronesia
197 Palau
Hong Kong**
Macau**
THE FINAL FRONTIER
198 Sri Lanka
199 The Maldives
200 The Seychelles
201 South Sudan
* Not a member of the UN, but still counts towards The Odyssey 201.
** Dependency, Territory, Semi-Autonomous Region or Largely Unrecognised De-Facto State. Does not count towards The Odyssey 201.
(Source: Hughes' website The Odyssey Expedition)
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