Anglotopia Podcast | Discussing UK British Travel, History, Culture, London, British Slang, and More!
Anglotopia Podcast | Discussing UK British Travel, History, Culture, London, British Slang, and More!
The Impossible Journey: The Man Who Visited Every Country on Earth Without Ever Setting Foot on a Plane
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Featuring Thor Pedersen

In October 2013, a young Dane named Thor Pedersen set off from his home with a single, slightly mad rule: he wanted to visit every country on earth — all of them — in one continuous journey, and to do it without ever once setting foot on an airplane. Container ships, trains, buses, and a great deal of waiting around. He thought it might take three or four years. It took almost ten. He crossed closed borders and war zones, ran out of money more than once, was stranded for two years by the global pandemic, and served the whole time as a Goodwill Ambassador for the Red Cross. In 2023 he became the first person in history to do it. In this episode, Jonathan Thomas talks to Thor about the whole extraordinary decade — and, this being the Anglotopia Podcast, spends a good while on Britain, which came remarkably early in the itinerary. Thor recounts crossing from Calais to Dover after meeting Syrian refugees at the port, being awestruck by Bristol’s maritime heritage, a memorable host in Wales whose front garden contained a toilet lying on its side, a Red Cross officer in Belfast who felt like the James Bond of the Red Cross, falling for the Scottish countryside, buying dodgy Les Misérables tickets in London, a desperate dash for seasickness pills in Immingham, and Hogmanay in Inverness courtesy of a kind bartender. But the deeper story is the one Thor tells in an unusual way: he doesn’t sell it as a triumph. He’s honest about the loneliness, the setbacks, the cerebral malaria, the migraines, the moments at gunpoint, the two years stuck in Hong Kong — and about the thing that actually got him around the world, which turned out not to be toughness at all, but the kindness of strangers.

Links

The Book

⠀Published by Robinson. ISBN 9781472149763 (hardback) / 9781472149770 (paperback).
Thor Pedersen

⠀Mentioned in the Episode

⠀Anglotopia

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Takeaways

  • 1 The idea arrived by email. Thor’s father sent him a link about the world’s most-travelled people, and Thor — then 34, twelve years into a career in shipping and logistics, and having visited around 50 countries — discovered that roughly 200 people had reached every country, but nobody had done it entirely without flying. He describes it striking him “like lightning.”
  • 2 His definition of “every country” was deliberately generous. The UN recognizes 193 sovereign states plus two observer states (the Vatican and Palestine). Thor built on that, splitting the Danish kingdom into Denmark, the Faroes and Greenland, and splitting the UK into England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland — arriving at 203 — precisely so nobody could come back afterward and say “but what about Kosovo?”
  • 3 Britain came very early — country numbers seven through ten, in late 2013, just weeks after leaving Denmark. He crossed Calais to Dover after meeting Syrian refugees camped by the rail tracks, was refused as a foot passenger, and got across by knocking on car windows until a driver calling himself Rambling Rat let him ride along.
  • 4 Travelling only overland and by sea teaches you something you cannot learn from an airplane: how enormous the world actually is, and how gradually it changes. Thor points out that at borders, people wear the same clothes, eat the same food, often share a language — and the plants and animals don’t care which side they’re on. The real changes happen further inland.
  • 5 He became a Red Cross Goodwill Ambassador early on, which transformed the project. Within weeks he realized it wasn’t a country project but a people project. Meeting national Red Cross societies gave him rapid, genuine insight into each country — its economy, its government, whether it was a strong or weak society — and gave balance to a social media feed that otherwise risked being relentlessly, artificially upbeat.
  • 6 Two years in, in Central Africa, everything collapsed at once: he lost financial backing, his long-distance relationship was falling apart, he was recovering from cerebral malaria, he was suffering debilitating migraines for the first time in his life, and his life was at risk more than once. It was the point at which he genuinely broke — and the point at which he first wanted to go home. He still had eight years left.
  • 7 The pandemic stranded him in Hong Kong for two years. He’d arrived expecting a four-day transit stop. Immigration eventually told him he couldn’t stay indefinitely as a visitor and offered three options: marry someone, study, or work. He ended up employed by the Danish Seamen’s Church as “junior assistant to a reverend who wasn’t there,” shopping for seafarers trapped aboard their ships and unable to come ashore.
  • 8 Hong Kong was both the worst and best chapter. CNN picked up his story, which went viral and transformed his profile. The Hong Kong Tourism Board nicknamed him “Hong Kong’s only tourist.” By the end he had two apartments, two cars, a driver’s licence, a temporary ID card and a dentist. It remains the place in the world he misses most.
  • 9 He felt no joy at all on reaching the final countries. Sri Lanka, then the Maldives on 23 May 2023 — everything had become “automated and mechanic,” and he was working through interviews while everyone else scuba dived and drank martinis. The project was successful in the Maldives, but it was completed when he got home to Aarhus, 31 days later by container ship — 40 container ships in total across the decade.
  • 10 Thor’s strongest observation about travel is that most of the world is deeply ordinary. People go to work, go to school, spend time with family, follow their sports teams. He travelled through the Game of Thrones years and found everyone everywhere talking about it. He saw a boy in Libya spinning a Captain America shield fidget spinner. We are, he argues, far more connected than we think.

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Soundbites

  • 1 “I found out no one had accomplished it completely without flying. For most people that would be an uh-huh kind of moment, and then people would move on. But it struck me like lightning.” — Thor on the email from his father that started everything.
  • 2 “There’s a common phrase where people say it’s a small world. It really isn’t. If it was a small world, I think I would have been back home a lot sooner.” — Thor on what a decade overland teaches you.
  • 3 “Around most border areas, people wear the same clothes. You get the same food on either side. The plants and the animals in the area do not care which side of the border they’re on.” — Thor on seeing where countries actually meet.
  • 4 “Within weeks I realized that this wasn’t a country project, that this was a people project.” — Thor on the shift that changed everything.
  • 5 “I was in Central Africa and I was deep in over my head. I lost financial backing. My long-distance relationship was falling apart. I was recovering from cerebral malaria. My life was at risk several times. And I just lost the motivation to continue.” — Thor on the moment it broke him, two years in.
  • 6 “If there was a competition within hospitality globally, like the Olympics, we would be on the bench watching the other countries. We are kind and helpful and friendly — but we have no idea how friendly we could be.” — Thor comparing Northern European and global hospitality.
  • 7 “I made an excuse that I was going to the bathroom, but really what I wanted to do was go and pay for all of us. And on my way there, they already knew what I was up to and shouted to the cashier — don’t let him pay, we will take care of it.” — Thor on his host Dafala in Sudan.
  • 8 “So I was hired to be the junior assistant to a reverend who wasn’t there.” — Thor on how he solved his Hong Kong immigration problem.
  • 9 “I arrived with my hat and my backpack, and when I was at my highest I had two apartments, I had two cars, I had access to the port, I had my driver’s licence, I had a dentist. I had a life in Hong Kong.” — Thor on two years stranded.
  • 10 “The real story here is that most of the world is such an ordinary place. It is just people getting by in life, making the best of the situations that they have. Going to work, going to school, spending time with family, falling in love, following their sports teams.” — Thor on what a decade on the road actually revealed.

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Chapters

  • 00:21 Introduction — One continuous journey, every country on earth, and no airplanes
  • 01:48 Where Does an Idea Like That Come From? — Twelve years in shipping, and an email from his father
  • 03:46 The Lightning Bolt — Discovering nobody had done it without flying
  • 04:30 Did He Know What He Was Signing Up For? — Four years becomes ten
  • 04:54 Two Years In, Central Africa — Where it all fell apart the first time
  • 06:30 THE NO FLYING RULE — What travelling overland and by sea actually gives you
  • 07:20 How Big the World Really Is — Denmark, Texas, Greenland and the skewed world map
  • 08:47 Where Countries Meet — Same clothes, same food, and animals that don’t care about borders
  • 09:36 Watching the Landscape Change — Desert to bushes to forest to mountains
  • 10:17 Which Definition of a Country? — 193 UN states, and why Thor’s list runs to 203
  • 12:24 THE RED CROSS — How being a Goodwill Ambassador changed the journey
  • 12:50 A People Project, Not a Country Project
  • 13:22 What the Red Cross Gave Him — Rapid, genuine insight into every country he entered
  • 15:08 Balance — Why it mattered to post things that weren’t relentlessly positive
  • 16:05 BRITAIN — Country numbers seven through ten, in late 2013
  • 16:44 Calais — Meeting Syrian refugees by the rail tracks before crossing
  • 17:28 Rambling Rat — Refused as a foot passenger, and getting across by knocking on windows
  • 17:58 Bristol — An open-air museum of seafaring history
  • 18:38 Wales — A kind host, a house with grass to the windows, and a toilet in the front yard
  • 19:11 Minimum 24 Hours Per Country — And how fast the early legs moved
  • 19:24 Northern Ireland — The James Bond of the Red Cross, and a city of walls
  • 20:00 “It’s Raining a Wee Bit” — Thor’s accent problem
  • 20:32 Scotland — Awestruck by the west coast, and on to Glasgow and Edinburgh
  • 21:08 Edinburgh — His girlfriend, now wife, visits two weeks after he left home
  • 21:34 London — Les Misérables, dodgy tickets, and an unexpectedly happy ending
  • 22:48 Back to the UK — A missed ship to Iceland, and an unplanned return via Immingham
  • 23:42 The Pharmacy Dash — Crawling under the shutters for seasickness pills
  • 24:26 Scrabster — And a devastating email about a ship that isn’t coming
  • 25:04 Edinburgh Again, Then Inverness — Hogmanay with a bartender who takes in strangers
  • 26:15 CULTURAL DIFFERENCE — Reading what people really think of you
  • 26:50 The Hospitality Olympics — Why Northern Europe would be on the bench
  • 27:40 Dafala in Sudan — Not being allowed to pay for anything
  • 29:07 Poland and Hong Kong — Strangers who cook for you at midnight, and four days that became five months
  • 29:54 “The Guest Is God” — Hospitality in India and Pakistan
  • 31:02 The Arab World — Why you may never know what someone truly thinks of you
  • 31:41 Denmark, Britain and America — Three different ways of masking contempt
  • 33:12 THE UNITED STATES — How he got there and what happened
  • 33:26 Iceland to Greenland to Canada — Crossing the Atlantic by ship
  • 34:21 Immigration at Buffalo — Colin Farrell, a German form, and a very unimpressed officer
  • 35:37 New York at 4 AM — Sleeping under a tree in Central Park
  • 36:39 A Bird, a Beard and Free Wi-Fi — Central Park as a budget traveller’s dream
  • 37:04 Washington DC — Free museums, and more homelessness than the movies show
  • 37:56 THE CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR — The train that changed the trip
  • 38:09 Meeting Art — A chance conversation in the queue
  • 38:45 Four Hours in Chicago — A grandfather’s grave and a different ticket
  • 40:06 The First Class Surprise — Art’s private cabin, bunk beds and meals included
  • 41:00 Communal Dining — Strangers, awkward seating, and solving global politics three times a day
  • 42:18 San Francisco and Onward — To Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean
  • 43:19 WHEN IT GOT HARD — The end of the good energy days
  • 43:32 Naive Expectations — CNN, BBC and Nike were not, in fact, calling
  • 44:49 Central Africa — “That is just a different level of hardship”
  • 45:40 An Astonishing Part of the World — Beautiful, lush, friendly, and extremely hard to travel
  • 46:34 Losing the Thread — Forgetting why any of it mattered
  • 47:24 Migraines and Malaria — What his body did in response
  • 48:40 At Gunpoint — And the moment he grabbed a steering wheel at speed
  • 49:18 Where an Ambulance Might Not Come — The reality of a medical emergency in that region
  • 50:03 MOST OF THE WORLD IS ORDINARY — Game of Thrones, fidget spinners and a Captain America shield in Libya
  • 51:52 THE PANDEMIC — Two weeks’ delay in the Solomon Islands, then the Marshall Islands
  • 52:45 Four Days in Hong Kong Becomes Two Years
  • 53:31 Down to the Last Nine Countries — And desperate to go home
  • 54:24 Five Months With One Family — And the need for personal space
  • 55:03 CNN Finds Him — The article that went viral and changed everything
  • 55:38 Hong Kong’s Only Tourist — Working with the Hong Kong Tourism Board
  • 56:28 Immigration Runs Out of Patience — Marry, study, or work
  • 57:35 THE DANISH SEAMEN’S CHURCH — Junior assistant to an absent reverend
  • 58:27 Seafarers Trapped Aboard — Suicide rates, shipboard dentistry, and captains who died at sea
  • 59:32 Shopping for the Ships — What Thor actually did for a year
  • 01:00:17 Forty Container Ships — And the satisfaction of giving something back
  • 01:00:27 The Luck of the Delay — Why being stuck in Hong Kong was better than the alternatives
  • 01:01:20 A Life in Hong Kong — Two apartments, two cars, a dentist, and the place he misses most
  • 01:02:04 THE END OF THE JOURNEY — Sri Lanka, then the Maldives
  • 01:02:47 Bureaucratic Obstacles to the Finish Line — Not allowed to leave the ship
  • 01:03:33 Flags, Friends and a Resort Island — And Gunnar Garfors breaking the story
  • 01:04:14 No Joy At All — Working through interviews while everyone else celebrated
  • 01:05:20 Successful in the Maldives, Completed at Home — And why he refused to fly back
  • 01:06:06 The Milan Maersk — 31 days from Malaysia to Aarhus
  • 01:06:46 Windmills in the English Channel — The slow return home
  • 01:07:20 Homecoming — Rain, a crowd at the portside, and his wife
  • 01:07:59 WHAT NOW? — The Adventurers’ Club and a secret expedition
  • 01:08:48 Africa, Camels, Volcano — Three clue words and nothing more
  • 01:09:09 Life Today — Speaking engagements, film festivals and book events
  • 01:09:34 Emirates Business Class vs Ryanair — A memorable downgrade
  • 01:10:06 Wrap-Up — The Impossible Journey, out now, and Friends of Anglotopia

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