Adventurer Graham Hughes shares how record trip around the world landed him in jail
Adventurer Graham Hughes (UK) has been telling us all about his travels around the world in the latest episode of Guinness World Records' new podcast What’s The Record?
He sat down with host Will Munford and Vicki Newman, who heads up the news section of the website (that’s me!), to chat about his adventures, how he won a private island on a reality TV show, and how he was even thrown in jail during his travels… more than once!
In 2009, Graham broke the record for most countries visited in one year by scheduled surface transport.
Starting in Uruguay on 1 January and ending in Egypt on 31 December, he visited 133 different countries without flying. He could only use ground transport that was part of a regular scheduled service.
Watch the episode in full here…
After continuing his travels, Graham collected the record for fastest time to visit all countries by public surface transport.
It took him 4 years 31 days to visit all 197 countries, including the United Nations member countries, Kosovo (Member of UN Agency), Vatican and Palestine (UN Observer States) and Chinese Taipei (sovereign state).
During his journey, Graham also visited overseas territories that are not UN member states, thus totalling 217 countries and territories.
Graham with GWR’s Will and Vicki
Graham, who has made a TV show about his travels called Graham’s World, told us of visiting a 131 countries in one year: “That is a lot, considering I was put in jail twice in that year.”
Don’t worry, it was all a misunderstanding and Graham explains exactly what happened during our chat.
Graham has written about his travels in his book Man of the World, which you can pick up a copy of if you want the full story.
You can find more stories about epic travel adventures in our Sports and Fitness section.
As we chatted, Graham, who also runs his own YouTube channel Hughes of the World, spoke fondly about the people he’d met during his travels, telling one particularly touching story about an elderly woman he met on an overnight bus in Iran who turned and gave him her phone.
The man on the phone told him his grandmother had asked him to speak to him as she was concerned about him because everywhere would be shut by the time they got to the end of the route.
She wanted to know if she could take him home so he could stay over and she could make him breakfast in the morning.
During the episode, Graham also attempts the record for most European capital cities identified by landmark in one minute.
Can he do it?