At the end of May 2023, Dane Thor Pedersen completed his quest to travel through 203 countries. In the end, it will have taken him 10 years to complete this journey without ever using an airplane. A great first.
Thor Pedersen left Denmark at the age of 34 to travel the world, only to return to his homeland 10 years later, at the end of a 360,000-km epic journey he dubbed "Once Upon A Saga". Now 44 years old, this Dane has succeeded in his mad gamble of visiting 203 countries without ever using a plane, and spending an average of just $20 a day. At the end of this epic journey, he needed ten different passports and had to deal with major crises such as the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and Covid 19 in 2020, which stranded him in Hong Kong for two years.
The Salomon ambassador was regularly followed on this adventure by long-time Salomon TV producer Mike Douglas. In the trailer for a documentary dedicated to his journey (to be released in the coming months), we get a better idea of all the difficulties Thor Pedersen may have encountered during his 10 years abroad. "In a way, it's nothing less than a great sociological experiment, which has been crowned with success," explains this former peacekeeper. "I can't remember a country where I wasn't supported by the people I met. The idea was to use public transport as much as possible, which means hundreds of buses, trains and ferries, and then ask if I could board a fishing boat or even a container ship...".
Each time he arrived in a new country, Thor Pedersen made a point of visiting the local Red Cross branches, as he is a member of the association in Denmark. At the end of May 2023, after returning to Denmark for the first time in 10 years, Thor Pedersen was finally able to enjoy a more normal life, having longed to return home to his wife after 3,512 days abroad. "I miss normal life," he confided, even though he still had only ten or so countries to cross before he could succeed in his gamble. "I miss waking up next to the woman I love, going for a jog in my neighborhood. I miss drinking Danish milk. I miss meeting friends by chance in the street. I miss choosing what clothes to wear in the morning. I miss feeling at home."
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Despite the distance, Thor Pedersen has always maintained his relationship with his girlfriend, who has visited him all over the world 27 times in the last 10 years. On his tenth visit, the adventurer took the opportunity to propose to her. "I can't wait to have a daily life with him now," his wife simply explained on his return.
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