14 Weird Ways to Traverse the Globe
Ferdinand Magellan is often credited as the first person to circumnavigate the globe, but the reality is that he quit about halfway through. Or, he didn’t “quit,” per se; it’s more that he was skewered with a bamboo spear while waging a foreign war in an attempt to spread Christianity and imperialism, and then was pulverized so badly they couldn’t retrieve his body. But the fact remains: He never finished the trip.
Not so with these intrepid explorers! Here are a few people who actually finished their journey around the globe — and did so in style.
As Sponsored Content
YouTuber Lexie Limitless went on a big, branded excursion in 2024, driving her electric Ford Explorer 19,000 miles around the planet. It was meant to mimic a journey made by Canadian explorer Aloha Wonderwell between 1922 and 1927 in her Ford Model T. Wonderwell must be looking down with a great big smile on her face, knowing her legacy was invoked for sponcon.
Using Only the Sun
The MS Tûranor PlanetSolar is the world’s largest solar-powered boat, and the first to make it around the world using just the power of the sun over 584 days between 2010 and 2012.
Forrest Gump It
British runner and all-around weirdo Robert Garside, who insists on going by “The Runningman,” became the first person to run around the world between 1997 and 2003. He hit 29 countries and ran 30,000 miles.
Via Public Transportation
Nellie Bly, the mother of investigative journalism, set a world record by making it around the globe in just 72 days between 1889 and 1890. She took only public steamboats and trains.
With a Persecution Complex
Religious nut and provocateur Arthur Blessitt (which appears to be his real name) has walked in every country on the planet while lugging a 45-pound cross. He’s completed a 42,000-mile circumnavigation of the globe, proving that… Actually, it’s unclear what his point is exactly.
Working Remotely
An Italian merchant named Francesco Carletti was the first guy to make the trek around the globe strictly as a passenger, not a crew member or captain, when he got back from an eight-year business trip in 1602.
In a Wheelchair
From 1985 to 1987, paraplegic athlete Rick Hansen made the 25,000-mile journey through 34 countries to become the first person to make it around the world in a wheelchair.
As Fast as Possible
In 1995, a Concorde with 98 people on board flew out of (and shortly thereafter, back into) JFK Airport, making the fastest trip around the world in 31 hours, 27 minutes, 49 seconds.
Let the Earth Do All the Work
When Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space back in 1961, he also set the record as the first guy to orbit the Earth, simply by floating around for a little bit while we all spun our asses off below him.
The Long Way
In 1968, NASA’s Apollo 8 mission flew to the Moon and circled around it 10 times. When the three astronauts touched back down to Earth, they technically completed a circuit around the globe.
Underwater
In 1960, the U.S. Navy made the first fully submerged trip around the globe under the code name Operation Sandblast. The nuclear-powered USS Triton stuck to basically the same path that Magellan took.
On a Big Dumb Bike
Thomas Stevens was a British guy who traveled to the U.S. to work on the railroad in Wyoming and then in a mine in Colorado. Since he was already doing the most random old-timey shit imaginable, he decided to circle the globe on a penny farthing from 1884 to 1886.
With a DIY Ethic
In 1976, Air Force colonel and aviator Don Taylor became the first person in history to fly the circumference of the planet in a plane he built himself.
Just Wing It
From 1982 to 1984, 66-year-old professor and sailor Marvin Creamer took a 36-foot boat and a small handful of friends around the world. He did the whole thing without using a compass, a sextant or any other navigation tools, just going off of the sun and the stars.
