I was recently alerted to the adventures of Andrew Siess, who just completed walking around the whole world. Uhhh yeah – the whole world – which is about 20,000,000 steps. You can read about his story at Andrew’s Great Adventure, which features diary entries, videos and other information from his trips all around the world.
That got me thinking about other people that have walked around the world, which led me to an article that referenced 6 people that have walked long distances. Their definition of walked “around the world” is not always the same, but it definitely was an interesting read.
Some of the people mentioned were David Kunst, who was walking around the world with his brother before his brother was killed by bandits in Afghanistan (!), or Rosie Swale-Pope, who RAN through Russia, Alaska, Canada, Mainland USA, Greenland, Iceland and the UK. George Meegan walked from Tierra del Fuego in South America to the northernmost part of Alaska.
There are actually quite a few people who have walked long-distances like this, Forrest Gump style. Wikipedia, of course, has an entire article on the subject! There’s also Jean Beliveau, who walked around the world for ELEVEN YEARS. Perhaps even more astonishing is that his wife stuck with him at home through the whole journey!
Don’t forget Nellie Bly, who set off in 1889 to beat Phileas Fogg’s record for going around the world in 80 days (Spoiler alert: she did)
Which of these long-distance travelers did you find most interesting? Ever taken a walk like this? Personally I’ll stick to using miles and points to travel 🙂
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
There are two runners who just completed runs around the world, one did it this weekend. It took each of them 621 days to run the 16,300 miles around the globe. The names are Kevin Carr and Tom Denniss (they did it separately). Denniss competed his run in 2013.