Seven People Who Have Walked Or Ran Around The World

Image Source

Born in 1940, Arthur Blessitt didn’t just walk around the world; he carried a cross through every single nation on the planet. On Christmas Day, 1969, Blessitt began his journey with the cross by walking from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. In 1971, he traveled to England with the cross and began carrying it through all the countries in the world over the next 37 years. Through it all, he met several famous individuals including Jimmy Carter, Billy Graham, Pope John Paul II and Yasser Arafat. His walk is listed as the world’s longest walk by the Guinness Book of World Records. In total, he walked 38,102 miles in 315 countries, including 52 that were in a state of war. He crossed every ocean and touched every single continent. He did this entire journey while carrying a cross that was 12 feet long, six feet wide and weighed 45 pounds.

Image Source

Born in 1967, Ffyona Campbell is a British long-distance runner who holds the title of being the first woman to walk around the world. Starting at the age of 16 at the northernmost point of Scotland in August 1983, she walked down to the southernmost point of England. Two years later, she set off for New York and walked from the United States to Los Angeles. During this time she became pregnant by one of her support team members, which made things a bit difficult to finish the journey, but she did. Two years after that, she walked from Sydney to Perth in Australia over 95 days, beating the men’s record for the journey. In 1991, she went from Cape Town, South Africa to Tangiers, Morocco, which she reached in 1993. In April of 1994, she walked through Europe, arriving back in Britain in October of that same year. She raised 120,000 British Pounds for charity over the 11 years and 20,000 miles.

Image Source

Listed as the first man to walk solo around the world, Newman began his journey in 1983 from his home in Bethel, Ohio, eventually crossing 20 countries and 15,000 miles over the course of four years. Throughout the journey, he sent letters to Cappers magazine and to many newspapers which have now been compiled into a book called Letters from Steven. The journey was not without trouble though. He was thrown in jail four times during his journey and nearly killed by bandits in Thailand.

Image Source

Coming from Denmark, Jesper Olsen is known as an ultra-distance marathon runner thanks to his run around the world that began on January 1, 2004 and finished on October 23, 2005. Through his journey, he ran roughly 28 miles per day. In all he ran over 15,000 miles. During his run, he was even able to compete in and win the Cliff Young Australian 6-Day Race.

Author: Craig Baird — Copyrighted © roadtickle.com