Graham Hughes

Graham David Hughes (born 28 February 1979) was the first person, according to Guinness World Records, to visit all 193 United Nations member states and several other territories across the world without flying. While on his journey he presented the television programme Graham's World on the National Geographic Adventure channel. Early life Hughes was born in Liverpool in 1979. He attended Blackmoor Park School and the Liverpool Blue Coat School. He attended the University of Manchester. He moved to Orrell Park and set up a video production company firstly in Dale Street and then in the Baltic Triangle. The Odyssey Expedition The Odyssey Expedition was a visit to all of the 193 UN member states. For the United Kingdom, Hughes visited all of the four constituent countries that make up the kingdom and counted the UN member state as four separate countries. Hughes also visited the non-member state of Vatican City, as well as the partially recognised non-member states of Palestine, Western Sahara, Kosovo, and Taiwan, for a total of 201 "countries" without flying. He noted people wonder how he got to countries like North Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan, but claims that "they were the easy ones". Before embarking on the journey, Hughes contacted Guinness World Records to agree the rules of his journey. The rules were: no flying as part of the journey, no private taxis over long distances (shared "bush" taxis were okay), no hitch-hiking, Hughes could not drive a vehicle or ride a motorbike as part of the journey (Guinness World Records does not permit people to "race" on public roads in private vehicles in order to set or break records), he must set foot on dry land (sailing into territorial waters did not count) and no travelling to far-flung territories and counting them as a visit to the motherland. Private transport was permitted over short distances (such as taking a private taxi across town), private transport was also permitted over water and he was allowed to take a break from the journey for personal reasons so long as he did not fly as part of the journey and he returned to the exact spot from which he left, something he did twice on his journey. It was agreed that the clock would not stop.