Gunther Holtorf is the one that achieved this seemingly incredible deed, as German publication The Local writes. His car, nicknamed ‘Otto’, started this whole adventure back in the late 1980s, when Gunther quit his job as a manager at Lufthansa (the flag carrier of Germany and also the largest airline in Europe).
The German and his wife started their traveling adventures in Africa where the car was pushed to the limit on a regular basis and where he got no less than five bouts of Malaria. Not too long afterwards, though, Gunther and his consort soon started falling apart and the relationship ran its natural course not too far along the way.
However, hope was never lost and a new Mrs. Holtorf rose up to take the challenge, Christina. She was there, by Gunther’s side until 2010 when a tumor brought her life to an abrupt end. Not to be discouraged, her son, Martin, who was 30 when she died, joined Gunther for two years for some time around Sri Lanka, China and North Korea.
215 countries over four continents Moving away from the family-side of things in this seemingly crazy story, we should tell you that the car covered 200,000 km (124,224 miles) by 1998, translating into a rough 20,000 km run per year (12,422 miles). That’s not a lot by any means but seemingly Gunther was just getting ready.
In the following 16 years he added 690,000 km (428,571 miles) to the odometer of his car, covering countries in South and Central America and even Asia, where it covered parts of Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, China and the communist North Korea.
The tour eventually stopped when our good man arrived back in Europe and put a definitive end to his travels in (where else but) Berlin. " The more you have traveled, the more you realize how little you have seen ," Holtorf said upon his return to the city.
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