The journey started from a remote hotel bar in the Arctic mining settlement of Pyramiden on the Svalbard island of Norway the northernmost pub on the planet and concluded on the southernmost tip of South America - Tierra del fuego
How long are you willing to travel for a pint of beer? The answer would depend on how good is it, right? Let’s make it even more exclusive and adorned with superlatives that are often found in the books of world records, such as, the northern-most or the southern-most pub on planet earth that involves travelling for 32,000 kilometres?
The task now becomes more difficult given it is just a pint of beer that you may rather find easily in your neighbourhood.
Interestingly, that is exactly a feat that a British man completed after travelling over 32,000 kilometres while crossing borders of 21 countries to finish what is being claimed as the world’s longest pub crawl till date.
Ben Coombs, a 38-year-old beer lover from Plymouth in Devon, UK crossed four continents and gave seven months of his life to complete the unique challenge to himself.
In the process, he drove his sports car, travelled on a yacht and also a ship to get around the two significant points on Earth.
The journey started from a remote hotel bar in the abandoned Arctic mining settlement of Pyramiden on the Svalbard island of Norway the northernmost pub on the planet and concluded on the southernmost tip of South America - Tierra del fuego - shared by Chile and Argentina.
How did he decide on the pubs?
In an episode of the popular auto show Top Gear, the famous trio of Clarkson, Hammond and May were able to travel to Resolute, Nunavut in Canada to make an attempt to visit the Magnetic North Pole on a motor vehicle. Coombs, however, an auto enthusiast himself, went about 193 kilometres closer to the North Pole than Resolute.
He chose Pyramiden which is just 700 miles away from the North Pole in the Arctic.
As per his website, ‘Pyramiden, founded in 1910, was once a bustling mining settlement of around 1,000 residents, and boasted, among other things, the world’s most northerly swimming pool, grand piano…and bar.’
The ‘barren wilderness of Tierra del fuego, at the southernmost tip of the South American continent, where the southernmost ‘licensed premises’ on the planet lies’ was his second choice.
What did he manage to cover?
Crossing continents, oceans and irrespective of geography was a primary feature of his trip. In the early part of his journey, with his team that included a videographer, he covered most of Western Europe, namely, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France and the UK.
Later he crossed the Atlantic and started from Cuba to the US – coast to coast – and then proceeded to Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile and then Argentina.
Over 32,000 kilometres travelled, but why?
Coombs struck upon this idea also when he was, in fact, having a pint in Dartmoor, UK.
Coombs managed to get many sponsors for the trip that kept him going.
But the rationale behind the whole idea is what drove him primarily.
As per his website, he wanted to relive the idea of travel which has changed in this day and age.
It says that earlier travel ‘meant achieving the impossible against the odds, while never letting one’s style or dignity waver even for a moment.’
And now, ‘the very word ‘traveller’ has been lost to the masses, diluted by a thousand grimy hostels and dreadlocked wanderers. Once, there was the majestic audacity of the journey; now a thousand anodyne Boeings sweep their cargoes blandly across the globe. The infinite allure of the unknown has been banished by tick-list tourism and off-the-shelf adventures. Bespoke has given way to budget. Elegance to blandness. Panache has been swept away by humdrum’.
He endeavoured to change that, and so he did.
