The first time we heard that our entry as "The Longest Journey by Car" – at this time 117 countries, 451'231 km (= 280'617 miles) since October 16, 1984 (nearly 13 years) – was approved by the Guinness Publishing was on Friday, June 20, 1997, as we had an interview at BBC's World Service "Outlook" at the Bush House in the center of London. Soon afterwards we received the World Record Certificate. The first time we were published in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1998. In 1999, Guinness World Records introduced its own Website and we were published immediately as "The Longest Driven Journey".

We broke the previous records of Harry B. Coleman/Peggy Larson (113 countries – 231'288 km (= 143'716 miles) – 1976-1978 in a Volkswagen Camper), as well as Manfred Müller/Paul-Ernst Luhrs (350'000 km (= 217'490 miles) – 83 countries in a Citroën 2CV). Between January 1, 1999, and January 5, 2002, an American couple – Jim Rogers/Page Parker – tried to contest our single journey in a converted Mercedes-Benz SLK 230/G 300. After 111 countries (on his website he claims to have done 116!) and 245'544 km (= 152'576 miles) – a distance that includes also kilometers and miles of flights, shippings and railway rides – he stopped. He was published suddenly in the Guinness Book 2010 as "The longest continuous journey". However, "continuously" means only that he tried to visit – but mainly just "touched" – most of the countries merely once. But his nevertheless remarkable effort was not at all enough to beat our unique World Record in topics, like "visited number of countries + driven kilometers + time", and we are still on the road.

1997 the Brit David Robertson, with the backing of "Malaria Foundation International" ("Drive Against Malaria"; "Roll Back Malaria") tried to 'smash' our record – which we accomplished b.t.w. without any institution or company behind us, only lately with occasional supporters – but nothing can be found or heard about him since. This shows that it needs a lot of endurance to stay such a long time "on the road" and to explore so many countries as we did – prove is also the website of "Ask Men" where we figure as No. 8 of the "Weirdest Guinness World Records".

Since some time a new challenger is around, the German Gunther W. Holtorf driving a 1988 built Mercedes Benz G-Wagon 300GD. However, it isn't clear, how his planned Guinness World Record will be called, because he is traveling only 6 months in a year since his start in 1990, which doesn't correspond to a real "journey". Despite of this, the sporadically published press releases (actually always released by the local Mercedes distributor) show quite unclear and confusing data (number of countries and miles): Said that, in April 2005 there were 280'000 miles driven in Egypt; the same year in October back in Germany 258'000 miles; one month later in Bhutan 330'000 miles (!); in November 2006 in Indonesia 357'000 miles in 184 countries (!); in July 2007 in Malaysia and Singapore 365'230 miles in >130 countries; half a year later in February 2008 in Jamaica 386'000 miles in 151 countries, in June 395'000 miles = 168 countries, and in February 2011 in Sri Lanka 450'000 miles = >182 countries – and all results while driving only six months in a year! The figures tell its own tale; we experienced already the case that not only the real car's mileage was counted but additionally also the miles done while shipping on a freighter. In the same doubtful category falls the claim to have visited a country, while the car couldn’t leave the harbor or even the ship at all (our LandCruiser was officially permitted to enter and to drive around in ALL of our 169 countries we have visited). And last but not least counts the applied “country definition”: while some are counting more than 700 countries (including regions, areas, provinces, states, territories, etc.), we do only 261, according to the (former) rules of the ‘Guinness Book of World Records’.

Our last entry on page 112

in theGuinness Book of

World Records 2009

Our current World

Record Certificate 2009

The 1st World

Record Certificate 1997

Our first entry  in the

Guinness Book of

World Records 1998

Our entry in the Millennium

Edition of the Guinness

Book of World Records 2000

Our entry with picture in the

Guinness Book of World

Records 2004

Our current entry on the website

of the Guinness World Record

Another website of our entry

April 2011

Another website of our entry

June 2009

Our entry of the previous

website July 2006

of the Guinness World Record

Our entry of an earlier website

of the Guinness World Record

Our entry of the 1st website

of the Guinness World Record

(Oct. 2000)

Back cover of "Team

Toyota No. 12" of Toyota

Motor Corporation (TMC)

Poster of an exhibition

in Baillif/Guadeloupe

Guinness' confirmation and

approval letter for the

Record 2009 Update

 

 

Predecessors

Harry B. Coleman/Peggy Larson's in the

Guinness Book of World Records

Manfred Müller/Paul-Ernst Luhrs' entry in the

Guinness Book of World Records