Gunther Holtorf Takes A 23 Year Long Road Trip And Documents The Journey

Gunther Holtorf Takes A 23 Year Long Road Trip And Documents The Journey

What started as an 18 month long tour of Africa, ended up lasting 23 year long but wonderful years. With his modest demeanor, we're finally hearing about his amazing journey across the World. He drove in a Mercedes Benz G Wagon and now has over 500,000 miles tacked on. The vehicle has traveled the equivalent of 20 times around the planet and the best part is that he took his cameras along with him! Gunther travels with 2 film cameras, including a Leica M6. 

We found this fantastic story in thanks to photographer David Lemke, who joined Gunther on one leg of his expedition. David graciously took and allowed us to showcase this shot of Gunther above.

The entire slide show, with narration, can be found at this link in slideshow format:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18910560

We can't embed the slideshow here, but this may be the best 5 minutes you spend today. Very few people get to see the world like Gunther does, and we're glad he's been able to share a part of that with all of us.

[Via David Lemke via BBC]

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7 Comments

Great story and photos!

this is my life dream. i assume hes independently wealthy.

he was not wealthy - just used his life savings and had some very lucky investments that paid off after periods of many years

Lovely, heartwarming story. Was he paid by Mercedes? There seems to be an awful lot of shots and voiceover  dedicated to the car.

As Dave Lemke can probably attest, the concept of "Geo Arbitrage" (ex-pat lifestyle) can really pay off if you are the traveling sort. As expensive as a Mercedes and Leica may seem, the concept of buying it once and having it last forever makes the cost trivial. 

God, I love the dynamic range of film.

Seems like an awesome guy. Will he ever make a website or gallery with his photos?

That is an impressive journey that he took. The only continent that he didn't visit was Antarctica.