Top Ten Modern Adventures

No.1 – Sir Ranulph Fiennes

Sir Ranulph Fiennes gained notoriety in 1979, when he and two colleagues undertook a journey around the world on its polar axis using only surface transportation. The Transglobe Expedition took three years to complete and resulted in the three men becoming the first people ever to accomplish this feat. In 1984, the Guinness Book of World Records named Fiennes the greatest living adventurer. Not one to rest on his laurels, he continued his intrepid life, crossing Antarctica and discovering the lost city of Ubar in Oman, which had been buried in sand for nearly 2,000 years.
No.2 – Mike Horn

In 1999, South African modern adventurer Mike Horn set out to circumnavigate the globe along the equator without the use of motorized vehicles. The Latitude Zero expedition began in Gabon, from which Horn crossed the Atlantic Ocean in an eight-meter trimaran. He traversed South America on foot and Africa by mountain bike. Since completing the Latitude Zero expedition, Horn has reached the North Pole on foot and climbed two 8,000-meter peaks. He is currently leading the Pangaea Expedition, a four-year youth expedition around the world intended to promote environmental protection and the conservation of natural resources.
No.3 – Bertrand Piccard

Bertrand Piccard comes from a science and exploration dynasty. His grandfather explored the upper atmosphere in a pressurized cabin of his own design, and his father was a deep sea explorer. It’s no wonder Piccard has made a name for himself as a scientist and adventurer. In 1999, he gained notoriety when he and a colleague became the first to fly a balloon nonstop around the world. The journey has been called “the last great adventure of the 20th century.” Piccard is currently developing the Solar Impulse, an unmanned solar-powered, ultra-light plane, which is intended to circumnavigate the world in 2011.
No.4 – Ed Viesturs

Ed Viesturs, a high-altitude mountaineer, isn’t afraid to not make a summit. In his first attempt to climb Mount Everest, he turned around just 300 feet short of the top because conditions weren’t ideal. Viesturs has a motto: “Getting to the top is optional, getting to the bottom is mandatory.” This has earned him a reputation as a cautious climber. However, it has saved his life more than once and hasn’t prevented him from achieving his goals. In 2005, Viesturs became the first American to climb all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks.
No.5 – John Goddard

John Goddard is the consummate adventurer; at the age of 15, he made a list of 127 challenging goals and set about a lifetime spent checking them off one by one. To date, Goddard has accomplished 109 items from his original list plus over 500 additional items he added as he went. The list includes items as varied as climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, riding an ostrich and appearing in a Tarzan film. In the process, he has accumulated several world records as a civilian jet pilot. Goddard’s achievements include having explored the entire length of the Nile and Congo rivers, retraced the footsteps of Marco Polo and Alexander the Great, dove the Great Barrier Reef, learned to fence, and witnessed a cremation ceremony in Bali.
No.6 – Tudor Parfitt

Dubbed “the real Indiana Jones,” Parfitt found what he believes to be a descendant of the Ark of the Covenant. His journey started in the 1980s when he met members of the Lemba tribe, an ethnic group in southern Africa who are believed to have a common ancestry to the Jews of ancient Israel. The Lemba told Parfitt stories of a “ngoma” — a wooden container used for storing sacred objects. Parfitt soon came to believe that the object may be the lost Ark of the Covenant. It was then that Parfitt began his 20-year quest. He started in the Zedekiah’s Cave beneath Jerusalem. To describe it in Indiana Jones terms, the red line on the map left Jerusalem for Jordan, then to Yemen, stretching to Egypt, Ethiopia, and landing in Zimbabwe. His work was the subject of a 2008 documentary and a book.
No.7 – Benedict Allen

While planning an expedition from the Orinoco River to the mouth of the Amazon, Allen developed a plan that he would carry through to all his future travels: Rather than relying on sponsorship, he would immerse himself in the environment and befriend indigenous people in the hopes that they would help him in his journey. Allen eventually did cross the Orinoco with a group of locals; however, in the process he caught two different types of malaria, was attacked by gold miners and had to eat his own dog to survive.
No.8 – Rob Gauntlett and James Hooper

In 2008, the National Geographic Society named these two 21-year-olds “Adventurers of the Year” for completing a 22,000-mile journey from the magnetic North to the magnetic South Poles. They used only human and natural power to accomplish this feat, dog sledding through Greenland, biking through the Americas and sailing to Antarctica. In fact, this expedition had never been attempted by anyone before. Neither guy had any previous sailing or dog sledding experience. This was Rob Gauntlett and James Hooper’s style — they jumped first and looked later. The pair had just climbed Mount Everest with no previous climbing experience, picking up skills as they went.
No.9 – Jason Lewis

Jason Lewis’ chosen adventure is the most impressive feat of human achievement on the list. In 1994, Lewis’ friend, Steve Smith, proposed that the two attempt to circumnavigate the globe using only human power. This meant walking, cycling, rollerblading, kayaking, and pedal boating. Dubbed “Expedition 360,” they thought it would take three and half years to complete. Five years later, Smith left the expedition. Lewis continued on — he crossed five continents, two oceans and a sea. He survived malaria, a crocodile attack and a near-fatal car accident while rollerblading in Colorado. In the end, the trip took Lewis 13 years to complete.
No.10 – Tom Avery

At 27, Tom Avery became the youngest Briton to reach the South Pole on foot. The highlight of his career came in 2005, when he set out to recreate Robert Peary’s 1909 expedition to the North Pole. The original expedition was the subject of controversy as many believed that Peary’s reported time of 37 days to cross 413 nautical miles in the arctic was impossibly fast. Equipped with wooden dogsleds similar to those used in 1909 and armed with Peary’s journal, Avery attempted confirm his hero’s claim. In the end, he and his team managed to reach the Pole in 36 days, 22 hours and 11 minutes, a full five hours faster than Peary.

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