Forms of ID: Graham Hughes

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pIrreverent responses from our favourite travel ninjas./p

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Irreverent responses from our favourite travel ninjas.

Name: Graham Hughes
Title/bio: First person to travel to every sovereign state without flying
Twitter/website: @EveryCountry | theodysseyexpedition.com
Born in: Liverpool, England
Currently in: Addis Ababa, Ethopia

1. Where would you rather be right now? 
Nowhere, anywhere… as long as my girlfriend was with me

2. Famous person (dead or alive, real or fictional) you’d most like to go on a trip with:
Tim Leery

3. Tourist must-see you think is actually a “must skip”:
Any building built anywhere since 1958

4. Everyone asks what’s #1 on your list of places you want to go before you die. But what’s your #3?
The South Pole. Dressed as a giant penguin.

5. Your most stranded, “oh-my-[deity]” travel moment:
Six days in a Congolese jail. They thought I was a British spy. Because I look like James Bond, obviously.

6. Best (or worst) person/people you’ve had to sit next to while travelling: 
Best: lovely old grandmother in Iran took me home and made me breakfast. Worst: old guy in Peru who kept putting his hand on my leg and smiling.

7. Strangest meal abroad:
Live octopus in South Korea, fertilised duck egg in the Philippines, boiled sheep’s head in U bekistan

8. If someone was visiting your town, what’s the one thing you’d show them?
A bloody good time! (I come from Liverpool you know)

9. Travel-related invention you wish existed:
Cheap, mass-produced electric cars; a British train system that wasn’t butchered beyond use in the 1960s; a functional African highway

10. Your most embarrassing travel faux pas:
Urinating in what turned out to be a foot-washing trough in a rather conservative Muslim country that shall remain nameless

11. Material thing you miss the most when away from home:
Nowt. Everything I own is in my backpack.

12. Most unique souvenir:
Coco-Monkey.  A monkey. Made from a coconut.

13. Best celebrity encounter while travelling:
AJ Hackett, bungee jump entrepreneur. I may have convinced him to set up a jump in Liverpool.

14. Most unusual item you have travelled with:
A toilet seat strapped to my backpack adverting my chosen charity, WaterAid

15. Coolest mode of transport you’ve taken:
A leaky wooden fishing pirogue (canoe) 400km across open ocean from Senegal to the Cape Verde Islands. No radio, no satellite phone, no sails, no oars – just an outboard motor, a pocket GPS and a huge dollop of luck.

16. The place you don’t want anyone to know about but are willing to divulge here:
Palau. Best kept secret in the world.

17. The travel story you’ll never stop bragging about:
Being the first person to travel to every sovereign state without flying, obviously!

18. Lay on us a priceless bit of travel advice or wisdom:  
Always wear a hat, never take a towel.

Forms of ID: Graham Hughes