Around the world in anything but a plane

Ed Gillespie and girlfriend Fiona King have started on a year-long mission to travel the world. But the trip, on which they will visit 20 countries and cover 40,000 miles, has one major complication - at no point will they travel by plane.

Mr Gillespie, 34, and Miss King, 28, have mapped a route using 19 trains, seven ferries, five buses, three container ships and a banana boat. In doing so they will reduce their carbon footprint for the trip from eight tonnes to slightly over one.

The couple's round-the-world journey will take them across Europe to Moscow, then to Ulan Bator on the Trans-Mongolian Express, into China and down through south-east Asia stopping at Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia.



In Singapore, they will catch a container ship to Australia and then travel over the Nullarbor plain to Sydney, followed by a yacht passage to New Zealand, a brisk tramp through the mountains and a cargo ship from Tauranga to Los Angeles.

On the last section they will take trains and buses through California, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and, finally, to Costa Rica where they will board a banana boat for the trip home from Puerto Limon.

The total cost of the trip will be roughly £5,000 per person.