This week’s Beyond the Headlines embraces the Olympic spirit, rather than looking at a single nation we recognise someone whose nomadic spirit has seen him cover over 200 countries in his 23 years on the road.


Until last week, the name Gunther Holtorf meant little to most, but to those who were aware of his quite incredible story he has long been considered one of the world’s greatest modern day travellers. The BBC piece in which Canadian photographer David Lemke joined Holtorf on the Vietnamese leg of his tour, was the one that meant the tale of his 23 year long road trip was finally catapulted into the public consciousness.



Photograph by Gunther Holtorf ©


Setting off on what was meant to be an 18-month tour of Africa upon the fall of the Berlin wall back in 1989, Holtorf and his wife Christine never looked back. These days, blogging about travels is almost as popular and fashionable as the travelling itself so it is something of a rarity to find a pictorial record completely unblemished by this agenda. This long-standing refusal to commercialise a clearly personal journey extended to turning down numerous sponsorships and makes researching the man and the story a tricky affair. Legitimately, one of his main issues with sponsorship is security-based. While he has a great relationship with Mercedes-Benz, the manufacturers of the trusty G-Wagen he and Christine named “Otto”, Holtorf is wary that covering the vehicle with sponsor’s logos would stand to heighten his visibility and attract unnecessary attention and with it, trouble. Lamenting that the last offer of sponsorship would have meant plastering Otto like an F1 car, Holtorf has unassumingly covered over 200 countries in his time on the road, masterfully documenting the trip with a pair of Leica film cameras.



Photograph by Gunther Holtorf ©


The Leicaflex SL was produced between 1968 and 1974 while the Leica M6 came out in 1984 and to this day Holtorf still relies on these classic SLR and rangefinder cameras alone to capture images (often featuring Otto) from around the world. Add to this the fact that Otto, the light-blue Mercedes-Benz 300GD was purchased by the couple in 1988 and you begin to understand that Holtorf was never going to give in to the emergence of the internet and its ‘social connectivity’ considering his absolute faith in the aged yet reliable technology that has served him so well to date.



Photograph by Gunther Holtorf ©


Travelling with over 400 spare parts for Otto, which go some way to making the staggering 500 kilos of cargo on the vehicle’s roof Holtorf claims he has never experienced a problem with the G-Wagen that he couldn’t swiftly fix. It seems a bit of a suspicious claim but one that is backed up by the staggering 799, 783 kilometres logged on Otto’s clock during a stop in the Philippines this June. Somewhat amusingly the milometer only consists of five digits, so each time the G-Series tots up another 100,000 km Holtorf takes it to Europe where the Mercedes Benz people open it up and plaster on a new first digit. He claims to drive the car “like an old granny” although this does nothing to take away from the staggering endurance of the vehicle which is set to be retired into the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart upon the trek finally being completed next year.



Photographs by Gunther Holtorf ©


Quite whether he will reach a sense of finality 24 years after hitting the road remains to be seen. It is worth considering that much of this journey took place with his wife Christine who passed away in 2010. She urged him to continue the tour on her behalf and he is determined to keep his word. It had surely been the plan to complete the trip together though, so how settled he will be in his home town of Stuttgart come next year is the subject of some debate.



Photograph by Gunther Holtorf ©


Holtorf, Christine and Otto experienced a few hitches along the way although these were predominantly due to authorities. The 30 year airline industry veteran has stated, “If I had followed embassy instructions, I would miss many, many countries”. That said though there have been some notable exceptions to this rule; the late Kim Jong Il went so far as to invite the intrepid traveller to North Korea as did Raúl Castro to Cuba. Both these and many more situations along the way have raised a surprised eyebrow or two in the office of the German Foreign Minister. You would imagine that by now though, German authorities have got used to Holtorf’s ways, he did after all take a trip through North Iraq during wartime, nothing it seems will keep him from completing this epic journey.



Photograph by Gunther Holtorf ©


While it is clear that most don’t have the means financially to embark on this sort of journey, Holtorf must surely be considered an inspirational figure. His, Christine and Otto’s trip has seen the fall of dictatorships, the reconfiguration of borders and the rise of newly independent states first hand. While many of us have a wanderlust, far less free themselves from the shackles of society and engage so wholeheartedly into this nomadic way of life.


As a publication rooted conceptually in this nomadic approach to life, we salute Gunther, Christine and Otto, whose humble and respectful tour around the world should encourage even the most reclusive among us to open our eyes to the vast possibilities beyond the doorstep.


By Alec Dudson