In 1994, two friends set out to circle the Earth without engines or sails; 13 years later, one returned after nearly 46,000 miles, a crocodile attack and a dozen crossings

On 12 July 1994, Englishman Jason Lewis set out from Greenwich, London, with his university friend Stevie Smith, aiming to become the first person to circumnavigate the globe using only human power. No engines, no sails, just human power and stubborn determination. In an interview with his old college, Royal Holloway, University of London, Lewis said the idea came from a late-night chat with his university friend Stevie Smith, who questioned whether it was possible to circumnavigate the globe without burning fuel. Guinness World Records confirms the expedition, which Lewis and Smith called Expedition 360, covered 46,505 miles by bicycle, pedal boat, inline skates and kayak, and included malaria, sepsis and a crocodile attack along the way.

Bike, boat and a broken pair of legs

Lewis and Smith mountain-biked about 1,700 miles through France, Spain and Portugal to Lagos, then pedaled the boat Moksha across the Atlantic to Miami, becoming the first to cross the Atlantic from mainland Europe to North America under human power, according to Guinness World Records. After landing in the US, Lewis rollerbladed across North America, becoming the first person to do so on inline skates. During his journey across the mainland, Lewis was hit by a drunk driver in Pueblo, Colorado, breaking both of his legs. He spent nine months recovering before he could carry on.

A solo stretch through the doldrums

Between 1998 and 1999, Lewis and Smith cycled Moksha from San Francisco to Hilo, Hawaii, across the Pacific Ocean in 53 days. After this journey, Smith ended his participation in the expedition. Lewis then completed the next leg alone through the doldrums, the still and isolating band of ocean near the equator, before reaching Tarawa. From Tarawa, Lewis continued through the Solomon Islands and on toward Australia, accompanied at points by supporters including Chris Tipper, who built Moksha, and April Abril

Islands, deserts and a crocodile attack

In 2001, he, along with a band of supporters, biked for 3,500 miles from Cooktown to Darwin within 88 days in the Australian Outback. After years of fundraising to keep going, Lewis resumed the expedition in 2005. It was near Australia that year that Lewis survived a crocodile attack. A study published in PLOS ONE that looked at 87 saltwater crocodile attacks in Australia found that survival comes down to two things: the difference in the sizes of the crocodile and the victim, and the victim's location at the moment of the attack, whether the person was in the water, boat, or on the ground, which offers some context for how serious an encounter Lewis's escape may have been. He then rode 450 nautical miles from Darwin to Dili, East Timor, with Lourdes Arango and then paddled through the Indonesian archipelago to Singapore. In 2006, he cycled from Singapore all the way to the Himalayas, and then biked and hiked through the mountains to the port of Mumbai.

Through the Arabian Sea and an arrest in Egypt

In early 2007, Lewis and Sher Dhillon cycled Moksha across the Arabian Sea from Mumbai to Djibouti. The 2,000-nautical-mile journey took 46 days. Trouble came later on the Sudan-Egypt border, where he was arrested on suspicion of spying after trying to kayak across Lake Nasser. Later, Egyptian authorities refused to let him cycle the 178 miles to Aswan, so he completed part of the route at night without permission. He bumped into actors Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, filming their own motorbike trip, Long Way Down, somewhere in Sudan.

What years of nonstop pedaling do to the human body

Circumnavigating the globe under human power is not only a test of willpower, but it also takes a real physical toll. Research from the University of Exeter, published in Experimental Physiology, followed rowers on a multi-week crossing of the Atlantic to find that even with food freely available, their bodies could not process enough calories to match what they were burning each day, resulting in significant weight and muscle loss over the weeks at sea. Lewis, who rode bicycles, paddled kayaks, and pedaled a boat across oceans, deserts, and mountains for more than ten years, would certainly have undergone such physical pressure repeatedly, for 13 years straight.

Home, 13 years later

Finally, on 6 October 2007, Lewis crossed the Greenwich Meridian Line again, towing Moksha behind him precisely where he had started, 4,833 days and 74,842 kilometers earlier. In 2013, Guinness World Records formally acknowledged him as the first person to circumnavigate the Earth entirely under human power. So far, Lewis has been to more than 900 schools in 37 countries, talking to students about sustainability and zero-carbon travel. What makes Lewis's story stand out isn't just the distance he covered; it's everything his body and mind absorbed along the way, and somehow kept moving through.