South African adventurer Ray Chaplin hopes to circumnavigate the globe, under his own power no less, in just 80 weeks. But even more impressive is that he will do so via both Poles, and not traveling around the planet in a east-west direction as is typical for these kinds of expeditions. If successful, he'll be the first person to circle the globe in this direction and manner.
Ray has named his expedition SHOVA360, and plans to get underway in August from Table Mountain, in Cape Town. He has broken down the journey into stages, with the first stage covering Africa as he travels north. From there, it is on to the Middle East, then Europe, before moving into the Arctic. If all goes according to plan, he'll pass through the North Pole and begin heading south once again at long last. The next stage of his journey will take him across North and South America, then a crossing into the Antarctic, followed by a traverse of that continent. When he's done there, he'll cross the Southern Ocean back to South Africa, and return home. Remember, he wants to do all of this in 80 weeks, which is fairly ambitious all things considered.
Since he's also doing all of those miles under his own power, that means he'll either be trekking, skiing, or pedaling while on land and paddling, either in a kayak or boat, while at sea. Along the way, Ray hopes to stop at more than 200 World Heritage Sites, while covering more than 66,000km (41,010 miles).
Update: For those wondering the source of this story, I came across it in a link from the Explorers Club tweets yesterday. The original article can be found here. Obviously there are a few discrepancies on Ray's website, and as I've noted, his scheduled of going around the world in 80 weeks seems rather ambitious, but I wanted everyone to be aware of where I found this story.