By: David Ethier
In twenty-five years, Otto has driven over 500,000 miles (125,000 of them on unpaved roads), been through 200 countries, and 23 territories. Otto drove through northern Iraq and Afghanistan during the wars. Otto has been to Mt. Everest, Sudan, and has been in a shipping container 36 times. In 2012, Otto was the first-ever foreign vehicle to enter North Korea.
Otto is a 1988 Mercedes G-Wagon—the most well travelled vehicle on Earth—and his caretaker is a German man named Gunther Holtorf.
The plan was to travel Africa, from north to south. Take the car and stay flexible by foregoing traditional food and lodging costs. Keep the front seats, put a two-meter plank in the back, sleep on it, and place storage underneath.
Buy food in local markets and cook out of the back with a gas stove. Hang a water bucket over a tree for showers. That initial plan was to drive Otto for eighteen months. But, pretty soon, Gunther and his wife, Christine, realized that the more they travelled, the more they had yet to see.
An eighteen-month itinerary turned into five years spent in Africa. Afterward, they ping-ponged around South America. Then Panama. Central America. And then North America—all the way up through Prudhoe Bay, Alaska before hanging a right and traversing across Canada to Goose Bay in Newfoundland. This wasn’t the plan; it just happened. And kept happening.
The two of them spent over twenty years together, touring, living on 500-800 Euros per month, and returning to Germany or Jakarta intermittently to maintain Gunther’s mapping business. They averaged two-thirds of the year on the road until, in 2010, Christine succumbed to cancer. Naturally, she insisted that Gunther keep traveling. He keeps a photo of her on the dashboard.
About that trip to North Korea: the German ambassador filed an application on behalf of Gunther & Otto and, to the German foreign ministry’s surprise, the late Kim Jong Il approved.
In North Korea, Gunther and his son had escorts all the way up to the toilet visits. Gunther drove an escort in Otto, while his son rode along in a trailing car. The same thing happened in China–you need an escort to drive a foreign vehicle through the country–yet they were lucky enough to be able to drive through Tibet before it was closed to foreigners.
Otto even visited that beach.
If you haven’t heard about Otto before, that’s by design. Gunther verges on Luddite status, refusing to blog about Otto’s travels. He doesn’t have a Facebook page, Twitter handle, YouTube account – he doesn’t even have a digital camera or cell phone.
His position: If you are in the center of the Sahara desert, a satellite phone might work but only to tell someone you have that problem, but they can’t help you anyway. When you travel, you must take care of yourself. Gunther has had to fix countless flats and replace minor spare parts, but Otto still has the original gearbox, transfer case, axles, and differentials.
The man with five active passports (all nearly full, with a stack of fifteen old ones) sees no benefit to posting all of his pictures to the Internet. He has paid for everything on his own, refusing sponsorships. He didn’t want logos plastered all over his car, for security reasons. And, when asked about being the world’s most travelled man, Gunther redirects to Otto: I want Otto to be remembered…It’s not me that is special; it’s the car.
For more, check out Gunther's interview with Outside.
