Search Results

This site had one million hits in 2013, most of them for travel related posts. I regularly receive offers from guest writers, promising me amazing stories in return for money, a link to a website or the possibility to add “published on garfors.com” to their CV. I have turned most down. Why? Well, because a lot of them are written as advertisements where a link to some tacky, obscure or over commercialized website is required as “payment”. Some of them are however not, and I have read quite a few. They may be interesting and well written, even with amazing photos, but they do usually not fit in with the style of garfors.com. The style? Usually a little rough, covering something or somewhere unusual and with a fair amount of self-irony, self-sarcasm or black humour. I am happy to publish your story, if it is well written, witty and comes with at least one good photo to which all rights are cleared. But, yes there is a but. I have virtually no income on garfors.com, so I do not pay for posts. That means that you should think twice before submitting your story. Because if I want to publish it, chances are that others are happy to do so too. And they might pay you hard cash for it. All I can offer is a byline with your full name. Plus a link to your website or blog (no corporate tie-ins, please) and to add a photograph and a bio of you. That’s it. I’d also like the post to be exclusive to garfors.com for the first six weeks. You mean you are still keen? Do get in touch.

Having visited every country in the world makes me prone to receive a particular question. What next? I luckily have no problems coming up with slightly mad travel ideas that’ll keep my busy and things interesting. Such as visiting 19 countries in 24 hours, travelling to all 19 counties in Norway in the same amount of time or popping by five continents in just one day. All three coincidentally world records. And why stop there? Such trips should of course be tracked. Not only to document potential records, also to let friends, family and other curious people know how you are getting along. And to let them see whether everything is going according to plan. I tested a number of tracking apps on various trip in Norway and abroad, and concluded that Real Time GPS Tracker by Greenalp was by far the best for such trips. Greenalp? Never heard about it? Not a big surprise, it is a small Austrian company. A one man show, as a matter of fact. Made in Austria 34 year old Florian Lässer of Vienna is the man behind the service. He provided eminent service throughout my trials of the tracking and even on very short notice during the record attempts. – GPS technology has always been fascinating to me because I have always wondered how a tiny device can measure postition that precisely, with only a few meters off, Lässer told me. He is an avid mountain hiker. Every Austrian should be, really. Soon after having purchased his first smartphone, he realised that the apps in the market did not provide the features he was looking for. What he wanted to do was to show his live location to friends or family while hiking or travelling. – I searched for an app that could run for several hours and which included battery saving algorithms such as switching off GPS between location updates. My searches were not fruitful. So it was time to create my own app, which went live in November 2011, he said. He expected that a few hundred, possibly a couple of thousand users would download it. Oh, was he wrong. – Today I have about 2.2 million downloads. Impressive. And keep in mind that Greenalp is Florian Lässer. And no one else. Why is your app the best, I asked. But Lässer is a relatively modest man. – Well, I don’t know if it’s the best, but it’s definitely very powerful. I don’t know any other tracking app that provides as many configuration options. You can set various update intervals, see friends on the map, remotely start and stop the tracker, set a private region where no one can track you and even exchange messages with the person being tracked. Plus many more features. And it’s free It is hard to believe that the app is actually free of charge. And there are no plans to change that either. – I definitly want to keep the app free for individual users. I’m really proud that the app is used world-wide, both in the industrialised world and in the developing countries. My strategy is to provide the basic app for free, and to add some paid services tailored to business users. Florian Lässer’s dream scenario is to get enough paying business customers to keep the basic version of the app free to individual users, to expand functionality and to be able to hire developers to support more platforms. The tracker is currently only available for Android. The diversity and the price of the app may explain some of the popularity. But not all of it. There are, after all, not that many record crazy people out there. He knows his users well, and has divided them into three groups. Safety, business and fun The first one is people worried about the safety of their loved ones. – Many parents use the app to check uo on their children, to ensure that they are well. Quite a few also use the app to track elderly people. Lässer explains that most of those tracking their kids live in the United States. The second group of users use the app for business purposes. Small companies, in particular, use the app as a reasonable option to expensive tracking systems. Taxi companies and delivery firms are among typical clients. But Lässer’s app is also being used for fun seekers. People and media companies involved in special events and extreme travelling are also among his users. – This is my favorite category. People use the the tracker in their airplanes, hot-air balloons and paragliders. And an American user shared a video about a weather balloon experiment in a high school class. The tracker was used to measure the altitude and the route of the balloon. And of course to find the balloon after it hit the ground. Lässer shows great enthusiasm. Not a surprise, given the amount of input he gets from his many users. And he liked my two world records in six days. – The most recent and definitely one of the most spectacular events was your record trip. In fact your record trip finished very close to the region where I grew up. Another reason for me to follow your trip on the live map. And Lässer wasn’t the only one intrigued by the last world record attempt. The 19 countries in 24 hours record received massive world-wide media attention by over 100 media companies on six continents. You can see the route we travelled to visit 19 countries in one day below. Tracked by Florian Lässer’s Greenalp. Map and tracking by: Show your location live on Google Maps. Free real-time GPS tracker for Android.

Yay! We managed to visit 19 countries in 23 hours and 33 minutes, all in one day on September 21. That’s a world record. See how we did it. We had to follow the three rules set out by Recordsetter.com: 1. must physically stand in each country 2. must complete visits within any consecutive 24-hour period 3. must provide media evidence The second criteria was documented through the usage of a GPS tracker we used throughout the journey, and can be seen here. The great app is provided by Greenalp.com, and comes highly recommended. The Telegraph has also made a nice graphic that shows the route and modes of transports clearer. That we physically stood in each country is documented in the photos below. Do note that the order varies from the map, as the photos are listed chronologically. The reason is that we drove through some countries before returning to actually stand in them. John Bjarne Lium of the TV and video production house Pure Content filmed us before our departure in Greece, and caught up with us again in Germany to hitch a ride on our last leg. He is currently editing a documentary about our trip, you can already watch a short video report. The media attention we received was massive, throughout the world. Here are just a few: News Update on BBC World, CBS Radio, News.com.au, The Telegraph, Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s children newscast NRK Super, Norway’s biggest newspaper VG, Huffington Post and Daily Mail to mention a few. More press coverage here. And thanks a bunch to the inspiration provided by the former world record owners. They followed us and cheered on us during our trip. For the press release and the official press photos, see here. Big thanks also to the Nordic betting company ComeOn that really believed in us and was our sponsor. They offered live odds during our trip and provided us with great PR and marketing efforts. 19 photos from 19 countries in 24 hours.

We tried before, and managed 17 countries in 24 hours. But sharing world records isn’t quite our cup of tea, so we will try again. You can follow us on the map below, or see what we are up to on Twitter or Instagram by using #recordrun, or see the Twitter feed below the map. And what is more, you can even bet on how many countries we will manage, or put your money on a number of other trip related things. The betting company Come On is our sponsor (please feel free to mention them), and is at your service at teamcomeon.com The current record is 17 countries in 24 hours. Will we break it, and if we do, by how many countries? You can follow the journey from shortly before 01:00 (1am) Norwegian time on Sunday September 21. Some people would call it Saturday night live. For photos and the official press release (in Norwegian), see here. To embed the map on your site, find the code at GreenAlp, our eminent tracking provider. Map and tracking by: Show your location live on Google Maps. Free real-time GPS tracker for Android.Tweets about “#recordrun”

Boka mi “198” om mi reise til alle verdas land kjem ut på torsdag. Korleis kunne ho vel betre lanserast enn å reise til alle Noregs fylke, på éin dag? Tenkte i alle fall eg. Verkeleg Noreg rundt, altså. Det let seg gjere i teorien. Men kva med i praksis? Det prøvde eg å finne ut tysdag 16. september saman med bror min Øystein. Startskottet gjekk klokka 00:00:01, på sett og vis på måndagskvelden. Vi starta utanfor Skarnes, i Hedmark, og avslutta i Alta i Finnmark under 23 timar seinare. Du kunne følgje oss på eit kart, sjå ein skjermdump av ruta vår under. Vi var mykje på Twitter eller Instagram: @garfors og nytta emneknaggen #Noregrundt. Boka mi vert given ut av Samlaget. Pressemeldinga om turen og sjølve boklanseringa 18. september finn du her. #Noregrundt Tweets

I have a new hobby; Collecting reviews and readers’ feedback of “198: How I Ran Out of Countries*”. REVIEWS /// BOKMELDINGAR I loved this book! Gunnar doesn’t let me put his book down. His way of taking you on this trip around the world is brilliant. Do read this book. It will take you around the world. Pirkko Schildt, Finland A colourful read The quick-fire format, paired with the author’s infectious enthusiasm and sense of humour makes for a very easy read – I absolutely flew through this on a recent trip to Russia. James Cox, Amazon This book is a hit 198 is a terrific read for anyone who wishes they could travel and an invaluable reference for those who want to follow Gunnar Garfors’ motto ‘Easy is boring. Melinda Hills, Readers’ Favorite Incredibly original “The sly humor and sarcastic undertone kept making me smile, and at times laugh out loud. I love the smooth transition between stories, how they are tied together and the conveyed sense of a never ending adventure. The story is incredibly original and contains ‘logical insanity’, i.e. things that sound outright crazy on the surface, yet make total sense when you think about them. I found myself trying to scroll past the last page in search for more.” Laila AlJasem Turboturisten Dei beste kapitla omhandlar vanskelege land. Det er ofte ubehaget, redsla og den irriterande kjensla av å ha blitt lurt som vert til dei gode historiene. Dei finn du heller ikkje på luksushotell. Derimot er Couchsurfing, der du kan overnatte gratis på ein framand sofa, eit glimrande utgangspunkt for uventa opplevingar, og for nye vener. Du kan lese boka frå perm til perm, bla i ho, slå opp i ho, le deg skakk eller irritere deg. «198 land» er lettlesen og artig. Garfors skriv sprudlande, med korte setningar og eit munnleg språk, utan klisjear og overflødige ord. Marit Bendz, NRK Sogn og Fjordane, 1. desember, 2014. Unngå guidebøkenes råd Og i år kom boka 198. Mi reise til alle verdas land. Dette er ikke en bok som går i dybden. Langt ifra. Her får hvert land en snutt – men gjerne en underholdende sådan – om rare møter, underlige hendelser og betraktninger rundt alt fra kriminalitet til matretter og sære tradisjoner. Dette er altså ingen “guide til verden”, noe som heller aldri var meningen. […] I boka byr Gunnar Garfors også på diverse lister, som “Verdens 25 minst besøkte land” og “Verdens 20 farligste byer”. Og lister over egne favoritter. Trond Rødsmoen, Levende Historie, 8/2014. Terningkast 5 (5/6) “Jeg tok feil av Gunnar Garfors. Denne «landsamleren» har ikke vært i alle verdens land kun for å kunne skryte av det. Han elsker rett og slett å reise. […] Boken består av reisehistorier fra alle de 198 landene han har besøkt. Vi blir kjent med menneskene han har møtt og med de som har reist sammen med han. Historiene til Garfors er både underholdende og velskrevne, og jeg liker spesielt godt at han fletter inn morsomme landfakta innimellom. […] Boken er skrevet for å inspirere til reise, og det vil jeg si Garfors gjør. Mine reiseabstinenser ble i hvert fall trigget.” Mari Bareksten, Magasinet Reiselyst, septemberutgåva, 2014. For mye og for lett Reisemagasinet likar ikkje “landsamlarar”, lesarar av Se og hør, pupper, sex, eller drikking. Slakt, bortsett frå nokre artige geografilister. Helge Baardseth, Vagabond, desember 2014. READERS’ FEEDBACK Takk for en svært god bok! Ikke kost meg så med en nynorsk “murstein” noensinne (ta det positivt – hadde en lærer med i overkant stor fascinasjon for “Kjærleikens ferjereiser”). Gode skildringer, artige personer, festlige historier og ikke minst nyttig påminnelse om hva som er viktig med å reise – tror jeg skal roe ned fokuset på planlegging og kontroll gitt. Begå gjerne flere bøker. Eric Kort fortalt kunne boka gjerne vært på 5.000 sider i stedet for 500. Jeg satt nemlig plantet med boka fra mandag når jeg kjøpte den og frem til søndag når jeg var ferdig med den, kun avbrutt av enkelte skole- og toalettbesøk. En knallbok som jeg allerede har anbefalt til mange andre. Ole Jeg er nettopp ferdig med boka. Det eneste som trekker ned er at den burde vært lengre. Terningkast 5. Pål This is not wanking material, but you risk LAUGHING A LOT while reading! Erlend Fadern lo så han datt av stolen av ål-historia. Ser lovande ut! Kai Sidene om Storbritannia var dei første eg las. På jobb. Fekk hikstelatterbyge etter innstendig å ha prøvd å halde att, men gav opp. Måtte gå ut. Knut Promotion graphic.

Two friends and I equalled a world record in May. We visited 17 countries in 24 hours, the same as four friends managed in 2012. But I don’t like sharing. Not world records, at least. Time has come for us to try to finally break it. We believe that 19 countries in 24 hours is within reach, and we will go all in and aim for it in September/October. The route is all brand new, we have put even more planning into the project this time and we have experience. The experience of failure. Can’t beat that. We have already got backing from one major sponsor, but there is room for one or two more. How about having your name on or in our car? Even providing the car? Or seeing your energy drink help us keep awake? There are a lot of possibilities here, do get in touch. A Norwegian TV team is planning to follow our journey. So can you. A GPS enabled map will be updated every minute on garfors.com. Who we are? The team is unchanged. Star driver Øystein Djupvik and travelling food wiz Tay-young Pak are at it again. Watch this space. Øystein Djupvik lives in Naustdal and will be the main driver of this slightly manic record attempt. He has two children, something that ensures a safe and responsible ride. The 40 year old is a part of the management team of Transferd, a logistics company. He is also a local politician and enjoys sports fishing. Djupvik works against planned dumping of 300 million tons of waste mixed with chemicals, planned to be done by a mining company in the fjord he lives next to. Tay-young Pak is on a mission to visit every country of the world and to engage in extreme activities while at it. Please follow him on taysbucketlist.com. He has worked years as a consultant within business and management. Pak is 41 years old and from a Korean family. He was still born in Iceland and has lived most of his life in Oslo. Gunnar Garfors is the youngest hobby traveller to have visited all 198 countries of the world. The 39 year old has six younger siblings and is from Naustdal . Garfors currently lives in Oslo, works with DAB digital radio for NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) and writes a book on all his travels. The book, “198”, is due to be published in Norwegian by Samlaget on September 18.

I boka si ånd vert det feil å ha lansering berre éin stad. Torsdag 18. september startar lanseringsturnéen med morgonkaffi i Naustdal før den held fram med forfriskningar i Bergen til lunsj og hovudlansering i Oslo klokka 18:00. Verdspremiera vert i kommunestyresalen i Naustdal. 17. mai utfordra ordførar Håkon Myrvang meg til å ha lansering i heimkommunen min, noko eg sjølvsagt ikkje kunne takke nei til. Lanseringa vert klokka 09:00, like før kommunestyremøtet startar, og det vert open sal. Ordføraren stiller med kaffi til morgontrøytte sunnfjordingar. I Bergen held vi fram på bokhandelen Akademia i Studentsenteret på Universitetet klokka 13:00. Før det heile avsluttast med hovudlansering på bokhandelen Tanum i Karl Johans gate klokka 18:00 og likvide forfriskningar på ein meir eigna stad i nærleiken etterpå. På alle tre stadene får vi ei innleiing frå Samlaget før eg les eg frå boka, svarar på eventuelle spørsmål og er disponibel til å signere bøker. Lanseringane er opne for alle. Det er Samlaget som gjev ut boka. Den omhandlar mine reiser til alle verdas 198 land. Innhaldet er delt inn etter 21 tema som til dømes matopplevingar, trøbbel, Interrail og damehistorier. Kvart land får eit eige kapittel under relevant tema. Boka er på 496 sider og vil koste 299 kroner. Du kan førehandsbestille signerte eller usignerte eksemplar allereie no. Og les gjerne første omtale av boka (frå Kuwait(!), på engelsk).

So, I have written a book. It will come to Norwegian book shops on September 18. And yet, I am working on the English translation too. I sent the unfinished version to a former fellow student of mine for feedback. Her preliminary review was rather encouraging. “The sly humor and sarcastic undertone kept making me smile, and at times laugh out loud. I love the smooth transition between stories, how they are tied together and the conveyed sense of a never ending adventure. The story is incredibly original and contains ‘logical insanity’, i.e. things that sound outright crazy on the surface, yet make total sense when you think about them. I found myself trying to scroll past the last page in search for more.” Laila AlJasem from Kuwait said. She was not paid to write any of that. And yes, there will be more. In English. Unfortunately 500 pages takes a while to translate. AlJasem has worked in banking, investments, telecom and human development. She is now persuing a career within the latter field. I’ll certainly send her my book when it publishes. In English. The Norwegian version can be ordered here. Or pre-order the English version.

Or is it? I recently heard about a newspackage on TV 2 and read an NRK article about guys collecting airports. Yes, both of them were guys. Oh, on closer inspection it is the same guy. Nevertheless, I don’t think any girls out there does the same, or would even think about considering doing anything similar to the same. Please prove me wrong. Following both news pieces, I have been contacted by friends asking me how many airports I have been to. And been to, in this case, apparantly means not only having been to it in person on the ground or in the terminal, but also flown to and/or from it. So, I had to count. Nils Salthe, the guy in question, has visited 75 airports, 34 of which are in Norway. A couple of additional web searches reveals that Audun Tylden, a late music producer visited his 347th airport in 2007, four years before he died. He allegedly visited a few more, clocking in at approximately 370. That means that I still have a long way to go. I have just reached 301, given that I actually remember all of them. I have never really counted before. Have you? And how far behind Audun Tylden are you? Keep in mind that he started the semi unusual hobby with his friend Scott Remborg back in 1969. I assume that he had already been to some airports already, but let us say that he clocked up between 9 and 10 new airports a year. That is a lot, given the time span of almost 40 years. It is certainly possible to catch up. There are 102,465 commercial flights a day (six-figures for the first time in 2014) travelling to or from the 3,864 commercial airports in the world. If you want to include private and military airfields, we reach a staggering 41,821, according to IATA. Audun Tylden however only counted commercial airports. So do I. At least until I get my own private jet.

No, you didn’t misread. And that is for poorer coverage too, according to Teknisk vekeblad. We are not looking at a minor difference, we are talking 40 times the usage. I have admittedly written about this matter a couple of times before. “LTE Broadcast” – The Next Hyped Broadcasting Challenger. Why 4G is hyped. Broadcasting 7 Times Greener Than Streaming. There is of course no reason to believe a mere media and travel blogger. Teknisk vekeblad is however Norway’s leading engineering journal. Journalist Odd Richard Valmot mentions a few problems with LTE in his article. LTE is to distribution what heavy eaters are to all-you-can-eat buffets, he writes. A few too many of them can cause bankruptcy. For the restaurant. The same applies to bandwidth. There just isn’t enough around, and since LTE is a one-to-one technology, heavy consumers affect all others. That is not the case with broadcasting, a one-to-all technology, where everyone gets as much as they want. A fiber network can ease some of the problems, but more and more of internet usage now happens on mobile devices, without a plug in the wall. Quality of service is important, something that greatly favours a broadcasting network, with an identical load at all times and a much better coverage (due to lower frequencies). The average Norwegian listens to 92 minutes of radio every day. If that were to be streamed, it would mean 135MB a day, or 4.1GB per month. That by far outdoes most contracts you will get with a telecom operator. And this is only for your radio needs. In most European countries the average person listens much longer to radio than in Norway (there are even many more people in most European countries too). Telecom operators are not required to deliver in case of emergencies or force majeure. Broadcasters, at least public service broadcasters, have to. I mean, that is when you really HAVE to get potentially life saving info across. And finally, the electricity difference is humongous. NRKs DAB+ network, that covers 99.5% of the Norwegian population (yes, that is indoor coverage), uses less than 1 million GBP (10 million NOK) worth of electricity a year. And the DAB+ network delivers NRK’s 14 radio station to everyone. That is a democratization of radio, ladies and gents. Valmot estimates that the 20,000 LTE base stations in Norway (that cover only 85% of the population) use 40 million GBP (400 million NOK) worth of electricity. Every year. For 85% coverage. Only 765 transmitters are needed to cover 99.5% of Norway with DAB+. 26 times the number of transmitters/base stations. 40 times the electricity. 85% of the coverage. And ∞ the price. Since you pay for web access, whereas radio is free. I’d normally rest my case. My point is still that we need both broadcasting and the internet. The latter will never and should never solve everything.

The European Court of Human Rights has today upheld France’s ban on wearing the burqa in public, according to France 24. The country banned the burqa in 2011 as it could potentially prove a security threat. The court ruled that France has been justified in banning the garment ‘in the interests of social cohesion’.