One Man's Odyssey

[PiriReis]

Along with Marco Polo, Zheng He, Ibn Battuta is one of history's great explorers. He set out from his native Tangier in 1325, when he was just 21. By the time he returned home for good almost 30 years later, he had covered some 120,000 (around 75,000 miles) km and and visited the equivalent of 44 modern countries...


Open link for bigger image: http://www.time.com/time/interactive...#ixzz1xbi4Fj2S


Would you have done something like this?

Any thoughts on the journeys of these great explorers?

[MrQwerty]

What a journey . And to think I never heard of this man. What motivated such an extensive way beyond the hajj is what I would like to know.

[Chamboozer]

A lot of it was pure curiosity. He got a good education in Cairo, Damascus, and Mecca, so his employment was in high demand everywhere. Thus he could be guaranteed hospitality wherever he went. He heard of an opening as a judge in the court of the Sultan of Delhi, thus his travels to the east, but once he got there he found the man's temper made the job very dangerous and thus agreed to be the ambassador to China instead. By the time he returned to Tangier, there were just a handful of places he had not explored and so he decided to round out his travels by being a diplomatic agent for the Marinid Sultan and traveling to West Africa.

It should be noted that the authenticity of his travels in China are doubted, his writings on that subject are a lot less detailed than on everything else and it reads more like a collection of rumors than an actual travel log.

[StLeibowitz]

Wow...I remembered that name from somewhere, and now I'm kind of annoyed with myself for forgetting something like this. Zheng He's trip looks pitiful in comparison, especially considering that it was mostly by boat.

[Tanzhang (譚張)]

And to think I never heard of this man.

His Travels are actually quite famous, shame on you. :P

[Camara]

Also a good one-off ninja explorer, but nowhere near as traveled as Polo and ibn Batuta, was Pero da Covilhã.