Meet The Only Man To Have Walked From South Africa To Egypt Traveling For 2 Years

Mario Rigby is a Canadian-Turks and Caicos Islander adventure explorer, author, speaker, and former professional track and field athlete currently based in Toronto, ON. From 2015 and 2017, he completed an epic two year long walk across Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo entitled Crossing Africa.





But, before you meet him: Google Maps gives a travel time of 1,953 hours (about 82 days, or 3 months). But, this assumes a continuous walk. If we’re to factor in time spent sleeping, eating, and sitting on the side of a highway somewhere in Kenya and re-thinking your life choices, it’ll probably be more than double that.





Mario Rigby, a fitness trainer from Toronto, set out to travel the length of Africa using nothing but his feet (and a paddle boat). Mario, who describes himself as having a burning desire for adventure and exploration (and probably having no girlfriend to stop him), says he really wanted to push his body and mind to the limits.










To fund his travels (visa requirements, accommodation, and I’m guessing about a dozen pairs of trainers/sneakers) he set up a GoFundMe page.


From a bit of Googling, it seems a few more people have tried this feat of feet (see what I did there?), mostly to raise awareness for various causes. The Guinness World Record for the fastest Cape to Cairo journey on foot is held by Nicholas Bourne (not Jason’s brother) who did the trip in 318 days in the late 90’s.