At 4pm today Ed Gillespie and girlfriend Fiona King will hop on the No 59 bus from his Brixton home to Waterloo station.The 15-minute journey will be the start of a year-long mission to travel the world. But the trip, on which they will visit 20 countries and cover 40,000 miles, has one major complication - at no point will they travel by plane.
The adventure, which includes stops in Paris, Moscow, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, is designed to prove that there are ways of travelling that are less damaging to the environment than flying.
Mr Gillespie, 34, and Miss King, 28, have mapped a route using 19 trains, seven ferries, five buses, three container ships and a banana boat. In doing so they will reduce their carbon footprint for the trip from eight tonnes to slightly over one.
"I'm putting my time and money where my mouth is to celebrate the joy of slow, low-carbon travel," said Mr Gillespie.
"The trip has provoked a mixed reaction, and some people think I am barking mad, but I am confident that I am making a valid point and this is a good way to get it across."
Mr Gillespie, who worked as environmental manager for Transport for London before starting his own climate change company Futerra, said: "I'm not an anti-flying fanatic. I've taken more than my fair share of flights in my time, working in Jamaica, Australia and the South Pacific as a marine biologist. "Maybe this latent carbon guilt has contributed to my decision to undertake this particular journey.
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