THE ADVENTURE OF BEER DRINKER
Ben Coombs, 38, from Plymouth, Devon spent 20,000 miles and 21 countries across three continents in his unusual adventure to travel from the southernmost to the northernmost point of the world where there is a pub.
He set off from the Arctic Circle and reached the southernmost part of Chile for seven months and said: “it is important to travel, not the destination”.
He received the idea of this adventure while drinking beer in a pub in Dartmoor.
Traveling with his sports car TVR Chimaera called “Kermit” started on the Norwegian island of Svalbard in the abandoned mining settlement Pyramiden, where only four inhabitants live.
Coombs says finding the world’s northernmost pub was “an easy research process.”
“The pyramid is located just under 700 miles from the North Pole, it’s the world’s tallest human settlement with permanent residents and there’s only one bar,” he says.
“All inhabitants live in a building that is still functioning, it is the old hotel in the town, where there is still a bar that works.”
To find the northernmost and southernmost pub in the world, Coombs sought locale with a liquor license in which everyone could get out of the street and order a beer.
Although there are bars in Antarctica, they are in the bases and are not available to the public or do not have licenses to sell alcohol.
When looking for the southernmost settlement, Coombs discovered Puerto Williams in the group of Fireside Islands (Tierra del Fuego) in Chile.
From Pyramiden, Coombs drove across Europe to Southampton, where the car was shipped to New York in August.
Then he drove across the United States to California and then headed to the south of Mexico. He only had to repair his car once in Nicaragua, where he had a gear defect.
At some stages of the journey, some of his friends joined him.
“Central America quickly flew under the wheels, and then we sent the car from Panama to Columbia,” explains Coombs.
Then only 8,000 miles of Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Argentina were left to reach the southernmost pub in the world.
In Puerto Williams, he arrived on February 12.
“We were sitting on plastic chairs outside, and the menu had an only light beer and some cheap whiskey. Surely there are more attractive places that would take 20,000 miles, but that’s not the point. It’s important to travel, not the destination, “he says.