Tony Giles – blind solo traveller
You don’t need to see to travel, because essentially travelling is about people. You can go to the countries and look at the mountains and that is okay, but you need people, without the people you got no culture. That is what I am interested in, how people live different ways – Tony Giles
Tony Giles aka Tony the Traveller, 41, from England is born blind, partially deaf and he is travelling the world blind since 22 years. He visited 124 countries so far and his goal is to travel all spots of this planet. So officially 59 are missing, if you count the official countries.
I met him on lovely Travel Festival Leipzig, a platform for people that travel in a reflective conscious way. I talked with Tony about how he started to travel alone with no internet. About his beginnings in America, food in Japan, that blew him away, about bungee jumping, jumping out of airplanes and rafting.
We talked about different smells of the countries, he mentions a place that attacs all your senses and where everything smells like poo, he described how german cities smell, particularly Leipzig, which country he loves the most, visiting places off the beaten track, how he can afford all his travelling and biggest plan so far: hiking the Inca Trail of Machu Picchu in Peru in October 2020.
He wrote two books so far. “Seeing the world my way” and “Seeing the Americas my way”: Seeing the World My Way, describes his early journeys: out for adventure but consumed by alcohol as a method for dealing with his disabilities. His second ebook, Seeing the Americas My Way, is a more sober, yet more emotional tale. It highlights his challenges of confronting personal issues whilst travelling.
For his life challenge – hiking the Inca Trail – he raises money. One half is for his trip, the other half goes to the Galloways Society for the Blind. A charity based in Preston England, helping and supporting blind and visually impaired people.
It was a big pleasure to meet him. Check him out.
Meet him also on TED Talk and his website.
