Gunther Holtorf left Germany with his wife in 1989 for an 18-month tour of Africa in an old Mercedes Benz G Wagon. Once they got on the road, the couple never stopped traveling. They ignored hotels and restaurants to save money, and visited everything from Everest Base Camp to the Albuquerque Balloon Festival. After his wife died, at her request, Holtorf kept going.
Over the last 23 years, the former airline executive has racked up 500,000 miles behind the wheel of the truck he calls Otto. He has chronicled most of those miles with two Leica film cameras. He says he has never had a serious breakdown and that he has avoided sponsorship of any sort because having stickers plastered to his truck would be dangerous.
Photographer David Lemke joined him for a leg of his journey and took some of the photos in the video above.
鈥擩oe Spring