After a 14-hour flight from Australia to the United Arab Emirates in December, Julie Berry took a limousine to see the tallest building in the world, the 160-story Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
She looked the building up and down, then got back in the limousine.
“We couldn’t go in and go to the top because it was like 3 a.m.,” said Berry, a Gorham native whose other adventures include time on the CBS reality show “Survivor” in 2004. “And we had to get back to the airport.”
Berry couldn’t wait for the Dubai office tower to open because she was on a record-setting mission to spend time on all seven continents in less than five days, total. She and her traveling partner, Kasey Stewart, accomplished the whirlwind globe trot in three days, 20 hours, 4 minutes and 19 seconds. They are now the proud keepers of the Guinness World Record for “fastest time to travel to all seven continents.” The pair was notified Thursday that Guinness had accepted their documentation – photos, videos, passport stamps, signatures, etc. – and officially awarded them the record.
Julie Berry and Kasey Stewart dine in a pub in Frankfurt, Germany. At far left, Berry flies over Sydney Harbor in Australia.
Berry and Stewart had both traveled around the world before on their own, but were looking for a new challenge and something that might inspire others to see the world and seek new experiences.
“Seeing each country that quickly, the language and culture and landscape seemed so vastly different,” Berry said. “But when we asked questions, we saw that everyone wants love and harmony.”
Though they didn’t have much time in any one spot, the pair visited a citadel outside Cairo, Egypt; ate Wiener schnitzel at a pub in Frankfurt, Germany; and frolicked on the ice in Toronto. They flew in an open-door helicopter over Sydney, Australia, and came nose-to-nose with penguins on King George Island in Antarctica. They also spent time in two spots in Chile – Santiago and Punta Arenas.
Because of the tight schedule, they had to improvise somewhat. In Cairo, they booked a cab to take them to Egypt’s ancient pyramids, but when they realized how long it would take, they settled for a glance at a nearby citadel instead.
Berry and Stewart pose for a photo in front of a building in Punta Arenas, Chile, their 6th stop on their 7-continent globe-hopping attempt to set a Guinness World Record.
The idea for the trip came from Stewart, who also has a reality TV background, as a contestant on ABC’s “The Bachelorette.” Stewart, who works in advertising, paid for most of the trip, except for their flight to and time in Antarctica, which was sponsored by the adventure travel company Quark Expeditions. Berry said she didn’t know how much the trip cost, and Stewart couldn’t be reached Friday. Since they didn’t have time to stay long in any one place, their expenses included seven flights, one hotel stay, meals and rides in cabs and limos.
They spent more than 50 hours in the air and about 40 hours on the ground. But of that time on the ground, more than 20 hours were spent in Punta Arenas, Chile, where bad weather delayed their flight to Antarctica.
The day of their delay was Berry’s 37th birthday, Dec. 15, so they had a nice meal and got some real sleep for the first time in a couple of days.
The pair had set out to make the trip in 72 hours, which to them seemed doable. Stewart and Berry have set up a website, 7in72.com, to explain why they took the trip and to document it for people, and hopefully serve as an inspiration for other adventurers. Their photos and video can be found on their Instagram accounts, @julieberry and @Kasey.
Berry and Stewart are the first holders of the record for the fastest time to reach all the continents. Guinness didn’t have a previous record for this category, but based on research done by the company’s Records Management Team, the likely fastest time for visiting all seven continents was five days, said Kristen Ott, a spokeswoman for Guinness World Records North America Inc. So that’s what Stewart and Berry aimed at.
Berry and Stewart on a sidewalk in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the 2nd stop on their globe-hopping trip.
Berry says her love of travel started with family camping trips and led to her living off the land on the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu for the filming of “Survivor.”
After coming in fifth on “Survivor,” Berry moved to Los Angeles and got a degree in counseling, working as a family therapist for several years. She also dated “Survivor” host Jeff Probst for about three years. She began working as a freelance producer for reality TV shows around 2013, including “Dancing with the Stars.” She said the casting director of “Survivor” helped get her started as a TV producer.
In late 2016, “always looking for the next travel opportunity,” she took time off from work and traveled around the world alone, paying for that trip herself.
She paid for most of her flights with miles earned from credit cards over the years and, in Australia, got free transportation when she was hired to drive camper vans from one dealer to another.
She first met Stewart in Los Angeles. But they reconnected last year in Queenstown, New Zealand, of all places. He, too, had taken time off to travel around the world, and they were both working as volunteer parking attendants at a Bonnie Tyler concert.
After he visited his seventh continent, Stewart had an idea to do something different with his travels, something that might “inspire others to push outside their comfort zone.”
Berry has the same hope.
“Maybe if people hear about us and see the video, they’ll go after whatever their dream is,” she said.
Berry and Stewart ice skate in Toronto, their 5th stop on their attempt to break a Guinness World Record.
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