The Couple Who Forgot to Come Home

The Setup

In 1988, a German former airline executive named Gunther Holtorf had a simple idea... buy a Mercedes G-Wagen, drive through Africa for 18 months, come home.

He never really came home.

Instead, Gunther and his partner Christine piled into their sturdy blue G-Wagen, which they named Otto, (naturally) and set off on what became one of the greatest road trips. Twenty-six years, 179 countries, and nearly 900,000 kilometres later, Otto was finally retired to the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart. A well-earned spot.

No sponsors. No Instagram. Just two people and one remarkably reliable car, pointing at the horizon.

"The more you travel, the more you realize how little you've seen. And the more you've seen, the more you want to continue." — Gunther Holtorf

The Sahara at Night. Beethoven on the Cassette Deck.

This is the part where you should probably sit down with something decent in your Glassy.

They crossed the Sahara under a full moon with Beethoven playing on Otto's cassette deck. They drove the entire length of the Trans-Amazonian highway. They watched lions take down a buffalo in the wild. They became the first Westerners to drive a private car into North Korea.

In some ways, it was relentlessly difficult. At least one rollover in Madagascar (Otto started on the first try). Political borders, rough roads, and years of 24-hour proximity that Gunther once compared to "living as Siamese twins."

And in other ways, it was exactly what every long afternoon stretching into evening feels like when you're somewhere beautiful with someone you love.

Christine

Christine was a single mother from Dresden when Gunther first invited her on what he called "a little trip." She said yes.

She travelled with Gunther for two decades, through Africa, South America, Central America, North America, Australia, Asia, and across the Caribbean. She was there for the mundane hours, the shared silences, the roadside meals, the logistics of getting a car into Cuba and for the moments so extraordinary they barely have words.

When Christine became ill with cancer in her later years, she and Gunther continued travelling for as long as she was able. She took her final trip in May 2009. She died in June 2010, weeks after they finally married.

Gunther kept going, as she had asked him to. He hung her photo from the rearview mirror of Otto for every kilometre that followed.

Some people collect things. Gunther and Christine collected moments. 179 countries' worth of them.

A Little Something To Sip On 

Stay Glassy exists because of the philosophy that the quality of an experience shouldn't depend on where you're sitting. That a great wine, in a glass engineered to actually deliver it, belongs on a boat or a mountain or a beach or a riverbank just as much as it belongs on a white tablecloth.

Gunther and Christine understood something that took most people a lifetime to figure out, the setting is everything, and the setting can be anywhere. They didn't wait for the perfect conditions. They took the good stuff with them.

That's the whole idea, really. Whatever your version of Otto looks like, whether it's a G-Wagen or a kayak or just a picnic blanket on a Wednesday afternoon, it's worth doing properly.

Keep it Glassy.