Most pub crawls involve a city. A particularly ambitious pub crawl might involve two cities. Ours involved four continents, eight countries, 25,000 miles, multiple time zones and a growing inability to remember what day it was.

Looking back, it remains one of the most ridiculous travel ideas I've ever been involved with. Naturally, that made it impossible to resist.

The plan was beautifully simple. Gather a small group of adventurous drinkers, travel around the world in two weeks and sample bars, pubs, breweries and drinking culture across the planet. There would be Belgian beer halls, Czech dive bars, roof top cocktails in Dubai, beach bars in Hawaii, speakeasies in Kuala Lumpur and enough airport departures to completely lose track of what day, time zone and occasionally continent we were on.

What nobody discussed beforehand was the fact that we'd effectively be attempting an endurance event disguised as a holiday.

It Started At Heathrow Because Of Course It Did

Every great pub crawl begins with careful preparation. Ours began in Terminal 2.

The official starting point was a pub inside Heathrow Airport where the group gathered before departure. Most sensible travellers spend the hours before a long-haul flight drinking coffee, checking passports and ensuring they know where they're going. We immediately began drinking.

There was something wonderfully absurd about starting a global pub crawl before we'd technically left the country. Looking around the airport pub, it felt like we were participating in some bizarre sporting event. Most marathons begin with a starting pistol. Our marathon began with a round of tequila shots and pork pies.

Belgium Was The Warm-Up Nobody Survived

Our first proper destination was Brussels.

This seemed sensible at the time. If you're attempting a worldwide drinking adventure, starting in Belgium is a little like beginning a food tour in Italy. The locals have been preparing for your arrival for centuries.

The trouble with Belgian beer is that it doesn't taste particularly strong. This is a trap.

Belgian brewers have somehow mastered the art of creating drinks that taste harmless while quietly rearranging your evening plans. Within hours we were exploring hidden bars, ordering local specialities and making ambitious promises about how sensible we'd be for the rest of the journey.

Nobody believed those promises. Least of all Belgium.

Prague Lowered Prices And Raised Expectations

If Brussels taught us about quality, Prague taught us about quantity.

The first thing everybody notices in Prague is how affordable the beer is. The second thing they notice is that this information can be dangerous. Before long we'd convinced ourselves that buying another round was practically an act of financial responsibility.

The city was magnificent. Historic streets wound through the Old Town, beer halls spilled onto squares and every corner seemed to contain another tempting establishment. It was exactly the sort of place where a pub crawl could accidentally become a sightseeing tour. Or perhaps a sightseeing tour could accidentally become a pub crawl.

At this stage, the distinction had become increasingly blurry.

Dubai Was The Moment Reality Broke

Travelling directly from Prague to Dubai creates a strange cultural whiplash.

One moment you're drinking beer in medieval surroundings. The next you're standing beneath skyscrapers that appear to have been designed by somebody with unlimited funding and no interest in subtlety.

Dubai was glamorous, impressive and also the point where our internal body clocks completely gave up. Nobody knew what time it was anymore. Sleep happened whenever opportunities presented themselves. Meals occurred at random intervals. Time zones were becoming less of a geographical concept and more of a personal opinion. The bars, however, remained excellent. That can't be said for the dance show in the hotel which featured voluptuous dancing girls from India. They all seemed to have been eating too much naam bread.

Colombo Was Where The Wheels Came Off

Every ambitious trip eventually reaches a stage where fatigue begins negotiating with enthusiasm. For us, that stage arrived in Sri Lanka.

The city was fascinating. Rooftop bars overlooked the ocean, local drinking spots offered entirely different experiences and our tuk-tuk adventures somehow became progressively less organised with every passing hour.

At one point I found myself drinking a local beer while sitting on a plastic garden chair in a bar that appeared to have survived several political systems and at least one natural disaster. It was wonderful.

The best travel moments often happen far away from places designed specifically for tourists. Colombo delivered exactly that sort of experience. Nobody remembers the fancy rooftop. Everybody remembers the plastic chair.

Kuala Lumpur And The Art Of Continuing Somehow

By the time we reached Malaysia, our group had developed a strange travelling rhythm.

Airports. Hotels. Bars. Flights. Repeat.

Normal people experience jet lag. We experienced something closer to temporal confusion.

Yet somehow the adventure kept getting better. Speakeasies hid behind unmarked doors. Rooftop bars overlooked futuristic skylines. Local food appeared at exactly the moment it was needed most.

The group had also reached the stage where complete nonsense became hilarious. This is a recognised travel phenomenon. Scientists probably have a name for it.

Australia And Hawaii Felt Like A Shared Hallucination

Sydney was fantastic.

The problem was that we'd already travelled through multiple countries and several time zones by this stage. Walking around Circular Quay felt slightly dreamlike, as though we'd accidentally wandered into somebody else's holiday.

Then came Hawaii.

Crossing the International Date Line completely destroyed what remained of our understanding. We arrived before we'd technically left. Clocks became meaningless. Calendars became theoretical. At one point somebody attempted to calculate what day it was. The discussion lasted twenty minutes and ended without agreement.

Meanwhile, the bars of Waikiki continued serving drinks entirely unaffected by our confusion. Professionals.

Los Angeles Was Exactly As Weird As Expected

By the time we reached Los Angeles, normal travel logic had ceased functioning. This turned out to be ideal preparation for Hollywood.

Los Angeles feels like several cities attempting to occupy the same physical space simultaneously. Celebrity culture, beach culture, dive bars and complete absurdity all coexist in perfect harmony. Naturally, we loved it.

The days blurred into nights and the nights blurred into stories. Some of those stories remain suitable for publication. Others have been quietly retired in the interests of public decency and future employability.

Travel occasionally requires discretion. Los Angeles frequently requires more.

New York And The Final Push

The final destination was New York.

At this point we'd crossed four continents, travelled 20,000 miles and consumed enough airport food to qualify for medical observation. Sensible people would have rested.

We organised one final pub crawl.

There was something beautifully fitting about ending in New York. The city possesses the energy of somewhere that genuinely understands excess. It felt like the appropriate finale for an adventure that had started with airport beers and gradually escalated into a global drinking expedition.

When the final pints arrived at the Beehive pub in Gatwick airport there were equal parts celebration and disbelief.

We'd actually done it. Against all available evidence, we'd completed the journey.

What I Learned From Drinking Around The World

People often ask which destination was best. That's impossible to answer. The beer was best in some places. The bars were best in others. The stories belonged to all of them.

What I learned is that drinking culture tells you far more about a country than guidebooks ever can. Sit in a local bar and you'll quickly discover how people relax, socialise and celebrate. The drinks matter, but the people matter more. That's something we still believe at Tipple Tours today.

The wine, beer and spirits might attract people initially. The stories are what they remember.

Was It A Good Idea?

Absolutely. It was exhausting, chaotic and occasionally ridiculous. It also remains one of the greatest travel adventures I've ever experienced.

Seven people left Heathrow for what was supposed to be a pub crawl. Two weeks later we'd travelled around the world, crossed four continents and collected enough stories to entertain ourselves for years afterwards. The funny thing is that I barely remember the first beer but I remember the people, the laughter and somebody trying to work out what day it was somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. And I remember standing in an airport pub at Heathrow wondering whether this was a daft idea. For once, the answer was yes.

That's exactly why it worked.