A grandfather from Perth has inspired thousands of people worldwide after embarking on a round-the-world trip following the death of his wife of 40 years.
Chris Herrmann, 64, says he realised “how life can be snatched away at a moment” after losing his wife to cancer in 2016.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The devastated widower realised that he needed a change of pace. Despite his adult children’s concerns, Herrmann sold his flat and car before booking a flight to Spain to begin what he calls his “senior gap year” .
“I suddenly found myself where I was 40 years ago - single, no dependencies,” he told 9 News Adelaide. “Look at all these young people taking a gap year all the time, I thought ‘Why should they have all the fun?”
Herrmann arrived in Spain with no accommodation booked and no knowledge of the language. In the following months, his odessey took him across Europe, North Africa, Central America and Southeast Asia.
Herrmann posted a series of selfies online to share his adventures with other people.
Wanting to get a genuine gap-year experience, he opted to stay in hostels alongside backpackers who were usually decades his junior - sometimes to their initial surprise.
“Once I got to engage with them and told my story, they’d say, ‘you’re a legend.’ That came up a few times,” he recalls.
Herrmann has now written a book about his year-long journey, which took him through 23 countries, and is urging other older people to embark on their own globetrotting adventures.
He believes his late wife would have echoed that sentiment. “She would have been saying, ‘Look, just get on with life’,” he told ABC. “She would have been right behind it.”
-
5 museum-grade cartoons about Trump's Smithsonian purgeCartoons Artists take on institutional rebranding, exhibit interpretation, and more
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
-
Codeword: August 23, 2025The Week's daily codeword puzzle
-
How China uses 'dark fleets' to circumvent trade sanctionsThe Explainer The fleets are used to smuggle goods like oil and fish
-
One year after mass protests, why are Kenyans taking to the streets again?today's big question More than 60 protesters died during demonstrations in 2024
-
What happens if tensions between India and Pakistan boil over?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION As the two nuclear-armed neighbors rattle their sabers in the wake of a terrorist attack on the contested Kashmir region, experts worry that the worst might be yet to come
-
Why Russia removed the Taliban's terrorist designationThe Explainer Russia had designated the Taliban as a terrorist group over 20 years ago
-
Inside the Israel-Turkey geopolitical dance across SyriaTHE EXPLAINER As Syria struggles in the wake of the Assad regime's collapse, its neighbors are carefully coordinating to avoid potential military confrontations
-
'Like a sound from hell': Serbia and sonic weaponsThe Explainer Half a million people sign petition alleging Serbian police used an illegal 'sound cannon' to disrupt anti-government protests
-
The arrest of the Philippines' former president leaves the country's drug war in disarrayIn the Spotlight Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by the ICC earlier this month
-
Ukrainian election: who could replace Zelenskyy?The Explainer Donald Trump's 'dictator' jibe raises pressure on Ukraine to the polls while the country is under martial law
