78-year-old travels around the world in 1930 Hudson
<p>Phileas Fogg really has nothing on Heidi Hetzer.</p>
<p>After all, Fogg, the fictional character in the Jules Verne classic, Around the World in 80 Days, had a rail and steamer to whisk him on his journey around the globe and a French valet to keep him company.</p>
<p>Hetzer, a 78-year-old woman from Germany, is travelling around the world in a 1930 Hudson, aiming to finish her trip at Brandenburg Gate in June 2016. Solo except for the few times she travels with a guide. She's seen fire and she's seen rain. Snow. Temperatures plunged into the minus degrees in China and Russia. The Grand Canyon and the rolling green hills of New Zealand.</p>
<p>And at the weekend she was in Miami and soon after pulling at city hall on a windy, 26 degrees Celsius Sunday morning, she joked that her vintage vehicle has no heater. No AC.</p>
<p>"I open the windows," she says.</p>
<p>Hetzer, a mother of two and a grandmother of five, set off on her great adventure on August 1, 2014. A former racer, she sold her automobile business and knows cars inside and out — even if this 3.2-litre, eight-cylinder engine Hudson that she affectionately named Hudo aggressively chopped off the tip of her right pinkie. A rag she was using to sop spattered oil caught in the engine and swept her hand upward while in Ontario, Canada, in late September.</p>
<p>For the optimistic road-tripper, who pulls up to a parking space as a stranger and, with her quick smile and ease of chatter, immediately leaves guests feeling like friends she hasn't seen for years, it was a mere speed bump.</p>
<p>"I cannot use the warranty on this car," Hetzer teases. She's put 113,000 miles (181,855 kilometres) on the car she bought specifically for this journey around the five continents. There are some custom additions, like a roll bar for safety. Her budget is NZ$75 per day, not counting fuel and repairs. "I don't buy clothes. This is the only dress, just for you!" she quips, spinning in the breeze to show off her coral dress.</p>
<p><img width="547" height="307" src="http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/8/e/7/7/h/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620x349.18e6ok.png/1448907621598.jpg" alt="The 1930 Hudson that 78-year-old Heidi Hetzer is touring the world in." class="photoborder" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"/></p>
<p>She is determined to see as much of the world as possible. The <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://heidi-around-the-world.com/" target="_blank">Heidi Around the World</a></strong></span> website tracks her adventures. She prefers surface roads over expressways. Has GPS but mostly navigates by instinct and tips from friendly passerby and, when necessary, her car is shipped overseas, such as for her next destination after Miami to South America. "I see much more and can talk to people and if I break down what are you going to do if you're on the highway?"</p>
<p>Hetzer, 78, has driven through the Middle East, China, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. Next up: South America, Africa.</p>
<p>Hetzer was inspired to circumnavigate the world in a car by the first woman to do so, Clärenore Stinnes, a 26-year-old German race car driver who made her trek from 1927 to 1929, in a German Adler Standard 6, in the company of a Swedish cinematographer and writer she married after their globetrotting. Hetzer's route is slightly different owing to today's security issues at trouble spots.</p>
<p>Stinnes' silhouette is stamped to Hetzer's Hudson Great Eight, along with stickers from Ferntree Gulley, Australia; Hamburg; and a yellow beware-of-bears caution sign from Canada. An antique Maine 1930 license plate rides the rear passenger bumper, just above wheels that spin wooden spokes. A map of her route is affixed to both doors and pictures of her children and grandchildren line the dashboard. The happy family photos remind her what she has waiting for her when she returns to Berlin in August — if all goes to plan.</p>
<p>"My youngest grandchild is eight months, I've never seen born. As I was in New Zealand, on Easter Sunday, my telephone rings: 'Mama, you're a grandmother again!'" she says. Her son plans to take his own family on a three-month camping trip there. Only the youngest and oldest can get away with such adventures, Hetzer says. "I'm so lucky. I'm healthy, 78, my God! Not everybody has that."</p>
<p>Hetzer, who speaks no Spanish, can't wait for her next itinerary in Panama, Lima and Buenos Aires. "Miami, it's just beautiful. Yesterday, I was on the beach, swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. Before, I was in Naples in the Gulf of Mexico. Too beautiful. Too much luxury. It's about time I'm going on my trip where it's poor and different. Not enough adventures for me. America was too normal. Australia. New Zealand. Canada. They speak the same language and eat the same things. I need more adventure," she says in a giddy riff.</p>
<p>Hetzer's message: "People should go out. Don't sit at home in front of the TV. Go out and do something, whatever you do doesn't matter. … Keeps you young in your head and in your body. The worst is to sit at home and look at other people's lives and give up on yourself. You can do more than you think and this is my message to older people. Go out and do something fun."</p>
<p><em>First appeared on <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/" target="_blank">Stuff.co.nz</a>.</em></p>
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