Iran

Naturalist
Professional explorer
Popularizer

Biography

Nacho Dean is a well-known adventurer. He is the first and only person in history to have successfully walked around the world and swum between 5 continents (there have been more people on the moon)

  • From 2013 to 2016 he walked around the world, an expedition he called EarthWideWalk. It took him 3 years to travel 4 continents, 31 countries and 33,000 kilometers on foot, solo and unassisted, in support of the environment.
  • Between 2018 and 2019 he completed the Nemo Expedition, a challenge in which he swam between the 5 continents to send a message about ocean conservation.

Author of 2 books “Libre y Salvaje” and “La llamada del océano” published with Planeta publishing house, he has given more than 150 international conferences and has been the protagonist of countless interviews and reports in the media.

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Childhood and youth

Born in Malaga, Spain. He owes his passion for adventure and his love for nature to his parents who, from an early age, took him to the mountains, camping and swimming in the sea. As the son of a sailor, Nacho Dean grew up moving constantly (from those years he acquired his ability to adapt to change, a skill that would prove very useful in facing the extreme conditions of his expeditions), surrounded by souvenirs that his father brought back from his long trips around the world (African masks and spears, cutlery from Thailand, wood carvings from Angola, trays from Egypt…) and reading the adventure books of Jules Verne, Jack London and Rudyard Kipling.

During his youth he enjoyed countless sports such as climbing, surfing, mountain biking and snowboarding, and took advantage of any occasion to be outdoors, where he was happy and in a very instinctive way felt life in all its fullness. Gradually, at the age of 20, he began to go trekking for several days and weeks in the mountains, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied, spending his first nights outside bivouacking and sleeping in shelters.

A new world of exciting discoveries unfolded before him: weeks walking in contact with nature, arriving at places on his own two feet with only what fits into a backpack. Then came the Trans-Pyrenees Crossing, four different variants of the Camino de Santiago, trips to Lapland above the Arctic Circle and the Sahara desert, where the dream of a lifetime would slowly start taking shape. One day, a question inevitably seized his mind: why not walk around the world?

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Birth

August 20, 1980 Malaga

Studies

Publicity and Public Relations, UCM Technician in Natural and Landscape Resource Management (Asturias)

Profession

Naturalist, professional adventurer, lecturer and writer.

Mission

To explore the limits of human capacity and the most wild and remote places on planet Earth.

Vision

A humanity of free, healthy and happy people living in balance with the planet.

Family

After returning from his walk around the world and publishing his first book, he met Sara (1985) who accompanied him during his training and swimming expedition, and with whom he now has two daughters: Mar (2020) and Iris (2021).

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Acknowledgments and awards

2023

PREMIO ELLE Eco Awards
PREMIO CAMBIO 16 Medio Ambiente

2021

TOP GLOBAL HUMANITAS AWARD
Social Impact Category by the IDC Open Global School.

2020

ADVENTURER OF THE YEAR AWARD
Fundación España Rumbo al Sur.

2019

TALENTIA AWARD
for Culture and Sports.

2016

COMMEMORATIVE MEDAL
of the City of Malaga

30th Award
Sports Gala of Benalmádena.

2015

Nominated
for the Princess of Concord Awards.

2014

Finalist Discovery Max
Awards in the category Breaking the limits.

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“There is no border more impassable than the one that prevents us from believing in something.”