April 25, 2021, 3:34 am | Read time: 6 minutes

Richard Garriott is probably what many people would call a “wealthy eccentric.” The multimillionaire, who made his fortune as one of the first computer game developers, built a house called “Britannia Manor” filled with trapdoors and secret passages and collects skeletons, stuffed birds, and preserved brains. Many extraordinary hobbies that suggest a quirky and perhaps challenging personality.

But in conversation with TRAVELBOOK, Richard Garriott is neither. Instead, he’s simply a down-to-earth man who has taken many fascinating trips in his life and visited places that most people will never see. 

Nowhere is as breathtaking as the interior of Antarctica

He began traveling to extraordinary places in the 1990s. In 1998, for example, he dived to the wreck of the Titanic. That same year, he embarked on his first of two expeditions to the South Pole. For him, the South Pole is the most fascinating place he has visited on Earth. “There is no place on our planet as breathtaking as the interior of Antarctica,” Garriott tells TRAVELBOOK.

The reason: The laws of physics seem to be suspended here. “Visual perception, for example, is completely impaired–you simply can’t judge distances anymore,” Garriott explains. This is due to the lack of reference points, such as houses, plants, or animals. So it can happen that a stone a few meters away turns out to be a man-sized boulder several kilometers away.

Also interesting: Adventure Antarctica–what’s a trip to the South Pole like?

What impressed Richard Garriott most about his space journey?

But as exciting as he found Antarctica, Earth soon wasn’t enough for Garriott. In 2008, he embarked on a journey most people can only dream of: He traveled to space. On October 12, 2008, Richard Garriott was part of a two-week mission aboard the ISS. There, he held the first art exhibition in space and produced videos about what it’s like to live in space. 

Interestingly, for Garriott, the most exciting part of his trip to space was how it changed his view of Earth. He talks about the “overview effect”: “When you look at Earth from space, you understand how Earth works. You see the movement of tectonic plates, you see sunrises and sunsets every 45 minutes, you cross entire continents in 20 minutes–and you learn to perceive distances on Earth differently. Because you’ve seen it with your own eyes.” This experience also significantly influenced his view of the planet and humanity’s impact on it. 

Also interesting: Time-lapse shows how Earth has changed since 1984

With his journey to space, Garriott, whose father is a U.S. astronaut, became the sixth space tourist ever. But that apparently wasn’t enough for him, as he recently completed his latest extreme journey. A journey that took him to the deepest point of the oceans: the Mariana Trench.

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New insights into the deepest point on Earth

This was only made possible by a completely newly developed submarine. With it, it was possible for the first time to dive into the deep sea multiple times–previously, the vehicles were unusable after one trip. “You have to consider the pressure these submarines are under. When diving down, the pressure on the roof is like having the entire Empire State Building on top,” Garriott explains. He reports that during his dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, 11 kilometers deep, the entire cabin shrank by several centimeters.

The descent took a total of four hours, as did the ascent. Richard Garriott and his colleague spent the rest of the 12-hour journey at the bottom of the Pacific. Until now, such a long stay at the bottom of the Mariana Trench was not possible–and this led to some new and astonishing insights. For example, Garriott and his partner discovered that it is not, as previously assumed, a completely inhospitable place. There are actually microorganisms that feed on falling food. The team also observed currents for the first time during the four-hour stay. 

With this, Garriott not only made a scientific discovery. He is now one of only 14 people who have ever traveled to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. And with the completion of this journey, he now holds a world record that will be difficult to break. He is the only person to have visited both the North and South Poles, the deepest accessible point on Earth, and space. Was this record intentional? “No, it was a nice side effect,” Garriott admits. In fact, he never expected it would be possible to travel to both space and the bottom of the Mariana Trench. 

The next dream: A trip to Mars!

The question is: What’s next? What trips can a person who has seen almost everything on Earth still dream of? The answer is simple: not on Earth, but in space. Because Garriott has one more big journey he would like to undertake: a trip to Mars. “I hope to travel to Mars with my family–maybe just for a vacation or even to emigrate there. Because I believe that humans will colonize Mars in the next 10 to 20 years.” He wants, like his good friend Elon Musk, who was also a guest at his wedding, to be born on Earth and die on Mars. “But not due to the consequences of the trip,” Garriott laughs.

Also interesting: How dangerous would a trip to Mars be?

He is fully aware that a trip to Mars and living there is currently impossible for humans. The dangers to the body are still too great, as eyes and bones are severely affected, and even general cell division is slowed down. “But I believe we can solve all these problems,” Garriott says optimistically.   

Either way, it will take some time before that happens. And until then, Garriott will surely visit some other extraordinary places…

Video editing: Sonja Koller