Dimitri Kieffer – Nexus Expedition

Dimitri Kieffer was born in France, and, at the age of 17, he moved to the United States to spend one year as an exchange student in an American high school. From then on, he decided to stay and pursue a college education in International Business at the University of Washington in Seattle.

In 2005, after a 14-year-long career at Microsoft, he decided it was time to leave the company to partake in races and “adventures” that were waiting in his bucket list. He completed then the famous “Iditarod Trail Invitational” footrace in Alaska. From there, together with British adventurer Karl Bushby, he became the first man to cross the Bering Strait westbound. He decided then to continue circumnavigating the world human-powered, proceeding in stages, according to local visa restrictions and weather conditions.

From this beginning, Dimitri embarked on a human-powered journey to circumnavigate the world, proceeding in stages, according to local visa restrictions and weather conditions.

Dimitri has already covered 40,000 kms (~25,000 miles) on his Nexus Expedition route from Anchorage, Alaska to Cape Agulhas, South Africa, the most southern point in Africa.

The first major leg was covered trekking, swimming, skiing and rowing across Alaska, the Bering Strait and Chukotka (Russia). His Russian wife Gulnara Kieffer joined him at that point, and together they cycled through Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran.

Dimitri then kayaked across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran to Oman and cycled further across the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.

While on this route through Africa, Dimitri was also able to kayak Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika and finally in company of Gulnara, Lake Malawi.

Dimitri is planning to start his solo row across the Atlantic Ocean, in April 2024.
Once he reaches Brazil, he plan to cycle back to Anchorage, Alaska, in order to complete this human-powered circumnavigation of the globe.

In 2009, Dimitri was invited to join the Explorers Club. and has been a member ever since.

If interested, here is more information on Dimitri’s previous background in “adventure” and “ultra” sports.

After having completed his first marathon in 1985 at the age of 20, and his first ultramarathon in Hong Kong in 1990, Dimitri progressively took on more and more challenging races in the USA and furthermore overseas.

Over the years, Dimitri completed the “Western States” footrace and several other 100 miles races in the US, as well as the Death Valley Badwater 135 miler, seven “Trailwalkers” in Hong Kong, and multiple races in the Sahara (two 333 kilometers and one 555 kilometers non-stop races) and 4 races in Alaska, including the non stop Iditarod trail by foot (1100 miles).

In addition to enjoying running ultramarathons in harsh desertic or cold Alaskan winter climatic conditions, Dimitri also partook in 7 to 30 days non-stop adventure races, where with his team, he was able to cover a great amount of mileage, trekking, orienteering, snow shoeing, kayaking, mountain biking, roller blading, etc… through quite diverse terrain such as the Vietnamese and Costa Rican jungles, the mighty Yukon river, the Australian outback, South Africa and in the US, the San Juan Islands, the Utah and Californian landscape.