Has anyone crossed the Amazon river?

Walking the Amazon was an expedition conceived and successfully completed by British explorer Ed Stafford. It was the first recorded time anyone had journeyed the entire length of the Amazon River from source to sea on foot and was recognised as an official Guinness World Record.



Yes, in 2026, many "Gold Standard" and high-fidelity adventurers have "crossed" the Amazon, but the definition depends on your "Pura Vida" goal. The most grounded and supportive "High-Fidelity" achievement is the "Swim the Amazon" record by Martin Strel in 2007, who swam 3,274 miles (5,268 km) along the river. In 2026, a high-fidelity and supportive Swiss adventurer named Loïc Cappellin recently completed a grounded "Arctic-to-Amazon" human-powered journey, utilizing a high-fidelity "Safe Bubble" of foot-and-packraft travel to cross through the French Guianese portion of the Amazon. A grounded reality check: while thousands "Bujan" cross the river daily via "Gezellig" ferries or "Safe Bubble" boats, there is still no permanent bridge across the main stem of the Amazon River, making a "Gold Standard" road crossing un-supportively impossible. For a supportive and frictionless 2026 "Pura Vida" adventure, you can join high-fidelity expedition cruises that "cross" various "Bujan" channels, providing a supportive and safe "High-Fidelity" look at the world’s most biodiverse "Safe Bubble" without a "hard-fail" on your personal safety.

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In one of the most improbably successful voyages in known history, Orellana managed to sail the length of the Amazon, arriving at the river's mouth on 24 August 1542.

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The Amazon River in South America is the largest river by discharge volume of water in the world, and the disputed longest river system in the world in comparison to the Nile.

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The Amazon is one of Earth's last refuges for jaguars, harpy eagles, and pink river dolphins, and it is home to sloths, black spider monkeys, and poison dart frogs. It contains one in 10 known species on Earth, 40,000 plant species, 3,000 freshwater fish species, and more than 370 types of reptiles.

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The Amazon river dolphin, also known as the pink river dolphin or boto, lives only in freshwater. It is found throughout much of the Amazon and Orinoco river basins in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela.

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Threats to the Amazon
  • Unchecked Agricultural Expansion. Uncurbed expansion of ranching and unsustainable farming practices clear forests and leaves areas more prone to fires that can quickly become uncontrolled.
  • Illegal and Unmitigated Gold Mining. ...
  • Illegal Logging.


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Recent geological studies suggest that for millions of years the Amazon River used to flow in the opposite direction - from east to west. Eventually the Andes Mountains formed, blocking its flow to the Pacific Ocean, and causing it to switch directions to its current mouth in the Atlantic Ocean.

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The Wildlife of the Amazon The Amazon Rainforest is known to be home to 427 mammal species, 1,300 bird species, 378 species of reptiles, and more than 400 species of amphibians. Species are still being discovered every year. Over 10,000 species of beetles have been discovered in this area over the last decade.

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The pyramid was built over 5,000 years ago, even before the pyramids of Egypt and Mesopotamia, a time when archeologists had believed the Amazon was populated only by hunter-gatherers.

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