Ed sets his sights on 7,000-mile trek back home to Birmingham

Ed Hewitt, aged 27, from Maythorn Gardens in Tettenhall, left his corporate job at BP in London at the end of December to travel to the capital city of Thailand. Once there, he will journey a total of 7,000 miles along some of the most dangerous roads in the world by trains, buses and trucks.

The trip is expected to last seven months and along the way Mr Hewitt intends to stay with local people to help save money.

He will travel through Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and finally through Europe.

Scroll down to see the route that Ed will take

He said: "I decided to quit my job and follow my passion, which is travelling. People told me to do it while I am still young so that is what I am doing.

I leave at the end of February. I first visited Bangkok when I was 18. I taught English in a school for seven months and that was when I fell in love with travelling so it only seems ideal to start my journey there.

"I have travelled around the world before but I am more anxious about this trip than any other. My biggest worry is being in a road accident. I've been watching World's Most Dangerous Roads and will be travelling along one that featured on the programme which is very daunting."

The Oxford University graduate has set himself a budget of spending no more in total each month than he used to spend on rent alone in London.

After taking into account flights, visas and equipment, this works out at about £25 a day. If he runs out of money he will be forced to search for work.

And while the majority of his time will be spent sight-seeing and meeting new people, he added that he will still have time to blog and write about his experiences online. He said: "I will be updating my blog on a regular bases so people can follow my travels. I call myself a dromomaniac, which is a term used by Michael Palin to describe people who love to travel and am currently setting up a website under the same name to form a community of travellers.

"Users will be able to create their own profile and share their pictures, stories and articles from countries they have visited." The website is here.

People can sponsor Ed's trip by visiting this website.

All the money raised will go towards Guy's Trust which was set up in memory of 25-year-old Guy Joseph, an avid traveller who died in a paragliding accident.

He added: "I met Guy's parents at a travel event a few months ago. I was incredibly moved by the story as we were the same age and had a number of mutual friends in common. The idea of Dromomaniacs is to connect with people who love to travel and hear about their experiences."

"I've worked hard to save up for this trip and will be on a strict budget. I want to show people there are so many more amazing things they can do with their money."

"The chances of finding people who speak English are quite high so I'm not too worried about the language barrier."

Trip of a lifetime – this?map shows the route that Ed will take

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