IT took 61 trains, 78 buses, 18 boats, 34 car journeys and even a lift from an elephant, but a couple has made it around the globe without setting foot on an aeroplane.

Tom Fewins, a lifelong Oxford United fan, and fiancée Lara Lockwood even managed to make it back in time to watch the U’s final match of the season.

The couple, from East Hanney, near Wantage, spent 297 days and went through 19 countries to travel a total of 44,609 miles.

Mr Fewins said: “If you fly from A to B you don’t see anything in between and there is a big culture shock when you get there, people look different, the food’s different and so on.

“If you travel slowly overland, you see the changes and you see before you get to the destination hints of what is to come. That way, you remember the time you taste your first chilli or see your first minaret.”

The 32-year-old said the couple also had concerns about the impact flying to their destinations would have on climate change.

After nearly a year’s planning and saving, the pair gave up their house and their jobs in local government and sustainable development and boarded the Eurostar train to Brussels.

During their trip, they met Siberian soldiers, land-mine victims in Cambodia, swam in the world’s deepest lake and hiked in the world’s deepest gorge. And to top it all off, the couple got engaged after Mr Fewins proposed to Miss Lockwood as they crossed the international date line in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Mr Fewins said: “I never expected the trip to change me or cure me of my wanderlust altogether, but I think I have come back more tolerant and with quite a strong faith in humanity.”

He said the best food was in China and the worst on the boat from China to America.

They made it through south-east Asia without succumbing to sickness, but picked up stomach amoebas in Oaxaca in Mexico – before the swine flu outbreak.

He estimated their travels cost £10,000 each, and they produced approximately 2,668kg of carbon dioxide per person, compared with the 7,150kg it would have taken to fly the same distance.

Throughout the trip, Mr Fewins and Miss Lockwood documented their journey on the blog worldinslowmotion.com and won Lonely Planet’s Best Travelogue award.

Now the couple plan to turn it into a book, partly telling the story of their journey and partly offering advice to other travellers.

They are now splitting their time between Mr Fewins’s family home in East Hanney and Miss Lockwood’s parents’ home in Ross-on-Wye while they decide what to do next.