Traveling 26,000 miles would be easy on a plane.

But when it’s done on a train and in seven weeks, 26,000 miles not only takes someone to their destination, but it takes them back into history and maybe even into their own past.

For 65-year-old Sacramento State student Jonas Porup, his journey by train last summer from his birthplace in Denmark to Sweden, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, and on the Trans-Siberian Railroad back to Denmark was as much an adventure in geography as it was in soul-searching.

“On a train, you have time to think, to philosophize about where you are while you view everything around you,” Porup says. “You have to love trains to do it.”

Porup started the trip by flying to Denmark and from there boarded the train on June 3. He returned to Sacramento July 26. It was a seven-week journey that demanded some special planning.

“I had two pairs of boxer shorts sewn together, with pockets everywhere to carry everything (traveler’s cheques, cash, American dollars). You should never carry everything in one place,” says Porup, who rode first class for comfort and security reasons.

He wore his handy and secure boxers throughout his adventure without any problems, although he was interrogated by Russian Security officials for 30 minutes.

“My thirty-day Visa expired June 8 and I was still in Russia four hours past my expiration on the border of Ukraine,” he says.

As a senior this year, Porup will complete degrees in history and African studies in December. He pursued a degree in African studies partly because he plans to serve with the Peace Corps in Africa.

He plans to get into the master’s program for history next spring and is fascinated by the study of the past, including American Civil War. Perhaps most of all, he’s intrigued by everything Russian.

“Russia has suffered so much. You can’t comprehend the pain Russia has gone through unless you’ve seen the battle sights,” says the retired international flight service manager for Trans World Airlines.

Porup has tried to comprehend the enormous loss of the Russians during World War II. “2.7 million people, including soldiers, died in the Second World War,” he said with astonishment.

Porup’s journey even drew the attention of The Guinness Book of Records. Although it’s organization no longer prints traveling distances as records in the book because it receives so many record claims per year, Porup’s 26,000 mile (35,000 kilometer) excursion by train was acknowledged. Officials at Guinness said there was no record found of a longer distance for a single train excursion.

“Seeing Russia, studying its culture, from where Russia came from to where it’s going has been fascinating; Russia has a long way to go, since its communism reign for 70 years,” Porup says.

He is intrigued by many battlefield sights, including the sight of the 1943 World War II tank battle in Kursk, Russia, where the advancing Germans destroyed 800 Russian tanks.

“I’ve seen the world and now I’m in the university to study history and I want to put everything together,” he says.

He has analyzed many historical and war sights in Russia, including the Temple of the Blood in Ekaterinburg, Russia, where the last czar family was killed in 1918.

“I hope to go to Russia to teach American Civil War for six months in Novosibirsk,” he says.

Porup was born July 29, 1938, in a small village in Sonder-Vissing, Denmark, where he was born, baptized, attended school and married. Porup moved to Monterey in 1964, then to Kansas City and New York City. He has lived in Sacramento since 1970.

Father to three children ranging in age from 20 to 29, Porup visits his son in Australia regularly.

“If you don’t know where you came from, how can you know where you are going (in life)?” Porup says. He said he is going back to school now to simply learn, and to hopefully teach about what he’s seen and learned in his life.

Porup has traveled just about everywhere, including Denmark, where his brothers, sisters and family still live, the North and South Poles and to Africa on safari.

Porup dives into all his interests with passion. He’s currently studying the Russian language, jamming two semesters of work and study into one, and studying rigorously five days a week.

But he’s always made time for other pursuits, including teaching ballroom dancing on cruise ships. This year he taught ballroom dancing on a cruise for the 41st time.

From pilot training in Texas to teaching ballroom dancing, to currently working part-time as a real estate agent since 1971, and traveling the world numerous times, there isn’t much he hasn’t done.

There are a couple things he hasn’t tackled – he says he’d like to write a book and do some work on commercials next.