Richard Branson's Moskito Island, British Virgin Islands

On the third attempt, made in December 1998, the pair were joined by American adventurer Steve Fossett, and they traveled some 8,200 miles (13,200 km), becoming the first to fly across the whole of Asia in a hot-air balloon, before being forced down off Hawaii. Branson later helped fund Fossett’s record-setting flight in 2005, in which he completed the first solo nonstop circumnavigation of the world in an airplane. In 2021 Branson made a suborbital spaceflight in a Virgin Galactic spacecraft.