BY YVETTE TAN From Mashable

This guy deserves to win Father of the Year.

A Chinese man decided to drive 30,000 km (18,641 miles) from home in China, all the way to Washington in the U.S., because he promised he’d send his daughter to college if she got in.

The epic road trip took 108 days, taking Huang Haitao and his daughter, Huang Xinyi, from their home in Nanjing, eastern China to Seattle University (SU).

The trip took them through 26 countries. Here’s an approximate tracing of their incredible journey.

Their first stop was Russia, before making their way across the rest of Europe, including places like Turkey, Macedonia, Slovenia and Switzerland before finally ending up in the British town of Southampton.

Once there, the duo crossed the Atlantic by air, and had to ship their car to the U.S., where they resumed their road trip, according to news outlet the Yangtze Evening News.

They collected their car and set out from Chicago, going along Route 66 across the country to Los Angeles, before driving north to Seattle.

Road trip of a lifetime
The duo aren’t strangers to big road trips. According to Huang, the idea first came about four years ago when his daughter took a year off to travel across the North Pole with him.

He had made a promise to her that he’d drive her to school, if she got accepted by a college in the U.S.

And Huang delivered. He began preparing for the trip the minute Xinyi received her admission letter from SU, having to apply for visas and complete paperwork.

The duo arrived on campus on Sept. 11, upon which the school offered to hold a special welcoming ceremony for them — which Huang promptly rejected.

“[She] came to study, her top priority is to settle down quickly for her future academic life,” the former primary school art teacher reportedly said.

He also added that he was glad to able to spend time with this daughter.

“After she goes to college, there won’t really be many opportunities in future for me to spend so much time with her,” he said.

“She’ll have her own life, so the least I can do is send her onto the next chapter of her life.”

Tissues, anyone?

IMAGES:

IMAGE: GOOGLE MAPS/MASHABLE ART

IMAGE: 人民日报/WEIBO

IMAGE: 人民日报/WEIBO

IMAGE: 人民日报/WEIBO

IMAGE: 人民日报/WEIBO

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