The man formerly known as Rafael Lozano, now known simply as 'Winter', has been on a one-man campaign for 17 years to visit every single Starbucks store.

While that might seem like a truly terrible and crazy idea, we first have to cast our minds back to the year 1997, when Winter started his challenge, and there were less than 1,000 shops in the US and Canad. During the course of his quest their international presence has exploded, making it a much tougher task. 

That didn't stop him however, and while the software programmer admits that the chain has some pretty detestable coffee which he actually doesn't like to drink, he's still what you might safely call obsessed with the place, chugging down about 10 cups a day and making full use of their free WiFi. Having been to six continents to indulge his love of coffee, it seems that Winter has spent something in the region of $100,000 on his quest. Here he is (excitedly) visiting his 11,000th store, which is an impressive achievement, depending on how you define impressive, of course.

You can keep track of his strange campaign on his blog, Starbucks Everywhere, where he constantly updates the number of outlets around the world that he's managed to visit, as well as providing a bit more info on why he started this quest. Since the campaign started getting a lot of viral attention, he's been getting the usual amount of trolling by people telling him that he's wasted his time, money and life by doing this, but as the folks at Grub Street rightly point out, he's been around the world, while you probably go to your local coffee house twice a day and are more than likely on your way to spending a similar amount of money by the time you've been doing that for nearly two decades. Maybe we should all get out more...

Via Grub Street. Main pic via Ivana de Carlo on Flickr