He had some crazy stories, especially about walking across Siberia.
He's a bit of a character to say the least. He decided to cross the U.S. by walking down I-80 from SF to New York. On that leg, his most positive stories were about going through Utah. A church group heard about what he was doing, and would leave him little packages along the highway every couple of miles with a bottle of water and some food. I know he stayed a lot of the time in people's houses. Once people heard his story, they'd just invite him over.
If you meet certain... standards, Utah contains probably the highest-trust society present in the US. Just don't try to leave the <large religious organization in Utah>, or be the wrong race. But it makes sense that they were the most receptive to an interesting guest.
Bad as that is, most people alive in the US weren't even born in 1978. Much as I don't gel at all with Mormons, I never really got the feeling they had any explicit racial beliefs.
They definitely have a general air of discomfort when heathens talk about heathen things though, and you can tell they are never 100% at ease around the non-believers and they have to put on their public mormon face.
Not to make a competition out of it but since Guinness Record was mentioned in the article, I thought I might point out that there is at least one hiker who has hiked more miles: Brian Tansman, who is mostly known on trail as Buck-30.
He has hiked over 45,000 miles so far. Not sure if he's ever featured in a similar article but he has appeared in several hiking podcasts such as The Trail Show and Backpacker Radio:
Fun fact (that I learned from interviews with Buck-30): being an accountant might be the perfect job for long distance hiker as the busy season is the tax season, namely - deep winter and early spring. Some employer would be happy to keep you employed for that season only.
I live right off the American Discovery Trail (https://discoverytrail.org), and have hosted hikers and bikers over the years. And the one thing that they always say, is that the world isn't as bad as you hear it is.
When I was in my early teens, I ended up going on a month long hitchhiking trip that finished by going from Santa Barbara to Eugene. At the time (late 80s) I thought of California as a kind of harsh, materialistic, bourgeouis place and Oregon as more tolerant and enlightened. Heading up I-5 we had no trouble getting rides. Stick your thumb out and someone is stopping in five minutes. That happened right up to the Oregon border and then it stopped cold. We spent two nights sleeping at a rest stop until we got a ride north with some Mexican guys in a pickup. Moral of the story is your mileage may vary, I guess.
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Of all the places he’s seen, Denmark is where Turcich would most like to live. “It was the first time I saw there was a different way to do infrastructure,” says Turcich. “It seemed very peaceful. I loved being able to ride my bike everywhere and not be blasted by an F-150 truck.
> he said he’d been walking around the world all this time and as soon as he clicked with people, he’d always be saying goodbye.
I feel the same way when I take my little vacations... I meet amazing people, connect, and then move on. There is a beauty to it though. I really try to enjoy those moments. They are so brief.
This was a touching story, especially the fact that the dog he rescued might be the first dog to have walked around the world!
In elementary school, around 2nd grade, I attended a talk by Dave Kunst, the first man to walk around the globe. I'm surprised the Guardian didn't mention him. His story has often surfaced in my memory. I never had the guts to do anything remotely so adventurous... and he did it in the very wild 1970s. Around the same time my mother hitchhiked from South America to the US.
Dave told us he searched for sponsors before embarking on his trip, but no one would take him seriously. Not even shoe companies!
He walked to the edge of each continent, to dip his toes in the ocean at the start and end of each continent to make sure he was going as far as possible. I think there were a handful of countries he wasn't able to pass through for some reason or another.
Dave's brother was killed on the journey by thugs who thought Dave and his brother were personally taking donations and carrying the money. He said he came to peace with his brother's murder because he died doing what he loved. If I remember correctly, another brother joined Dave to complete the trip. In all his journey took around four years. About half the time it took Tom.
He closed the talk by showing us all photos of his last pair of shoes after he had completed his trip, and then a photo of his bare feet -- and we all screamed in disgust!
There is also Mike Horn [1]. He has written several books about his expeditions.
Lattitude Zero: "In 1999, Mike set off on an 18-month voyage to circle the equator on foot and by sailing.
Conquering the Impossible: "In 2002-04, Mike went around the world on the Arctic Circle solo in an expedition dubbed "Arktos". It was a solitary voyage of two years and three months without motorised transport (boat, kayak, ski kite and on foot) on a 20,000 kilometres (12,000 mi) odyssey."
> He was already an optimist when he set off, but by the time he returned he had even more faith in humankind, if less in some of the systems we live under.
That's been my experience. When I turn off the news and just get outside and in the company of strangers, I get a much more uplifted view of humanity. I would love to walk/bike on a long journey like this guy did, but it may remain a fantasy the rest of my life. I do road-trip every chance I can.
When I turn off the news and just get outside and in the company of strangers, I get a much more uplifted view of humanity.
I agree though it's a bit of sticking your head in the sand, no? There person is smart, people ... (per men in black). That's why it's always refreshing to talk to a person or two, but easy to be horrified when you look at what people are doing.
I don’t think it’s about the news horrifying us as much as too much consumption making us numb and hypnotised. I used to watch the news once a day on TV and read the newspaper two or three times a week and the experience of news to that cadence compared to what I’m gorging on now is night and day. That was habit, this is addiction.
People who watch too much news tend to be the unhappiest people, and for some reason, they like to spread that unhappiness and negativity around...like a zombie infection or something.
What I take out of this, is rather that the news are (at this point) more the ruminating, focusing on the bad/worst of humanity, rather than the uplifting/inspiring.
In that, it's addictive, and/but not useful nor efficient nor representative of humanity state and progress (of which you get a broader perspective when you get to meet different people everyday).
In that perspective, skipping the news is not so much burying the head in the sand, rather the opposite.
TV news is curated for a particular effect; Why this story, and not that one?
It is a type of commercial entertainment. It it simultaneously inane and culturally violent. Here are people dying in an ongoing struggle for power between warlords and a corrupt government; here are professional athletes winning a tournament. Here's the weather forecast. These subjects merit approximately equal time and similar sentiment in tone. As a viewer of TV news, you are not empowered to change anything because you are not informed of any of the forces and complexities driving the violence and there is no call to action.
People put those systems we live under in place, and, importantly, people continue, even go out of their way, to keep these systems in place. It's not enough to simply recognize that issues are systemic. Good people would actually do something to address them.
An aspect of this that might be hard to factor for, is that by having gone so many places he is probably more skilled than the average in avoiding conflicts and potentially tensed situations in the first place and making people comfortable around him.
I'd see it as the same effect as thugs choosing targets not based on sheer fighting skills, but also the overall behavior and "out of place"ness.
It's tricky. I go around the neighbourhood and meet lovely, warm, friendly, happy inviting people.
But I'm a white english-speaking (albeit with a slight accent) reasonably-well-off male so of course they're nice.
Then they add me on facebook or twitter or ask me to come to their church, or I hang out with them at their BBQ, and god damn it, they turn out to be angry racist homophobic xenophobic folks actively working to make life as difficult as they can for [women|people of colour|homosexuals|immigrants|poor people|anybody different], while promoting black salve and homeopathy and power of prayer as remedies and planning how they're going to "get" the biden/trudau/scientists/leftie/woke/socialist/pinkie/commie/etc bastards and their vaccines and chips and jewish world domination plans.
I've been genuinely morally/philosophically/existentially torn last decade: do I try to see only the good in people? Do I try to engage them in commonalities, build from positions of mutual agreement? OR, does that make me an enabler of evil if I'm not tackling and facing and acknowledging and arguing their darker demons?
White English-speaking people are a minority in the world. If it seems that you can't get along with them, why not try out living in a place where there are fewer of them? Cameroon, Pakistan or Indonesia... so many countries to choose from. It could be a healing experience getting out of your bubble and experiencing less racism, homophobia and all the other toxic stuff you describe.
I guess it would not be obvious from my post; I was born in a non-English speaking country; and after years of civil war, racism, xenophobia, and people shooting at me because of my name or perceived religion or ethnicity etc, I'm now in Canada, and happily, gratefully, excitedly so :)
But I am always wary of the risk and danger of my new country going the way of my old country. I don't think it's a given that Canada and Canadians will be tolerant, open minded, welcoming, friendly - and indeed, many people underneath their veneer, are not.
In this context, mentioning in my post that I'm english speaking is to acknowledge my privilege of not immediatelly appearing to some people as being an immigrant, poor, or different than some of my neighbours. I imagine e.g. a dark-skinned woman with a less Western name and more obviously non-christian, would find out some of these fine folks' true nature a lot faster :-/
> I don't think it's a given that Canada and Canadians will be tolerant, open minded, welcoming, friendly - and indeed, many people underneath their veneer, are not.
A lot of Québécois have stories of relatives being arrested without probable cause by the RCMP during the october crisis of 1970. Some of us have indigenous friends whose parents were in the residential school system. A lot of us have witnessed unconstitutional arrests during g20 protests in Toronto in 2011 or in Québec in 2012 go unpunished for the politicians who ordered them and the cops who carried them out (it's literally kidnapping).
Canada is a corporatocracy. Read Alain Denault's books. Canada acts as a legal shelter for natural ressource extraction companies that commit crimes in developing countries. A lot of the big markets in the country (groceries, telecom, etc.) are full on oligopolies that are protected by the government. This country is part of the british empire and when you pull back the veneer of politeness and decency you see a very violent country.
I don't think we are in a disagreement, necessarily. To another poster's point, I've lived in different bubbles and this one is better. It's far from perfect though, and it's not guaranteed whether it'll go toward better or less good.
It's not your job, or a moral imperative for you to civilize barbarians.
It's also almost impossible to convert people like that out of their cesspit of ignorance and hate.
If you want to spend time with them, despite all that, you're not a bad person. If you don't, you're not a bad person either. It's a personal choice.
A lot of people who have those people as relatives struggle with the question of whether to cut them out of their lives. Ultimately, I can't judge them, regardless of what decision they make.
Part of this is an interesting side effect that interacting with people 1:1 is different than when the interaction is intermediated by a group or an ideology or a commercial platform.
I find that when I strip away group dynamics, people all have similar basic needs; that many fears are shared; that many people have similar hopes even if specific struggles or needs vary greatly.
Yes it's disappointing to find out that a nice person turns out to be part of a digusting group, but on the flip side, sometimes seeing the humanity in different people can help lessen the ideologic stronghold on some people. I have some narrow-minded friends and relatives who have been a bit less categorical just by hanging out with nice people who think totally differently than them.
It's not your responsibility to save the world. You can engage with people just on the basis of your shared humanity. If they refuse to let you disagree with their beliefs, let them go.
I subscribe to the philosophy that "the only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing."
Figuring out what you can do within your own sphere of influence can be hard, but you certainly don't have to pretend like bigots are nice people because they invite you to their BBQ.
> Steve Newman (an American who circumnavigated the globe on foot over four years in the late 1980s)
I read Newman's Worldwalk some time ago. It's a long book that covers his adventures in the US and Europe in detail, then describes landing in Morocco and being freaked out by all the Arabs who speak only Arabic, and then conveniently elides the rest of the world entirely and finishes off with him returning home. Did he really walk across Africa and Asia?
Years back I read a number of books by people who walked or biked around the world. Thoughts (these are from memory long ago):
Dave Kunst [1] [2]: Possibly the first person to walk around the world in the early '70s. His book was a slog and he came across as a bitter and dark person. I didn't like being in his head at all. Examples: he enjoyed when people tried to walk with him and they found it difficult to keep up. He was married I think at the start of the walk, and just told his wife/partner: I'm leaving to walk around the world, deal with it. He walked for UNICEF, but in the book it was phrased as something like: I knew I'd never be able to afford the trip, so getting a sponsor was the best way forward.
Barbara Savage [3]: Biked around the world with her husband in the '70s. They saved to buy a house, but decided to bike the world instead. They were pretty competent but had their fair share of incidents. An enjoyable trip with fun people.
Lloyd Sumner [4]: The king of crazy experiences. He rode a bike around the world in the early '70s. He started off from the American south on a Schwinn with a couple hundred dollars in his pocket and a vague plan. He stopped to lecture on generating computer art with school mainframes when he ran out of money, got chased by an ostrich, almost married by accident, stranded on an island after a shipwreck, and more. An absolute delight.
There are two others that I can't remember/find now: a group of young men bicycled long distance in the '80s but didn't think to have fat tires or a light load: one of them packed a portable typewriter, another a full camera kit with many lenses. They carried over 100 pounds of gear on skinny tires and got something like 20 flats per day at times.
And a guy walked around the world in the '80s, all I remember is that he didn't pack well for the journey from France into Spain and almost froze in the Pyrenees.
Savannah’s story and achievement is more interesting and never done before.
No other land animal has probably covered the same level of variation in geography and biomes or walked that much either , some birds or whales would have travelled longer in their lifetimes .
Her resilience to disease, wild animal attacks in a such a vast journey is pretty impressive.
She doesn’t have his inner need to walk the world, yet she kept following her friend and that was enough to travel 40,000 km.
I don’t think any human or another species would possibly do the same for someone else.
I was hiking the Continental Divide Trail and he was walking across the country. I'm not sure I totally get the appeal of walking around the world on roads, but I was cool seeing someone else on a similar but very different journey from my own.
Funny, just yesterday I was wondering how many people had walked around the world, after I watched this movie about Jonas Deichmann's triathlon (120 ironmans) around the world. Trailer (with English subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1nLajor-qA
The article mentions Steven Newman, author of Worldwalk. Neat guy. I met him in West Des Moines (or maybe Clive?) when he was promoting his book, and got an autographed copy, which I really hope I haven't lost over the years. It's well worth reading.
https://www.peteregger.ch/weltumrundung
He had some crazy stories, especially about walking across Siberia.
He's a bit of a character to say the least. He decided to cross the U.S. by walking down I-80 from SF to New York. On that leg, his most positive stories were about going through Utah. A church group heard about what he was doing, and would leave him little packages along the highway every couple of miles with a bottle of water and some food. I know he stayed a lot of the time in people's houses. Once people heard his story, they'd just invite him over.