Walking the World: Tom Turcich on Adventure, Growth, and Overcoming Fear through Travel

Sneak Peek:

Tom:    00:00:00    If you can find something that aligns with what you want out of life, that is incredibly motivating and it'll bring you a lot of joy just pursuing it. But it also provides this unbelievable, almost unlimited resilience because the hardships aren't really hardships. They're just, you know, a little bumps on the way to whatever you're working towards. And they're just these points of growth. And it also like liberates you because everything else in between, you can just let come at you and you know you're working towards this goal and then other things are gonna happen, life happens, whatever, but in the meantime, you know your direction and you're working towards this thing.  

Introduction: Welcome to the Traveling with Kristin Podcast, your destination for travel tips, living abroad, advice and insights that help you experience life in foreign cultures. If you're interested in slow travel, living abroad or a digital nomad lifestyle, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Kristin Wilson, the author of Digital Nomads for Dummies and the host of Traveling with Kristin on YouTube. Thank you for traveling with me today and let's see where our journey takes us.

Kristin:    00:01:16    Hey there, Kristin Wilson here from Traveling with Kristin and welcome to episode 272 of the Traveling with Kristin Podcast. I have such a special interview for you today. That's actually many years in the making. My guest today is Tom who walked 28,000 miles around the world. He's one of the first 10 people to ever walk around the planet and his dog, Savannah was the first dog to ever walk around the world. They went to 38 countries over six continents and his book and memoir, his book comes out today, October 8th. The World Walk is an invigorating true story of a man who circled the globe on foot after the death of a close friend at 17 years old, Tom resolved to make the most out of his life to travel and be forced into adventure, to experience and understand the world. And on April 2nd, 2015, he set out to see it all one foot in front of the other. So you've gotta check out Tom's book. It is it just incredible to, to read his story but also everything that he learned along the way. And it took him about two years to write this so you don't wanna miss it. I first heard of Tom on Jason Moore's Zero to Travel podcast and it was an interview that really has stuck with me ever since. And so I was so happy to welcome him to the show today. So hope you enjoy our conversation and I'll see you on the other side.  

Kristin:    00:03:03    Okay, well Welcome Tom Turcich to the Traveling with Kristin podcast. This is such a surreal moment because as I was saying to you before we started recording, I first heard you on Jason Moore's podcast, Zero to Travel. And I told him this before I even met you or knew you were coming on this podcast. I said, this is one of my favorite interviews of your show. I was just totally captivated by it. It had to be at least three years ago now, maybe more so, so happy to have you here. Welcome.  

Tom:    00:03:37    Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.  

Kristin:    00:03:39    And where are you joining us from at the moment?  

Tom:    00:03:43    From beautiful Kentucky America, Kentucky USA <laugh>. My girlfriend is doing her residency in Cincinnati and we live right across the river in Kentucky.  

Kristin:    00:03:55    Oh, I didn't even know it was that close to Cincinnati.  

Tom:    00:03:58    Yeah, we're just like one block basically from the river and then there's a pedestrian bridge that goes right into Cincinnati. So it's really like you're basically living in Cincinnati in a way.  

Kristin:    00:04:09    Okay.  

Tom:    00:04:10    Yeah, so we have another three years here and then it'll be back to Philly where the family and friends are, but for now it's Kentucky.  

Kristin:    00:04:20    Nice. And what kind of residency? A doctor's residency or any specialist --

Tom:    00:04:25    Emergency medicine? Yeah, she's from Alaska and her parents own a tire shop there. And so she grew up working in this, you know, very masculine, go nonstop chaotic tire shop. Uh, so the emergency room is just made for her.  

Kristin:    00:04:43    Okay.  

Tom:    00:04:44    <laugh>, she's made for the chaos <laugh>.  

Kristin:    00:04:46    Yeah, that would definitely uh, be chaotic. And my parents went to Alaska last summer and it just seems like the Wild west over there.  

Tom:    00:04:55    Yeah, it can be definitely once you get off the, the road system for sure.  

Kristin:    00:05:00    And how did you guys meet? I know that from a little bit from your other interviews and your book that I think you had a girlfriend before you left Philadelphia and then you know, as you do you go travel the world and meet some, you know, summer loves or whatever, uh, travel relationships as you go. And then at what point did you guys meet? Was it during your travels or when you got back to the US?  

Tom:    00:05:28    It was during the travels but not towards, not until the very end. So we met in Washington State and I had been walking for about six and a half years at that point and walking across the US was the last leg of the trip. So I landed in Washington State and then started walking over the Cascades and I stopped in this little town Winthrop to write for a few days and I downloaded Tinder for like the first time maybe actually probably like the second time in my life I was, I've always been just averse to it and wanted to meet people in real life. And I had been dating this Turkish girl previously and we kind of fell off. And so I downloaded Tinder and there was like five girls on there, you know, because it's in the middle of nowhere. And one was this Alaskan paramedic and she's standing in a river with no bare gum in her jacket.  

Tom:    00:06:23    Wow. This girl looks amazing. <laugh>. And you know, I was one of few, one of the few eligible bachelors in, you know, in this valley as well for her. She's doing a rotation there. And so we got pizza and just hit it off and, and then she kind of followed me around as I, you know, was walking. She met me a few times, uh, when it was in driving distance. And then she had another rotation in Cheyenne, Wyoming and she met me out in the middle of nowhere Wyoming at this picnic site and she brought me hot Thai food and bottle of wine and we had a bonfire under the stars. And this is after very, very challenging going in Wyoming. Uh, and then yeah, it's, you know, we've been stayed together so we're still together now in Kentucky.  

Kristin:    00:07:12    Wow. That's an amazing story. See, you just never know you, you walked literally the whole world and you get back to the US and you meet someone on Tinder. <laugh>. <laugh>.  

Tom:    00:07:23    Yeah. Her dad says I should have started walking in the other direction. I would've met her sooner.  

Kristin:    00:07:27    <laugh> maybe. Yeah. Well you never know like when, how that timing works out. One of my cousins, she's married with one kid and one on the way living in London and she met her husband when her and her sister, they were au pairs in in London. They were about to leave, I think they had been there for almost six months or something. They were getting a taxi and my cousin's husband was getting out of the taxi and she was getting into it and they just kind of was like love at first sight and then they ended up, she didn't get in the taxi and they just kind of walked around and like maybe went out for drinks and stuff and yeah, that was many, many years ago. Over 10 years ago for sure. Maybe 12 years ago. And  

Tom:    00:08:15    That sounds like a rom-com story. That's amazing.  

Kristin:    00:08:17    <laugh>. I know. And I would ask her like, what if you didn't get that taxi? She's like, well Chris, we wouldn't have met. And you know, it just wouldn't have happened. So who knows how many Yeah. Of these ships passing in the night stories. Ha, go on. But I love, I love to, uh, I'm always interested in like how travelers meet their significant others because of just the nature of travel.  

Tom:    00:08:42    I think it's like a good representation of, one of the benefits of traveling is that you just have to put yourself out into the world for interesting things to happen to you. And you know, if you're inside all the time and if you're not putting yourself out there or even just existing out in the world, you know, you're closing yourself off to these amazing things that can happen that you don't expect to happen. I write about it in the book in a little bit in the intro is that I talk about one of the great virtues of traveling is serendipity. That idea that things can happen to you, but you have to be out in the world for that to happen and traveling's the best way to do that.  

Kristin:    00:09:23    Right. And things definitely will happen just because you're putting yourself out there some subjectively good, some subjectively challenging. I heard you mention that in another interview where yeah, you were talking about putting yourself out there and how your decision to do this walk around the world in the first place was kind of prompted by the sudden death of one of your friends and just having this moment where you realized, you know, life is short and what am I gonna do with it? Maybe you can touch on on that a little bit. And also for people that, that haven't had these kind of adventures and travels, maybe they don't even have a passport yet, you know, maybe they haven't strayed far from home, but they're just kind of interested and, and some of the things that other people have done, why should everybody travel and like seemingly people that have quote unquote normal lives, how can they put themselves in these situations where they're having these surprises and serendipitous moments and these moments that really like wake them up and make them feel like they are living something outside of the normal nine to five rat race?  

Tom:    00:10:40    Yeah, I, traveling will just do that to you automatically. And I think you should travel for the primary benefit of just learning about the world. You know, that's very obvious, but it's not obvious until you've traveled. Uh, you don't really fully understand the benefit of that, of being out in the world and seeing how other countries are run, how the food is a little different, how the restaurants are a little different, how the language is a little different. And, and it just helps really expand your world and helps expand your understanding of things and it helps you be more critical of your own country. And you know, for me thankfully was born American with a great American passport and I'm free to criticize my country as much as I want, which not everyone is allowed to do. And from traveling all these places, you just see that there's other ways to do things.  

Tom:    00:11:39    And so when I come home and now I'm living here, you know, I can have these conversations with other people and say, Hey, you know, we, there's better ways to live. You know, it doesn't have to all be whatever, you know, automobile dominated or you know, you can plant more trees around here. There's, there's whatever it is. But then also on top of that, there's the benefit internally, which is when you go out into the world, you're gonna bump against it. You're gonna get bruises and scrapes and you're gonna have some of those less than joyous, serendipitous moments and you're gonna run into some weirdos. It's just gonna happen because there's weirdos everywhere. But there's also really good people everywhere. The majority of people are good. And you'll come back with these amazing stories and you'll discover things about yourself that you would never discover about yourself if you were at home because you weren't challenged in that way and you weren't caught on your back foot and you didn't walk into a shop and try and ask for some food in the local language and screw it up and then just think about that over and over and over again so you never screw it up again.  

Tom:    00:12:50    There's all these little things that just test you when you're traveling. And so it's like this big mirror basically that you're going up against. And the more time you spend with that mirror, the more time you spend out in the world screwing up, making mistakes, learning, the more capable you become and the more you realize your limitations as well, which both can be really powerful.  

Kristin:    00:13:14    Yeah, I always say that I, it took me about seven years to unlearn a lot of the things that I learned in the first 20 years of my life. And I don't even think I unlearned everything. Like there's still things that I'm discovering 25 years since traveling abroad for the first time that I never even questioned, like didn't even occur to me. You know, like I didn't even realize I was in the matrix in that way. It's like I thought that I saw everything much more clearly after I had traveled and I had, you know, reassessed so many things about what I thought about life, religion, food and everything. And I'm still like, like just the past, actually the past year I've been researching more about um, like the origin of, of humans reading books like Sapiens and things like that. And also going like doing a really deep dive into the food industry and factory farming.  

Kristin:    00:14:18    And I just realized, you know, like I just ate the normal American diet for so long. I didn't question really where anything came from. I never actually looked into the process of every animal product and how it's made from chicken wings to wool clothing. And it's like, you know, I had all these wool scarves in my closet, I didn't even think about that. They came from sheep and how are they, how is that wool harvested from sheep? And just like things like that. I'm sure you walked past many <laugh>, many sheep farms and everything but saying this, 'cause I wanted to ask you like what are some of the like self-identifying beliefs that were broken down during this process And like how do you compare and contrast your worldview now to how it was before you left for this seven year walk?  

Tom:    00:15:13    That's a good question. And it's like very expansive because I think if I met myself back when I started the walk, it would be unrecognizable. And a lot of it is in ways that you just don't even realize. You know, you're just born into whatever bubble you're born into and for you that's the entire world. And you know, the diet, you know, something similar for me where I remember coming back to the US right before meeting Bonnie, my girlfriend and landing in Seattle and like really craving this sausage, egg and cheese, you know, that is like a very American thing that I love. And not being able to finish the full sandwich 'cause it was so incredibly heavy and then all the food in America was just so heavy and you know, so I definitely have a a you know, it changes your appreciation for food of course that's like maybe a surface level thing, but you know, the more you're exposed to the more your palate expands and, and how you enjoy ceviche or you enjoy, you know, a different type of pasta from Italy, whatever it's, or some food from goulash from you know, central Asia.  

Tom:    00:16:18    But for me it's like everything I'd say it, you know, it's really hard to pinpoint how I changed exactly in one way. I would say the primary way was just this really basic understanding that the world is pretty much the same everywhere you go. And I remember before I began, I would have these dreams laying in bed or you know, falling asleep about one day I'm gonna be in El Salvador, I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna be in El Salvador and one day I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna be in the deserts of Peru. And then I got to El Salvador and it was just like, oh, people were walking to work and having their smoothies and their papoosas and you know, the little things change, the language changes, the dress changes, maybe the work changes a little bit, the climate changes a little bit, but everything else is just people living and trying to hang out with their family and throwing birthday parties and you know, walking into work, whatever.  

Tom:    00:17:13    It's, and then Peru is the same way. I mean, I walked through a lot of desert in Peru, but then when I got there I had this vision in my head that it's gonna be so different and just incomprehensible how varied it is and how just otherworldly and then again you get there and you go, oh no, this is just people. And so I'd say that was like the primary thing that changed for me was this almost reassurance that I can travel anywhere and, and figure it out because it's, you know, a world run by humans and living in a human world and that doesn't really change. And then there's like this internal, also this internal change that happens just from walking. And maybe it happens with traveling too. It probably does. It's like you spoke to it a little bit and, and previously I spoke to it where you're, it's kind of a mirror and you're seeing yourself reflected and all these differences.  

Tom:    00:18:10    Uh, but walking I think in particular is very reflective and very meditative and you spend a lot of time with yourself and reflecting on how your parents affected you, how your culture affected you, the choices you made, the mistakes you made, the decisions you made that positively benefit benefited you. And so you're able to resolve some angst probably that you don't even realize is there. And I do think even without walking, traveling probably does that because you have that mirror where you're meeting someone that otherwise you wouldn't meet and they can say, Hey, my culture, in my culture, this is how I do things. And it's a little thing where you didn't really, you never would have thought about it before when you go, oh, well in my culture I do it because of this. And you realize nothing is really like there for any good reason. It's just kind of the way things are and all those differences add up to make you who you're, uh, but for me, I mean it was like the change I went through is enormous. It's monumental. It's, I couldn't possibly like break it down into just a few things because I feel like I'm a different person from when I began.  

Kristin:    00:19:27    Yeah. Like you look at photos of before you left and is it hard to even like remember who you were, like identify with that person?  

Tom:    00:19:36    Yeah, I mean a little bit for sure. I, you know, I was always well intentioned and nice, but when I look back I'm like, man, you were such an idiot. Like you knew nothing of the world. You  

Kristin:    00:19:49    Knew nothing. So ignorant –

Tom:    00:19:50    <laugh>  

Kristin:    00:19:52    Have you read this book called The Philosophy of Walking?  

Tom:    00:19:55    I have actually my friend, uh, fraternity brother gave it to me when I finished the walk. I have it next to my bed. Yeah, it's fantastic.  

Kristin:    00:20:00    Yeah, that when you were talking, that really reminded me of that. So we'll link to it in the show notes for people who haven't read it, but it's like, it, it's such an interesting structure for a book and the author like talks about the experience of walking through so many other people who are known for, for walking. And I find that to be so interesting in it in and of itself because walking, for those of us that have mobility of our legs, it's something that we can take for granted. It's just an inherent, you know, human trait when we begin to walk on two feet. But it is such a meditative experience, it's so spiritual, it's so incredibly beneficial to our health. You know, we all hear that we need to walk 10,000 steps a day, et cetera, but it's really part of our DNA as human beings.  

Kristin:    00:20:54    Like we're meant to be using our physical bodies throughout the day and then resting, you know, when it gets too hot or, or too cold or at night. And we've gotten so far removed from that. So I've walked a lot, you know, through my travels and I've done like little pieces of the community, Santiago and, and things like that. And I understand what you mean about how it brings you closer to yourself, closer to your thoughts, your memories. It gives you the space and time to think about problems, either personal problems or even just about the world. And it's something about like what they talk about in the book, it's like the rhythm of walking. You hear a lot about writers talking about how they write when they walk and they get ideas when they walk, all types of artists and people. So I don't know if we fully understand the impact of walking on our human lives, but I definitely think that it's something that, um, that we should all do more of.  

Kristin:    00:21:55    But one of the things that made me sad about that book, because a lot of the philosophers and people that that book is talking about, like they all died at this point, you know, some of them died very, very horrible, like painful deaths. They, they were sick and things, but they always like went back to this walking like they found some kind of comfort or solace in the walking. And so how have you adjusted back to like the traditional, you know, standard lifestyle in the United States, you know, going from spending seven years walking and having all of these hardships, but also all of these moments of just insight, elation, emotion that we can't feel in the normal life. And then how do you, you know, come back to a place like, you know, Philadelphia or Kentucky and like be dropped back into this setting where you're not on this journey, you're not walking from point A to point B and you're not getting that same like depth of self re reflection and thinking. Did you feel like you really needed a break from all of that work of walking and thinking or, you know, do you feel like now you're missing something in your life?  

Tom:    00:23:13    Uh, both I would say. I mean, I definitely needed a break by the end. I was so done, you know, it's a beautiful life to be out walking and I couldn't really like imagine a happier life. It's the walking just fulfills like every level of your humanity in a way. You're getting sunshine, you're getting exercise, but it's not too strenuous. You're meeting people, you're seeing new things, you're trying new things. You take a great siesta every day because you already walked and, and then you get up, you walk over, you're in nature at night and you're kind of, you're looking for somewhere to camp. So you're getting this, this great puzzle that you have to solve every night. It's like in so incredibly satisfying on every level, but it's also exhausting because you're just out in the elements all the time and you're sore a lot of the time. And granted that soreness is what provides a lot of the happiness and the joy it makes every meal just amazing. I would say I had the best meal of my life like 3000 times <laugh>, you know, because every  

Kristin:    00:24:17    Day you had food  

Tom:    00:24:18    <laugh> every day I was like, oh my god, this pasta with red sauce is amazing. <laugh> or like this chicken and rice is incredible.  

Kristin:    00:24:25    Meanwhile, other people are just like eating the microwave meal in front of the tv <laugh>.  

Tom:    00:24:30    Yeah, exactly.  

Kristin:    00:24:31    Not even tasting it, myself included sometimes.  

Tom:    00:24:33    Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you like, you need the, you need the contrast. Yeah. And walking, you always have that contrast, which is fantastic. But when it was over, it was also like the, probably the most challenging time of my life and the only time I fell into any sort of depression because I had been doing this thing and I had this habit kind of ground into me for so long and I just didn't know what to do with myself. I moved out to Seattle where Bonnie was finishing her medical school, and Savannah, my dog who walked with me, we just both were so restless. So we would walk like four hours a day because I couldn't do anything else. And I knew I was supposed to be working on this book, but I would sit down and I couldn't focus for like more than 20 minutes, maybe half an hour, whatever it was.  

Tom:    00:25:21    And also that's just, I had this real discomfort in that the world wasn't coming at me. You know, when, when I'm out walking, when I was out walking, like I said, every day you're, you're meeting new people, you're seeing new restaurants, you're seeing new landscapes and it's every day is really rich. But then in an apartment or in a house and, and you have where you have this comfort and you have this familiarity, you have to go out into the world. You know, the world doesn't come to you and so you have to consciously go and do things. And you know, with the walk, I guess I had done that and I made that decision seven years before I finished it that all right, I'm gonna actively go out into the world and experience the world. And then it just kind of became this passive thing.  

Tom:    00:26:07    But then when I was in the apartment, it was really difficult for me to go out and, and find things to do and find things that were interesting. So I really struggled with that a lot. And now it's, it's easier. I've adjusted in a certain way. I'm not depressed like I was for a few months after the walk ended. But also I do see this contrast of kind of just like what a terrible system that we designed that is really isolating. And I think this also comes from just the traveling as well. It's not only the walking, but America does public spaces really horribly and it does transportation, specifically public transportation really horribly. And here, for example, where I'm at now, it's like probably 94% of people commute by car and there's highways cutting everything off and it's loud and it's just not, it doesn't promote this sense of community.  

Tom:    00:27:16    And you're in your house and then you go out to a restaurant and you're in that restaurant and then you go back home or you go to the movies and then you go back home and everything feels a little bit too blocked off, squared off. And other countries just do community a lot better. They have the public square where people hang out or they don't have such massive roads that kind of cut off one neighborhood from another, or they have less restrictive zoning. And so you can have a market with all these houses around it so you don't have to drive to the supermarket. And so you're running into people when you go to the market to grab your milk or bread or whatever. And so there's that, in this transition that I've gone through, uh, some of the pain or a lot of the pain is also this like frustration with wishing America did some things better and had designed more communal spaces. No place is perfect of course, but I think that's, that's one of the, the struggles with adjusting to life after the walk as well.  

Kristin:    00:28:19    That's a really important distinction you just made because it's something very difficult to describe this difference between, I think really us and Canadian citizens can really relate to this. When you're traveling abroad, there is more of a community sense or you just kind of feel more like the fabric of the place that where you are. But when you come back to the US it's built for isolation. I've been back here for like six months now and what you said, you have to make a real effort to get human interaction. Like everywhere I go, I'm either driving in my rental car or I'm Ubering somewhere. Like there's no way of just walking into somebody or walking past somebody unless you go to the beach or something. But then everybody's like with their friends or family, everything is so spread out. They've got like the shopping malls, the shopping centers, the high rises or the suburbs where everything's very spread out.  

Kristin:    00:29:23    You know, it's not just here where I am in Miami, it's like when I go visit my sister in Las Vegas or anywhere I go, I just feel like I'm always in a my own little bubble and you really have to reach out to friends or there's this new thing that I've heard, it's called Time Left. We can also link to it. It's basically every Wednesday somebody, whoever started this company or this app they have, they set up dinner with strangers and um, you can choose like your budget, your type of food that you like and you take this personality test and they match you up with other people to go out and have dinner. So I signed up for that 'cause I'm like, I just need to, you know, get out there, you know, go to meetups and things, but I somehow do that naturally when I'm in Europe or South America or anywhere else basically other than here.  

Kristin:    00:30:13    And I think the public transportation has a lot to do with it. I think the urban planning, I think the public spaces, because a lot of these other places were just inhabited by people that built structures that lasted longer. Whereas, you know, the Native Americans were really living like integrated with the land and so, you know, we don't have the structures that they had 10,000 years ago or 5,000 years ago or 2000 years ago. Whereas you still can go actually walk to ruins and cathedrals and places that were built thousands of years ago in Europe. So yeah, I think like what you said, you you have to go out into the world, the world that doesn't come to you. I think that's, um, definitely really important.  

Tom:    00:31:03    I think what they skip over or what, like America in general, just they wanna skip over the in-between, and so you go from A to B as quick as possible and if it's, if you're not there as quick as possible, you're furious and you're honking and you're, you didn't maximize every second, you know, jump over that. But there's a lot of benefit. I say most of the benefit is in that in between in the inconvenience and it's more subtle. You know, say if you're going to, if I, right now, if I took my bike and brewed to a bakery or sandwich shop downtown, it'd probably take me 20 minutes to get there and I could get in the car and be there in six minutes and it would take less effort. But I think it dismisses this, the really subtle benefit again of just like being out in the world and feeling the wind on your face and seeing other people and enjoying that little bit of discomfort, whatever, it's, we wanna box ourself off from all this, from any discomfort at all or from any inconvenience at all.  

Tom:    00:32:09    But when you do that, you like cultivate this mindset of efficiency just for the sake of efficiency and just for the sake of speed. And life becomes really boring that way and it becomes really soulless that way and it becomes less human that way. And so you're going A to B and then you're back home and you're eating your sandwich or whatever and you're watching TV and you're in your little box of isolation. Whereas if you took the bike or if you walked whatever it is, you're looking at the city, the world is just more colorful, it's more vibrant and it adds on top of it. If there's other people doing this, the world becomes really interesting. Then, you know, I go back to Philadelphia where I'm from and when I go back there I always try and be like non-bias in this way of, okay, this is, you know, where I'm from, this all my family and friends are, I'm gonna move back here eventually, but like, is this actually, is this actually a good city?  

Tom:    00:33:06    Like do I really like this city? And then I walk around it and my friends and I just bar hop, bop, bop, bop bop bop, five different bars within a couple blocks. Oh my god, this is actually great because there's people out and you're seeing people and people are living and they're riding their bike and the car, your brain just doesn't process like a, a a person also. It's loud, it's, it's smelly, it's dangerous, it's all these other things, but it, it all dismisses all comes back to that, like that inconvenience, if you can just embrace that inconvenience, there's, that's like where the life is is when there's that little bit of discomfort, when there's that little bit of fear where there's that, that little bit of being sore. Uh, that's where the good stuff is. And so much of the time we just wanna dismiss all of that so we can get our sandwich and get home.  

Kristin:    00:33:51    Yeah. And now we don't even go get the sandwich. We have those paints bring it to us. <laugh>.  

Tom:    00:33:57    True. Yeah.  

Kristin:    00:33:58    Like you literally don't have to leave your house anymore. It's like we've been trained to put ourselves in little prisons.  

Tom:    00:34:04    Yeah,  

Kristin:    00:34:05    It's crazy. And uh, even when you were just talking about that, I was thinking of the first class luxury suites on planes, you can pay, you know, an extra 10 or $20,000 to get your own box on the airplane. Yeah. Which is like pretty mental when you think about it. Then you compare that to sharing a, a chicken bus and being squished on the bus, which is so uncomfortable. I've been in a lot of very uncomfortable transport situations where I've thought like, what am I doing here? You know? But then if you're getting driven around in an uber black and you're sitting in the backseat on your cell phone, scrolling social media, it's like, you know, that's not an, that's not an experience, but yeah, like rushing to catch your train or, I just found some old pictures from Norway actually. We were talking about Norway earlier, and I was sitting in a train station meditating <laugh> with my bags and like all these people around me and my friend MJ took this photo.  

Kristin:    00:35:05    It was her birthday the other day. So I was looking for pictures and I was thinking I would've never remembered that if we hadn't have taken the picture. But because we had that picture, I, I could transport myself to that feeling of just being so annoyed. Like, I think we had missed our train, or we got on the wrong platform, or we went the wrong direction, or we were late, or the train got like, something happened and we were just so frustrated that I decided to sit and meditate in the middle of the <laugh>, the train platform. And uh, those are the things that yeah, that really like stick out. It's not the the luxury hotel experiences or anything like that. It's like when we were lugging our stuff through the train station and we were lost and we were on our way to like go hiking and Bergen or something like that. And we're working on our laptops on top of our suitcases.  

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Kristin:    There was a podcast you talked about, I think it was from 2020 or 2021, you were in Turkey and you were waiting to go, I think to Kazakhstan maybe? 

Tom:    00:37:02    Oh yeah.  Mm-Hmm.  

Kristin:    00:37:02   you were kind of contemplating the difference between wandering and walking with a purpose. Mm. And I think that's such a fine line in life where as humans we feel very uncomfortable and anxious if we feel like we're not making progress towards something, we feel like we're just wandering around or we're lost or we're blocked or we're treading water. But then there's also this tunnel vision of going from point A to point B. Like we're all motivated by goals, we're intrinsically motivated that way. We're programmed that way in our DNA. So how do you, uh, not to use like <laugh> the metaphor, how do you walk that fine line of, of wandering in life and also being so goal oriented and, and planning that you, you only care about getting from point A to point B, whether that's somebody trying to get to the end of their workday or in your case you're like so frustrated to be like stuck in Turkey because you should be walking to the next country.  

Tom:    00:38:07    Yeah, it do. And it's, it's a fine line. I think if you can have a goal, it's very valuable just as a way to organize your life. And ideally really it should be like a, a value-based goal. A value in the sense of it should align with what you want out of your life, out of your larger life. For me, The World Walk was something that I had, you know, pretty carefully picked out in a certain way where, uh, Emory passed away. I went through this phase of like carp a DM as this answer and I was just doing everything, signing up for everything and then realizing, oh, you can't do everything. You have to like choose one thing. You just don't have enough time. And so, you know, I, I knew I wanted to travel, forced new adventure, understand the world. Those are things I wanted to do with my life.  

Tom:    00:38:54    And walking around the world seemed like the best way to do that. And then two years into walking after South America, I fell really sick with this bacterial infection. And then I flew home and recovered slowly and antibiotics started to work. And when I was back to decent health, I picked up my walk in Europe and I was walking down Europe and I was just miserable because I had been in pain for such a long time with this bacterial infection that all my thoughts were just a little bit darker than they normally were. And I was really unpleasant to spend time with, like with myself. And when you're out walking, you have to be good company to yourself. You have to kind of cultivate this positive talk internal voice. And I just didn't have that. And I wanted to be home and I wanted to be at Sunday dinner with my grandparents and I wanted to be getting drinks with my friends.  

Tom:    00:39:47    And I remember talking to my friend Fitz and him saying like, you're living your dream man. Like why you don't wanna come back here? You know, life is just life here. You know, I'm working, Julian works my other friend, you know, you're living your dream. But I couldn't really see that at the point. But then when I would think about it, when I would actually think about, okay, maybe I'm gonna end this walk and I'm gonna go home. And then, then came a question, well what are you gonna do back home? And whatever. I couldn't even come up with an answer. I'm gonna work and then I'm gonna, I get an apartment and I'll get a girlfriend and you know, and then we'll start life together. And it was just so inconceivable that I would give up this life that I valued so much like at the core of me.  

Tom:    00:40:28    So it just really became a non option and the difficulties really fell away because I had this very deep satisfaction from the walk that was that it was fulfilling what I wanted out of life. And so I think that the balance of this, you need some direction, but you also wanna leave yourself open to things is if you can set a goal in the distance, which aligns with the greater things that you want in life and really just who you want to be. Maybe you have 80 years here, maybe you have 40 years here, maybe you have 35 years here, you don't know. And so if you can find something that aligns with what you want out of life, that is incredibly motivating and it'll bring you a lot of joy just pursuing it. And, but it also provides this unbelievable, almost unlimited resilience because the hardships aren't really hardships.  

Tom:    00:41:27    They're just, you know, little bumps on the way to whatever you're working towards. And they're just these points of growth on the path to, you know, your goal, whatever that is. And it also like liberates you because everything else in between, you can just let come at you and you know, you're working towards this goal and then other things are gonna happen, life happens, whatever, but in the meantime, your work, you know your direction and you're working towards this thing and life is gonna find its way in no matter what. So I think that's how I think the balance will come naturally. If you can define something clear that fulfills like the deepest parts of yourself, if you can, if you can find something that fulfills that life will come in anyway and you'll still get to, you know, enjoy that serendipity and enjoy meeting people and, and just like that progress of trying to achieve something.  

Kristin:    00:42:21    Yeah, I think there's this western perspective that somehow we all picked up or, or we're told at some point that life does need to be very comfortable, it needs to be efficient. And really life is just solving a lot of little problems every day for the whole time that you're on the planet <laugh>. It's figuring things out, it's planning your to-do list. It's, you know, little things like, oh, the store is out of stock of this thing that you need or, or whatever. But then in other countries, because there's such hardship already, it's like they've accepted that the hardship is just there. Like that's the foundation of life. So what are we gonna build on top of that? Or you know, what are our experiences going to be on top of it? And I think people from some countries like have a little bit maybe, you know, more of an ego or you know, more money or more opportunities.  

Kristin:    00:43:19    And in a way we just, yeah, put ourselves back into that box and get frustrated when things don't go our way. Like just this morning I was going to physical therapy and on the way to physical therapy, the bridge was up actually both ways. On the way there, I live on an island, so on the way there, the bridge was up on the way back, the bridge was up and both of my Uber drivers were so frustrated that the bridge was up. And I was like, I'm the one that's late to my appointment, <laugh>, you know, you're not going anywhere. You're gonna drop me off and pick someone else up and go, go somewhere else. And, you know, just, I don't know, I was just observing that. I think probably also 'cause I've been, you know, listening to so many of your podcasts and things and just thinking, knowing that I was gonna talk to you today and thinking, you know, Tom just, he walked around the world for seven years, like there's no hurry.  

Kristin:    00:44:11    So on the way there, the bridge was up, the guy is frustrated, go to physical therapy, everything's great, get back in another Uber and the bridge was up again. And then once the bridge went down, there was a girl on her bicycle in the bike lane next to us, but she was like kind of close. 'cause all, you know, when all the traffic starts going over the bridge and it's kind of like a free for all or like if, if, um, there's railroad tracks and then the thing goes up and everyone's like trying to go and, and he's like, you know, raising his hand at her and everything. Like he was so annoyed that this, that this girl was on her bike when he was in this huge SUV. And yeah, I don't know, I was just kind of thinking like, what is the big deal?  

Kristin:    00:44:52    'cause I like to ride my bike everywhere and sometimes I walk to physical therapy, like if it's not raining just to get, you know, a mile walk in or something. So I think that's good, you know, good advice and I'm glad that you perceived that, you know, during all of, all of your walking because yeah, we, we do need to have a direction, but you know, we just stop and spill the roses too. And also recognize it's not always roses, sometimes it's like dog poop or <laugh>, you know, or something else that's unpleasant and yeah, that's just part of it. And if we never did have those experiences, we would be pretty bored. Yeah. I heard someone say like, all travel, all good travel stories are just horrible experiences that you talk about later.  

Tom:    00:45:40    Definitely. Yeah. It, they, but from walking in particular, you really see, like every day there's something, it's just bound to happen. You're, I'm gonna walk through the rain, I'm gonna have some food that isn't that great or my stomach's gonna be upset, or I'm gonna, you know, my something's gonna rip when I'm pushing into the forest. Whatever it is. Like something's gonna happen. You just cannot control everything. But when you go through that so many times and you have all these like minor inconveniences all the time, you realize like that's just part of the deal. Like, it's just, that's just, it's baked into life that this stuff is gonna happen. And when you get upset at it, it's really, it absurdist and in a way because you should be expecting this, expect of course you can't control everything. Of course, you know, the bridge is gonna raise you live on an island that's part of the deal. <laugh>,  

Tom:    00:46:29    The bridge is gonna raise sometimes and sometimes it'll be raised when you get there. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, I think just being out there like existing in the world again and doing that and running against the world, it makes you more resilient as well. And because, you know, you experience that, you know things are gonna happen and then if you box yourself off and you're always uber eat and you're always, you know, Ubering from here to there and your whole thing is that you're trying to box off your life and just have everything nice and convenient, you sort of forget that that's not life, life is like crazy and there's all these other things happening around you. There's a million things happening around you and you're just one little moat of dust floating along it.  

Kristin:    00:47:09    Totally. Yeah. We like to really stress ourselves out over everything, but like anything that you learn, you're also gonna have that learning curve. Whether it's like a new job that you're starting or a new skill that you're learning online or even just a recipe that you're trying to make. Like you're not gonna make it perfect the first time. It's not gonna look like the cookbook, you know, for all those people that were baking bread during the pandemic, like their bread came out flat a few times, <laugh>, you know, that that kind of stuff works. But, or, or that happens. But I wanna get into like a little bit, um, before I let you go of the like more practical sides of this walk because it's just hard to really wrap your head around the length of distance that you and Savannah your dog covered. I think about my dog, my family dog, she likes to walk for an hour, like two hours a day, like an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon, but maybe 45 minutes, like she's not gonna walk past a certain point.  

Kristin:    00:48:13    She's gonna be like, Hey, time to go home. Now take us through just the practicalities of, of how this actually happened, especially as somebody who hadn't, you know, you weren't a travel expert, you weren't a professional walker, you were just a normal guy living in Philadelphia. Like how did you plan, you know, how much food and water did you need or, or how like when to go to this country because of this climate and how to get the visa to go there and like how to know which roads to walk on so you don't get run over by semi-truck. I mean, just kind of like give us the, the crash course of how you figured this out and like what a normal day in the life was like.  

Tom:    00:48:55    Yeah. The, the beginning, the first four months or so when I walked from 

my parents' house in New Jersey over the Ben Franklin and then down to Georgia and over to Texas, those first like four or five months was really just figuring out the basics of living life on the road, finding a place to sleep, which roads to walk, you know, that's just trial and and error. I remember walking this road, these roads in Pennsylvania that were suggested bike routes and they were so sinuous and windy and hilly and almost died like three times on them. And because these cars would just whip around the corner and there's no shoulder say, I gotta find something better than this. So it was a little trial and error. And the same with camping. I had some good campsites, but then also say, in whereas in Louisiana, I tried to sleep by this church on the porch.  

Tom:    00:49:47    I didn't feel like sitting on my tent. I was too tired and I, there's just a million mosquitoes and I slept terribly. And then I set my tent like two hours before sun or the sunrise, I slept a little bit. So it's just like, you gotta screw up a bunch and realize what works and what doesn't work. And so the first like four or five months, that was a lot of like the logistical basics. How much water do I need each day? How much food do I need to eat each day to feel strong the next day? How do I stretch every night just to make sure I'm not cramping either in the night or the next day? All these little things. And then when I got to Austin, Texas, I adopted Savannah. She was just a puppy and for her, she grew up on the road, so she didn't know any other life and she became very adapted to the road and we just spent every minute of every day together. And so I didn't really even need a trainer because I was just with her all the time and she just learned to take after me in our life. And so she would walk, you know, all day if she wanted. I mean, if, if I did, she was ready to walk all day. And at the end of the day she was ready to play <laugh>. She had endless energy. She was,  

Kristin:    00:50:52    She was engaged. Oh my gosh.  

Tom:    00:50:54    And the, the larger stuff logistically, like the visas, again, fortunately I was born in the US with American passport, so it's a very strong passport. But I designed my route to give me as little visa trouble as possible. That's kind of how I decided where to go. I knew I wanted to hit every continent and then it was how do I do this with as little bureaucratic resistance as possible? So I needed a visa for Algeria, uh, an extension for Kazakhstan, an extension for Uzbekistan. And that would've been it, that's like the only three I needed visas for. And then, uh, the climate and stuff like that, that was just a little bit of research beforehand. Okay, when it's, when is it gonna be like this there and you don't wanna walk, walk through the worst of it and try and time it, uh, correctly.  

Tom:    00:51:42    But for the most part, you know, the walking really lends itself to just figuring things out because you have enough time where when I say I would enter El Salvador, I could immediately then start thinking, okay, Honduras is 10 days ahead or seven days ahead, whatever it is. Let me see like what I need. You know what, okay, I need paperwork for Savannah, so right before I get to the border, I'll just stop at a ve and get the paperwork. But, and then the, the same thing happens with the landscapes as well where you're not just being dropped into the desert. You know, you see this very gradual change and so very gradually say coming down from the Andes in Ecuador, it gets drier and drier and drier. And so you have time to make sure your things are in order. Before I am faced with a five day stretch of nothing. I had already been doing a bunch of three and four day stretches of nothing. So I know, okay, this is how much I need. This is I'm much water to carry and then, you know, dish it out accordingly and make sure my body is, is right for this crossing, whatever. It's, uh, so walking sort of lends itself to that slow, gradual problem solving in a way. But yeah, logistically just, I really just figured it out as I went and luckily started in the US so I gave myself some time to figure out the basics.  

Kristin:    00:53:00    Yeah, you made those mistakes before, you know, you didn't fly to Peru and start, start there in the desert in the at comma <laugh>. That would've been tough.  

Tom:    00:53:09    That would've been tough. That would've been disastrous.  

Kristin:    00:53:12    Well, I know you had some crazy run-ins as you would expect. You know, just the fact that you survived the walk is, is a win. Yeah. People can read about that in, in your book, but I was curious, did you have any run-ins with other animals? You know, especially walking with a dog, did you come across any wild animals? You know, when you're sleeping in Louisiana, are you trying to make sure there's no alligators around or I don't know, like my cat, I like grew up in Florida and our cat got in a fight with a bobcat and survived. But you know, there's like bears walking through, you know, Wyoming and places like this. Like how did you avoid that?  

Tom:    00:53:53    Yeah, I, I had like some small run-ins I guess. Uh, a lot of 'em in the American West, like in in the Rockies you see a lot of, some moose, elk, some bears. But I would say for the most part, the, the most common runin was definitely just dogs. I mean, with Savannah the strays or these dogs that just aren't treated very well, uh, were really aggressive. And the first two years in particular, it was just like every day we were attacked by multiple strays. And  

Kristin:    00:54:24    My  

Tom:    00:54:25    God, Savannah did not have a good relationship with other dogs for those first two years. And it took us when we stopped in the US and taking her to the dog park all the time to relax. Even, even when we finished the walk, she was not totally Oh cool with other dogs. And wasn't until my girlfriend's dog, Cleo, that was like the first dog that Savannah had spent longer than just, I guess two months with. And Cleo was just like, she didn't care about anything in the world. She no dogs, she didn't care about dogs, she didn't really care about other humans, she just wanted to hang out with you. And that was it. And she kind of taught Savannah to like, yo, chill out bro. These dogs, they don't care about you. You know, you're not walking anymore and there's not all these strays running at you.  

Tom:    00:55:10    And so I would say that was like probably the most common running and otherwise you, you see snakes every once in a while depending where you're at. A lot of wild boars in Europe and, but the wild boars, like I learned to avoid them because you can see how they till the earth when they're making their beds to sleep. And so you kind of just see this like pattern where kinda looks like waves a little bit in the, in the earth. And uh, the first few times, guess I was in Belgium and France I slept on some of these places, some of their, I don't know, nest or whatever it is. And woke up, I were in France. I woke up on a hill and there was like 200 boars around me in the middle of the night. And I, like, I heard something and I unzipped the tent. I look out and I'm surrounded by these boars that are all sleeping. And then when I stood up, they bolted in every direction. Oh  

Kristin:    00:56:02    My gosh.  

Tom:    00:56:02    And so I learned pretty quickly like where to avoid, how to avoid those. And then, uh, you know, you hear wolves in the mountains of Turkey and Georgia and Azerbaijan a little bit, a little bit less than Azerbaijan. Uh, but they're small wolves and they're probably not gonna come near us. Uh, 'cause we'd sleep close-ish to town in most places. And Savannah's like pretty good deterrent. They probably smell her. Uh, so I think Savannah probably helped with that, a good amount. She was a good protector. She would charge outta the tent and bark and growl. And she probably wouldn't actually do anything, but she pretended like she did. And that was enough. So yeah, there was, there was encounters, but nothing terribly like dramatic, you know, we didn't get, we didn't get attacked by a moose or, or tend to get broken into by a, a hungry black bear.  

Kristin:    00:56:54    Yeah. Because you hear, you do hear about that a lot, especially in Montana, in places, it's pretty scary. I walked a bit in Estonia and I thought, you know, this is great. Like, it's so quiet. It's so flat even. But then I realized that it has the lowest population density in Europe and the highest, you know, per capita wild animals. So driving to a place where I wanted to go hiking, like a mo a giant moose crossed in front of my car. And it was during mating season. Oh. And then I was in this forest and I, it was so quiet that it was loud. Yeah. Like it was creepy. And I thought, you know, there was black bears, it's like right on the border with Russia, very rural area. And I just thought, Hmm, I'm not prepared to be here. You know, I don't have bare repellent or whatever. So I decided to just stick to more developed areas. But I guess you weren't walking through like Alaska, did you walk through? No, no. Didn't that would've been dangerous? I think, yeah. Yeah.  

Tom:    00:57:57    I don't get that remote. I mean, there's parts of Georgia that were weird, weirdly remote for such a small country, like up on the mountains, there's nothing up there. And then Kyrgyzstan was very remote, but there's not much dangerous wildlife up there. And it was probably like the American West, like walking the Rockies, uh, was where I saw the most wildlife and was thinking about bears the most  

Kristin:    00:58:22    <laugh>. Yeah. Anytime I go hiking in Canada, I'm like a twig snaps. And I'm like, oh God.  

Tom:    00:58:27    It's definitely from speaking, you know, with Bonnie who grew up in Alaska, they're more afraid of moose like by a mile. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, uh, the bears don't really bother 'em, but the moose I guess are, especially during mating season, can be really territorial.  

Kristin:    00:58:42    Right. Yeah. And they are massive. They  

Tom:    00:58:45    Are massive.  

Kristin:    00:58:46    Yeah. Really scary. Did you have anyone, you know, especially in places like Central America, like did you have anyone try to break into your tent? Did you ever get robbed, anything like that? I know you got a few like knife and gun incidents.  

Tom:    00:58:59    Yeah, it was held up at knife point in Panama City, but that wasn't at night. It wasn't when I was camping and that, but no, and like in Central and South America, it is like objectively or was like the most dangerous portion of the world. And it probably isn't now. But back when I was there, I, you can look back at the data and when I was in El Salvador, it was like by far the most, Dan it was the most dangerous month and the most dangerous year in its history. And I saw the bodies of a husband and wife who had been executed, um, you know, in some gang violence. And I walked like with this burning ferocity to get to a hotel each night. So I would walk like 30 miles a day generally to get to a hotel. And then I'd wake up at five and just do it again depending on how far the hotel was.  

Tom:    00:59:53    So in Central America, I just lived with a lot of fear and some of it was warranted. Most of it was definitely unwarranted. I just had never walked abroad before. And so like going through Mexico and Guatemala and outdoors, like yes, those places are more dangerous. Uh, but a lot of it is just you not knowing what you can get away with and what you can't get away with. It's like, say when you starting to snowboard or something, all your muscles are tight because you don't know which ones you can relax. So everything's tight. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. But when you're really good, you can be totally relaxed and you know, okay, I don't need to literally need these few little points to be tense. And so when I'm walking through Central America, everything was tense and everything was fearful. And I would go into a restaurant and I'd be like, oh my God, to sit with my back to the wall and you know, I have to keep my eye on everything and make sure no one takes advantage of me. After, as the years go on, you, you learn, you're fine. You know, and I could sleep pretty well just about everywhere. Uh, but that takes time to, to relax. And so, yeah. No, in Central America it was actually, you know, it was fine. Um, get help at knife point, <laugh>, but you know.  

Kristin:    01:00:58    Did you give them your stuff or?  

Tom:    01:01:00    Yeah. Well they, so it was like a team job. It was my last day walking in Panama City. This guy held a knife to my neck and kind of works me into the shop. Savannah's tied to my cart and had my backpack off, which had all, and my laptop had savannah's paperwork in it, my paperwork in it. I, I would never take it off generally I'd just always leave it on. But it was the last day walking. I was six miles from this Airbnb. I took it off. This guy works me into the shop. Another guy came by, grabbed my backpack, and amazingly the cops happened to be right there. So this other guy took off running and I went outside and I see the cop throwing this guy against a brick wall in my backpack laying on the ground. So it was like absolute miracle that my stuff wasn't stolen.  

Kristin:    01:01:43    That is so lucky. Even that the cops did anything.  

Tom:    01:01:46    Yeah, actually when I was so, like, after it I could go grab my backpack and I'm getting all the thing, there's like this crowd of people around me and they're all apologizing, oh, this isn't our country, I'm so sorry, da, da da. This one guy came forward and he's like, I saw everything that happened. I'm a, uh, what he say? Like, I off duty police officer. I said, you're off duty police officer. I said, why don't you do anything? And I started yelling at him. I was so like, filled with adrenaline and just like pissed off at this happened. He was like, I'm off duty. Like I almost do. So the cops were there, but this guy, apparently this off duty cop just watched everything happen in the  

Kristin:    01:02:20    Field. Oh my God. Wait, where was this again?  

Tom:    01:02:22    Panama City.  

Kristin:    01:02:23    Oh, in Panama City. Okay. So like in like a very urban area.  

Tom:    01:02:27    Yeah, a very urban area. I walked through a really sketchy area going into Panama City and even the Central American cities always, I wonder if I went through now if it'd be different, but you know, that first year of walking, I really just did not have the grasp of the world that I do now. And so I go through these cities really amped up on adrenaline where I would think constantly I, I would have this thought that I was using 100% of my brain, like my brain was maxed out for this three hours, whatever it was to took to get through some city that was just chaotic in a way I didn't understand. But even for that, when I came into Panama City, I was like, this is a not a great area. Even in like coming from the stress, I knew this was not a good area. And so I think they followed me from there probably and just like had me as an easy mark. And so when I sat down and, you know, how made a life point,  

Kristin:    01:03:20    Yeah, it's like living in this permanent state of fight or flight that's not sustainable but can get you through some sticky situations. But definitely really lucky. But like, it's like you said at the beginning, like people are just people and you know, 99.9% of the people are good and there's definitely opportunistic theft, especially in Central America, like places like Brazil. But yeah, for the most part it's gonna be the people coming up apologizing to you for this bad apple that came and tried to rob you.  

Tom:    01:03:54    Definitely. I mean, and like statistically, if you look at El Salvador, when it went through there, I think it was like 60 at a violent crime rate of like 61 per 100,000 people I think. I think that's about what it was. And they guessed that's like what the average medieval city was that violent crime rate. So like the most dangerous country in the world is just like your average medieval city, you know? So it's still, it's a very safe world out there. It's much safer than I think most people believe. It's, yeah. And,  

Kristin:    01:04:25    And  

Tom:    01:04:25    And also like this thing that got me through when I would be walking through these different towns and villages and cities is that people are walking here every day. You know, just 'cause it's new to me doesn't mean it's new to these 10,000 people or these 50,000 people I'm walking through their home and they're walking these streets all the time to go to the grocery store to drop their kids off at school, whatever. It's, so that also provided me a lot of like solace, which just knowing that it's different for me, but not for everyone that's actually just living here. <laugh>.  

Kristin:    01:04:54    Yeah. I thought that when I was in Brazil, I was so afraid to walk anywhere and I would Uber two minutes down the road to get to the mall and then I see everyone just kind of sitting outside on their phones, not paying attention. <laugh>, you know? And I was like, well maybe it's fine. 'cause these locals don't seem concerned.  

Tom:    01:05:11    Yeah. It's really just like the traveling stuff is like, just don't be an idiot. You know, you don't go around flaunting stuff, don't go around at night like flaunting stuff. Yeah.  

Kristin:    01:05:19    And  

Tom:    01:05:19    You'll probably be alright.  

Kristin:    01:05:20    You probably also benefited a little bit from the shock value of just, people are just so thrown off. Like they don't expect to see somebody, you know, walking down the street with a dog in a cart and just kind of like, what is this person doing here and you don't look like them. I, I think I benefited a lot from that as a solo female traveler. I don't think anyone ever expected me to be by myself, you know, crossing the border of Nicaragua or flying through Honduras. They probably just assumed that I was with somebody or that, you know, and I always kind of acted like I knew what I was doing because I spoke Spanish. But I definitely think I just kind of waltzed through a few places where people just weren't expecting, you know, little 20 something year old white girl to be by herself in that area. So just kind of like, oh, I guess she was here for a reason. <laugh>.  

Tom:    01:06:13    Yeah. Yeah, there definitely like, you gotta act like you've been there before for sure.  


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Kristin:    How did you get around without, you know, all of these countries without speaking the language or using like Google Translate?  

Tom:    01:07:44    Yeah. Uh, you know, I ended up speaking Spanish very well by the end of South America, but then through the other countries, you know, I'd pick up a little bit of French or a little Italian, little Russian, a little Turkish, whatever. It was kind of just enough to, you know, say thank you, water, food, you know, hotel, like the basic stuff. Uh, and then if I was, if I had met someone and I, you know, had time and they had time Google translate and that opened up a a lot of pleasant conversations for sure. For sure. I went to a Turkish wedding, uh, from a guy I met at a chai shop and we just talked on Google Translate, uh, for like an hour and then was like, and come back and, you know, have lunch with me and my family and then, you know, it was all Google translate all night.  

Tom:    01:08:29    So yeah, it was, uh, it was incredible. It definitely opened up a lot of doors. Uh, but otherwise, like without that it, it can be isolating because you can't have these more philosophical conversations, uh, when you don't know the language and you can't really like, dig deep into why a place is the way it is from like hearing it from the locals. Uh, so it can be isolating in a certain way, just not speaking the language as well as you would like. Uh, but also it's kind of good for you because then you learn to be comfortable in your own skin and, you know, get invited into someone's house and not speak the language and you just have to sit there in silence and kind of nod your head and, you know, say thank you and, and be gracious. Uh, so in that way it's really good for you when you don't speak the language.  

Kristin:    01:09:15    Yeah. There's also so many ways that we communicate without speaking with just our facial expressions, our mannerisms, everything. I don't know what this scientific statistic is, but it's something like, you know, 70% of communication is nonverbal or, or something like that. And we're all doing yeah, the same things. You know, eating, drinking, sleeping, you know, running errands, like pretty boring when you think about it. <laugh> the culture can be very exotic and different, but then when you spend enough time there and really drill down into it, it's like everyone's doing the same thing. You know, playing checkers or chess <laugh> in the park, whether you're in Istanbul or New York City or Albania and Yeah. Walking the dog.  

Tom:    01:10:00    Yeah. You can get by with without being able to speak much at all. Yeah.  

Kristin:    01:10:04    Could you imagine now having done this whole walk without Savannah?  

Tom:    01:10:09    No. Yeah. No way. I mean, I started without her. I adopted her in Austin and the first year I would say I was just treading water on how to, you know, walk abroad and find a place to sleep each night and, you know, navigate new cultures. But I didn't really take her or I kind of took her for granted, you know, and she was just this thing that I took care of. But like I said earlier, we spent every minute of every day together and, you know, when we would get to a campsite and take in how far we'd come and this beautiful view, or we're sitting in a pine forest or wherever it is, I had her beside me to bask in it with. And, and also she was just like so amazing. She was so, such a beast and I was just constantly amazed by her and, and marveled in just how strong and persistent and joyful that she was. And I think she opened me up to the world in a lot of ways. You know, she was a great introduction to, to meeting people or to a conversation at least. 

Kristin:    01:11:13    Mm-Hmm.  

Tom:    01:11:13    Yeah. So, no, I could, I can definitely, I could never, I couldn't imagine doing it without her for sure. She, she was like one of the primary joys for sure.  

Kristin:    01:11:22    Yeah. I think when I take my dog for a walk and sometimes she doesn't really wanna walk, she just wants to sit and look at the ocean and look at the sunset. You know, they're, they might not be able to see the same spectrum of colors or whatever, but they speak the same language that you teach them by talking to them. Like they understand everything. They're aware of their surroundings, their sentient beings, and they're having this experience alongside with you of being the observer and the actor in this play of life. So it must have been such a, a special, a special thing. I think I couldn't walk that far by myself. I would, I would definitely be lonely. So having her, it was definitely a blessing. How have you been doing? I know that she passed away recently. Mm-Hmm.  I like couldn't even look, I'm gonna cry. Like, I couldn't even look at your Instagram post. 'cause like I would just think of my dog that passed away like 20 years ago. It's so, it's so hard. Like how have you been coping with that?  

Tom:    01:12:23    Uh, so, so, you know, it was really, really tough say the first month in particular, after I had to put her down and now it's just, I miss her, you know? That's it. Just miss her.  

Kristin:    01:12:37    Yeah.  

Tom:    01:12:38    Yeah.  

Kristin:    01:12:39    Um, so what, what are your plans now? You've written this book, it'll be out probably when, around the time this podcast comes out. I think October 8th, right? Yep. And I like, I almost don't even wanna ask you this because it's like, I don't know if you watched any of the Olympics, but I saw the end where Simone Biles, I think she lost on one event at the end. You know, everyone expects her to win the gold medal on everything. And the woman from NBC asked her, okay, so like, what are you gonna do next and what's next for you? She was like, nothing's next. I don't have to do anything else. I've already accomplished everything. Like, don't ask me that. But, you know, we are like, we always have something that we wanna do. So you've, you know, did this walk, which is like a crazy accomplishment.  

Kristin:    01:13:33    Even if you just decided to check out and like retire now and just sit on the couch and hang out, like that would be fine. Um, but then you went ahead and wrote this book and you know, you're giving speaking engagements and I guess like, not just like, you know, what do you wanna do next, but like, do you have any kind of perception or sense of what that next thing is? Like your next goal or, or really how your, I think you talk about like the circle of possibility. Like how has your circle of possibility shifted to like the next phase of your life?  

Tom:    01:14:08    Uh, I'm still figuring it out honestly, because the book, which I worked on for the two years since the walk ended was very dominating of my time and my energy. And I passed it off like the absolute final draft, whatever, two months ago or three months ago. And so I had the walk and then I had the book, and now I don't have like this one singular thing to grab my focus. And so I'm still really figuring it out and, you know, thoughts, like, their thoughts like, oh, maybe I'll do the at or the PCT or, you know, stuff like that. Maybe I'll start photographing again and I'll just travel taking photographs. You know, I'm not sure I'm, I'm really enjoying the speaking engagements, uh, but it's not like they don't dominate a lot of my days. It's this thing that I can kind of do and write, uh, which is this really nice balance. But yeah, go to the library, read and write and hopefully something I'll spark and gimme that direction. Uh, but yeah, not sure yet.  

Kristin:    01:15:10    I'm sure. I actually really love that time when you're just kind of marinating and like figuring out what's coming next. It's almost like you're waiting for a clue or a thought or an insight or like that spark that you mentioned where sometimes it's like very clear and the path just looks like a freeway and you're like, this is where I'm going and I'm gonna get there. And then sometimes it's just unclear. It's a very fuzzy hazy and you're just kind of waiting for things to come together. Like, like I was even thinking recently 'cause I'm here in this apartment for one more month and I was like, where am I gonna go next? You know, like, where, where should I go? And then just this morning, the girl that I was renting from, she said she's giving up her lease and about a month after I, I leave and I'm gonna be traveling for a month, and I thought, Hmm, maybe I'll just take over her lease for a few more months because I feel like I'm not sure what to do next and I don't wanna just jump into another, you know, I don't wanna like necessarily like buy a house somewhere or, or sign a lease somewhere else.  

Kristin:    01:16:19    But I was like, oh, I could just actually like extend her lease for a few months. I could keep her furniture and just stay here. So sometimes when we're asking these questions, life is kind of like nudging us in a certain direction. Like, how about this? Or like, you know, this could make sense. You're  

Tom:    01:16:38    Open, you're open to the possibility kind of thing.  

Kristin:    01:16:41    Yeah. Maybe go on a few walks and see what comes up. <laugh>.  

Tom:    01:16:45    Uh, definitely. That's good advice.  

Kristin:    01:16:47    Well, I'm sure Bonnie has some ideas too, and you know, at least you, you know, you have, you're like in a team and a family now and you have her dog, so Yeah. At least you know, the next few years you're gonna be in that area.  

Tom:    01:17:00    Definitely. Yeah. It's very nice to have that security that I haven't had in a while in the years of walking. So I'm definitely enjoying the stability and the morning coffee and the hot shower and the bed <laugh>.  

Kristin:    01:17:12    Yeah. Your own bed, no mosquitoes. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Tom. This has been so amazing. I, I have, you know, like 300 other questions to ask you, but everyone's just gonna have to read your book, which is called The World Walk, and just beautiful photos in here as well. I love that you not only did this walk, but you wrote about it and you documented it and you took all these photos and you journaled and, and everything. So tell us a little bit about this book and where people can, can find it and how they can follow your next journey.  

Tom:    01:17:46    Yeah, like you said, it's called The World Walk, uh, coming out with Skyhorse Publishing, who's distributed by Simon and Schuster Publisher's. Very excited about it. I think it's a, a great book. And I poured, you know, my heart and soul into it. I journaled every day pretty much when I was out walking. So it was a lot of fun to go back through the journals and try and capture how I grew over the years and, and put it all into a book. And so I think the book does a great job of giving you an idea of what it's like to walk around the world and, and experience that growth that I experienced. But I also wanted to, to just be an entertaining book. And so I think it's just a great adventure story as well. You get the growth, uh, which is a large part of the adventure, but you also get to see the world and learn about some beautiful places. Uh, so yeah, The World Walk, you can get it on, you can pre-order today, uh, or maybe you can order it already depending on when this comes out, but it's coming out October 8th and uh, yeah, it'd be fantastic if you, uh, if you read it and enjoyed it. I would love that.  

Kristin:    01:18:49    Awesome. Yeah, I have the sneak peek copy. I'm not gonna give any spoilers, but worth the read. And did you take this cover photo? Is this a self portrait?  

Tom:    01:18:58    That is, I was in Uzbekistan. Wow.  

Kristin:    01:19:01    It's so powerful. I love it.  

Tom:    01:19:03    Yeah, it's uh, it does, it's a good description of what it's like there. I'm just covered in sweat <laugh> and standing in a very hot field in Uzbekistan.  

Kristin:    01:19:12    Yeah. And Savannah's like, all right, I'm here. Yeah, you've got this, but 

like, let's move on. <laugh>.  

Tom:    01:19:17    Exactly. <laugh>, yeah, let's keep walking.  

Kristin:    01:19:20    I love it. Well, thank you so much Tom. Uh, hope to cross paths somewhere. Yeah. And everyone go check out The World Walk and prepare to be inspired.  

Tom:    01:19:30    Thanks, Kristin.  

Kristin:    01:19:34    Kristin here. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Tom as much as I did. I feel like he has thousands of stories to share with us, so definitely make sure to check out a copy of his book so you can get some more insight into these adventures. I also want to thank everyone who's been leaving reviews lately. We had Arrowwod who left a review, Isha OG, CoachCoset, Swig meets world, Tweve, Maestra, Deb, Jory, MadScientist2007, Katie Clark, REDCAT73. And also, uh, received some coffee or tea donations since I don't drink coffee anymore, but, um, might buy me a coffee page. Uh, JeffRight, as well as Henry bought me some teas lately. So I do read every single one of your reviews and I really appreciate all of your donations and contributions to the podcast. So if you enjoyed this conversation with Tom and you want to leave us a review, you can do that anywhere you listen to the podcast. You can also go to lovethepodcast.com/digitalnomad and that will link you to all the places that you can leave a review or directly on our website at podcast.TravelingwithKristin.com. Join me back here next week on October 15th for a brand new interview with one of our friends around the world. We'll be talking about how to move to Italy. Travel on, travel safe, Traveling with Kristin here, signing off.  

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