Chad Caruso kicked off his wild idea in Venice Beach, California, with a skateboard and a goal: to cross the country on four wheels. Over 57 days, he pushed through deserts, mountain ranges, and extreme weather, ultimately landing in Virginia Beach, Virginia and setting a Guinness World Record for the fastest coast-to-coast skateboarding journey.
Chad Caruso kicked off his wild idea in Venice Beach, California, with a skateboard and a goal: to cross the country on four wheels. Over 57 days, he pushed through deserts, mountain ranges, and extreme weather, ultimately landing in Virginia Beach, Virginia and setting a Guinness World Record for the fastest coast-to-coast skateboarding journey.
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Shelby Stanger:
On March 23rd, 2023, Chad Caruso hopped on a skateboard in Venice Beach, California, and started riding. His goal was to skate all the way across the country. Along the way, Chad skated through the desert, over mountain ranges, and across the Great Plains. He pushed through rain, extreme heat, and strong headwinds. After 57 days, Chad arrived in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and set a Guinness World Record for the fastest crossing of America on a skateboard.
Chad Caruso:
It was kind of hard not to cry skating up to the finish line. 25 years of just all the falling and pain and everyone telling me to quit skateboarding and I dropped out of high school and not having a job. It felt like all of that culminating.
Shelby Stanger:
Chad grew up on Long Island and has been skateboarding since he was 14 years old. He stuck with the sport through some major setbacks, including injury and addiction. It took blood, sweat, and tears for Chad to overcome these challenges and to get to the point where he could ride across the country, but it ended up being the most fulfilling adventure of his life. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op Mastercard.
Chad Caruso, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. I'm so excited to talk to a skateboarder.
Chad Caruso:
Thanks for having me on.
Shelby Stanger:
A Guinness record-breaking skateboarder. So how did you get into skateboarding? And when you say... Okay, so there's lots of different types of skateboarding. What skateboarding do you prefer? Like street skating, going to a park, skating as a way of transport?
Chad Caruso:
Yeah. When I first started skating, it was only tricks, street skating, all that stuff. And I'd throw myself down stairs and be filming videos with my friends. So I did that for, I don't know, 15, 20 years. Then I had an injury. I tore my ACL and PCL in my left knee. I was doing something very easy, just kind of warming up, fell awkwardly. And that kind of changed the whole trajectory of my life. I started drinking more and just going down more of a negative path.
Shelby Stanger:
So what happened? It sounds like this was a little bit of a destructive period of your life.
Chad Caruso:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think it started because you get put on pain medication after a surgery normally. So that kind of hooked me into that world a little bit. And then, yeah, just kept running it into the ground until I was 29. And then I got a DWI, got another one, I'm hurting the people around me and stuff, putting them in bad situations. That's when I knew I had to change.
Shelby Stanger:
Thank you for sharing that. So what made you kind of get sober? What was that like? Was it skateboarding? Is that when you had your wild idea?
Chad Caruso:
Yeah, I mean, I had a wild idea then. So then the idea was like, I need to replace drinking with something exciting. So I was like, I'm going to bring back skating into my life and start a YouTube channel. And I just wanted to shift my life to doing positive things. So I'm like, I'm going to put all the information I've ever learned skating online. And I just kept doing that for years just to stay sober and stay focused.
Shelby Stanger:
And is this how you fund your life as well? Is this your full-time job?
Chad Caruso:
No. Well, so when I first got sober, I made a choice to become a server, which I had never done either, but I just wanted the time to be able to skate during the day. So that was a whole nother struggle. No one wanted to hire me because I had no experience, a little rough around the edges still. So I started at 29 as a to-go person, just packing food in the boxes. Did that for a year and just slowly climbed my way up out of the hole.
Shelby Stanger:
So let's talk about that. I know we're supposed to talk about skateboarding, but I'm curious. How did you get sober? Tell me about this.
Chad Caruso:
Well, I mean, I just tried to shift my perspective as everything was a learning experience. So instead of shying away from the pain and drowning it out with alcohol or drugs or whatever, I would face it and try to learn. So the uncomfortable feeling of talking in public at the restaurant, I tried to face that and embrace it, get better at speaking more clearly, cursing less. Just like -
Shelby Stanger:
You curse a lot?
Chad Caruso:
Oh, yeah. I mean-
Shelby Stanger:
Italian New Yorker?
Chad Caruso:
Yeah, exactly. Who would have thunk it? No. And then also YouTube helped with that too, because I'm putting myself out there and then I'm watching it back and I'm seeing little kids copy me. I'm like, "You got to quit smoking. You got to stop cursing." And it just made me become more conscious of everything I was doing.
Shelby Stanger:
Ah, good for you, Chad.
Chad Caruso:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Chad took a less conventional approach to sobriety. He made the choice not to go to AA or have a sponsor. Instead, he channeled his energy into rebuilding his life through skateboarding. During the day, he focused on skating and making videos, and in the evenings he worked as a waiter. On his YouTube channel, Chad gave skate tutorials and captured daily life at the skate park. He received a lot of positive feedback from viewers and eventually came up with a wild idea to take his skateboarding adventures beyond his local skate park.
Chad Caruso:
In 2019, I'm laying in bed, and my girlfriend at the time, I turned to her, I'm like, "I think this is possible." I'm like, "I think I can learn a new trick in every state in America 50 days in a row and I'll daily vlog the whole entire thing. Every single day, I'll upload it, people will be along with me." So that means I have to drive from four hours from Maine to New Hampshire, fly to Alaska day 49, Hawaii day 50. A couple months later after a lot of planning, I went for it.
Shelby Stanger:
What did that look like? I love this.
Chad Caruso:
So I was still... Picture the guy that I described. I'm not far from that person. I still have no money. I saved a little bit to buy the car and then to take with me. This thing had already like 230,000 miles on it. I'm just like, "Yeah, well, hopefully it'll work. We'll see." And I started the GoFundMe and just, I was like, "I'm doing this no matter what. I don't care if I run out of money. I'm figuring it out." And I had this belief, if I put it out there and people see me just all in, they hopefully will support it. And they did. Some people did and I had enough to make it through the GoFundMe.
Shelby Stanger:
I love that. How much money did you raise?
Chad Caruso:
I think it was like 8,000 or something. It was like just enough to kind of circle the states, pay for the gas and food and everything.
Shelby Stanger:
Did you sleep in your car?
Chad Caruso:
A lot of nights, yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. So it sounds like it was just a really rewarding trip. I mean, how did it change you?
Chad Caruso:
I mean, there was a lot of ups and downs because you come back from that and then I had to go back to just working at the restaurant. You know what I mean? And just like normal, everyday life serving. Not as exciting, definitely like an adjustment. It opened my mind to what was possible, but I didn't realize it in the moment.
Shelby Stanger:
On his trip through all 50 states, Chad kept things simple. He filmed each trick on his iPhone, edited the videos himself, and slept wherever he could. Sometimes in a hotel, sometimes in his car. Once he finished his 50th trick in Hawaii, he finally took a few days to let the accomplishment soak in. The adventure proved to Chad that his skateboard could carry him further than he thought.
So when did the wild idea to skate all the way across America and break a Guinness record come about?
Chad Caruso:
Let's see, maybe 2021-ish. I think it was like a year or two even before I left. And it was the same type of thing as the last one. I turned to my girlfriend and I'm like... She sees that look in my eyes where I just lock in and don't talk about anything else. She saw me get that look and, yeah, I think that was like a year out.
Shelby Stanger:
So a year out. You turned to your girlfriend and you said, "I want to skate across America and break a record."
Chad Caruso:
Yeah, and she thought I was insane.
Shelby Stanger:
Was the wild idea to also at the same time break a Guinness record or was it just to skate across America?
Chad Caruso:
So it really became exciting for me when I looked it up and saw that it hadn't really been done, like cleanly Guinness book measured on a skateboard. Most people use a longboard for long distance trips. I wanted to do it on a skateboard and represent skateboarders and that's what I did my whole life.
Shelby Stanger:
Let's describe really quickly the difference between a longboard and a skateboard skateboard, because some people might not know that.
Chad Caruso:
Okay. Longboard, much bigger wheels, closer to the ground, so you're not bending your leg as much, so it's just much easier on your body to push, and you cover way more ground.
Shelby Stanger:
But you wanted to do it on a traditional skateboard, which is short, has two kick... What do you call those?
Chad Caruso:
Yeah, a nose and a tail. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
So nose and a tail. So you can do tricks on both sides.
Chad Caruso:
Exactly.
Shelby Stanger:
While I did work for Vans back in the day, you'd think I'd never touched a skateboard in my life.
Chad Caruso:
Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to do it on the thing I used my whole life. It's harder, obviously, but like, I don't know. You wouldn't tell a tennis player to use a volleyball.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. So it took how long for Guinness to say, "Okay, you can go do this and this is how you have to do it"?
Chad Caruso:
Maybe it took a year or so in total.
Shelby Stanger:
But you'd already planned your route?
Chad Caruso:
In that time, I was doing all the planning. So I'm just watching any videos I can find online, people that have biked it. I'm like, "Well, they can ride over dirt and I can't on a skateboard, so I got to find my own routes." So I go on Google Maps or Google Earth every day and literally street view across all of America. I didn't know if a skateboard could go up a mountain. So I'm looking at the grade, like a 14% grade, and there's some pretty big climbs going through Palm Springs and going through the desert and all these things. I'm just like, "Can I skateboard through this? 120 miles of wilderness?" And there's no frame of reference, so I just kind of had to... And New York, Long Island's pretty flat. So I had nowhere to really simulate. So yeah, I would just research all that stuff as best as I could. And all day and night, I'd be laying in bed just watching videos or Googling.
Shelby Stanger:
Chad Caruso has been a skateboarder his entire life, but in 2021, he had a wild idea he just couldn't shake: to skateboard across the United States. His route started in Venice Beach, California, and carried him across the southern half of the country all the way to Virginia. After two years of dreaming and prepping, Chad finally pushed off on March 23rd, 2023.
You start at the hub of skateboarding, Venice Beach, California, the home of Dogtown and Z-Boys and so much skate history. That's amazing. What was that like?
Chad Caruso:
It was weird. I mean, it was like... In my head, I'm just like, "All right, I'm about to do this trip, just showing up here moseying along down to the ... I don't know how this is going to go." And then people started kind of gathering around more than I expected. There was someone there with a camera, like a news crew. But in my mind, it's just me crossing the country alone. So in my head, I have no support. It's just me. But yeah, people started gathering around. And at that point, you forget what you're doing because you're just kind of in the moment talking to everyone. But I remember leaving, people skated with me the first maybe mile to kick me off. And then once they left, it all sank in, like all the fun and excitement and planning. It went from being an idea to like a vacuum. It sucked in and like, "Oh wow, I'm actually doing this, like two months on the road alone." And then you really feel the distance. When it's in your head, you don't really... You think about it, but you don't really get it.
Shelby Stanger:
I completely understand that. So the reality kicks in and you're like, "I got to go far." So tell me, the first night, how did you feel? Do you remember?
Chad Caruso:
Yeah, a hundred percent. I think I made it to... Was it San Bernardino? Does that sound right? Yeah. The first night, I set out to daily vlog this whole thing, and I'm sore. You're working out all the kinks when you do something new right in the beginning, so it's rough around the edges. I'm getting sore. There's things you can't really account for, like traffic slowing you down and all different types of things. So I finish and I'm like, "There's no way I can edit and upload a YouTube video today. There's just no way." And then I even said it at the end of my video that I filmed. I was like, "All right. We'll see, guys. I don't know if I'm going to do it. We'll see." And I'm happy I did. I just finished one and I was like, "All right, let me just see how I feel tomorrow." So I stayed up all night long, got it out, and just started the next day. But yeah, I was destroyed.
Shelby Stanger:
So day two, you hadn't even slept and you have to go from San Bernardino somewhere else?
Chad Caruso:
Yeah, I had to make it to pretty much right before Palm Springs, which was one of the most intimidating parts of the whole trip that I sized up the whole time. I'm like... One, there was a road that was questionable if it was dirt or not. Two, there's a huge climb there. It's 14% grade. And then after that, you're skating through the desert uphill all day long and then there's 120 miles of wilderness. That's the point where I'm like, "If I could do that, I probably could do this trip."
Shelby Stanger:
Chad didn't have a support vehicle following him. Aside from a few meetups with a film crew, it was just him alone on the road with a skateboard. The whole way, he wore a backpack, which held three liters of water, food, sunscreen, and a single change of clothes. The most important piece of equipment was his watch, which allowed him to log every mile and hour he spent on a skateboard. This data had to be submitted to Guinness as proof of his record.
Did you average 50 miles a day?
Chad Caruso:
I did. At the end of it, I did 56 or so miles a day. I didn't take one break.
Shelby Stanger:
That's so badass.
Chad Caruso:
The most I did was 80. I did that two times in the trip.
Shelby Stanger:
You must be in great shape. So besides actually skateboarding a long distance, what did you do to train? I mean, you're on your feet all day if you're a server, so that's actually kind of good training.
Chad Caruso:
I did no other training. I just pushed. I would go down to this beach path, like a bike path down by the water, and push in the blazing sun with my backpack on simulating it. I'd do 60 miles and be like, "Okay, I could do 60 miles." And then I'd get home, shower, barely be able to walk, and then go to work and serve for six hours.
Shelby Stanger:
What was in this backpack that you were carrying?
Chad Caruso:
Not that much. It was two outfits, just like a shirt, Under Armour, pants, and the bare essentials. Deodorant, toothbrush, skate tool, extra bearings, and that's kind of it.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. So Under Armour, you mean like your chonies? Like your...
Chad Caruso:
No, just to guard myself from the sun. I thought if I have to put-
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, so like an Under Armour long sleeve?
Chad Caruso:
Yeah, yeah. Sorry.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay.
Chad Caruso:
I don't even know what it's technically called. Yeah, yeah. But just something to guard my skin because I just was like, "I don't want to deal with putting on lotion every day. If it sweats off, [inaudible 00:16:50] just going to melt."
Shelby Stanger:
What about a hat?
Chad Caruso:
Funny. I showed up about to skate across America and someone's like, "Yo." The company Jackalope, who I ended up finishing at the festival in Virginia Beach, the owner was there and he was like, "Yo, dude, you probably want a hat for this trip." I'm so thankful he gave me that hat, because my-
Shelby Stanger:
I'm sure he's thankful for you too, because you also gave him free marketing for your entire skate.
Chad Caruso:
That's true. Yeah, no, but I mean, I needed that hat. I didn't realize it. I was just going to be frying out in the sun the whole day. And I don't even have any eyebrows. I don't know if you could tell. So I'm already at a disadvantage in the sun.
Shelby Stanger:
So your 50 miles a day. What did you eat?
Chad Caruso:
So I started out like, "Oh, I'm an endurance athlete. I'm going across the whole country. I'm going to eat healthy." That went out the window real quick because you're in the middle of nowhere. You know what I mean? And I'm burning so many calories. So it's like a Super 8 and a McDonald's. It's like, what are you going to eat? So some nights, I'd have that. Sometimes I would crave a soda at the end of the day, like a big, iced Double Gulp or something. I never drank soda before that, but I think it was the depletion of electrolytes or sugar or whatever it was, it just made me crave it. But during the skate, I would try to not eat except for trail mix or beef jerky, like light things that filled me up.
Shelby Stanger:
What about water? Did you ever worry about running out of water or was there always water?
Chad Caruso:
Oh, no. I, yeah, plenty of times was close or did run out of water. The water thing is like... It's a give and take because that's the heaviest thing on your back. So I'd wake up every day and be like, "All right, how much water do I want or how much I want my back to hurt?" Basically. And see, you always try to be like, "All right, I'm only going to do two liters today." But then going through the desert... I'm from New York, the East Coast, and it's different. It doesn't feel as hot at all, but you lose that water much quicker. It creeps up on you. So one moment in the desert, I ran out completely. I'm at this one little weird broken down gas station and a public service worker stopped there and he gave me four bottles of water.
Shelby Stanger:
Amazing. Did you take electrolytes with you?
Chad Caruso:
No, I didn't even know what an electrolyte was at the time. I'm dead serious.
Shelby Stanger:
In the spirit of keeping things simple, Chad wore the same clothes every day; one outfit for the daytime and another that he'd change into while doing laundry at night. When it was raining, Chad used a garbage bag as a poncho. And on sunny days, he slathered on sunscreen. About halfway through the journey, he wore a hole through his shoes, but luckily some viewers met up with him and gifted him a new pair. A few of Chad's followers even came out and skateboarded with him for sections of the trip. But most days he skated solo, pushing mile after mile down rural roads.
I'm trying to figure out where you were. So if you went Palm Springs through San Bernardino Mountains, did you go through [inaudible 00:20:15]? Did you go through kind of where the Pacific Crest Trail goes?
Chad Caruso:
It's called the Sheephole Valley Wilderness. Yeah, and it puts you into Arizona. I don't know much more than that. I know I called them beforehand asking what animals I had to worry about.
Shelby Stanger:
Rattlesnakes?
Chad Caruso:
Yeah. Yeah. They basically said snakes was the main thing. They said coyotes a little bit, but if they're a pack-
Shelby Stanger:
A coyote's not going to really chase a skateboarder.
Chad Caruso:
I got chased.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, you did?
Chad Caruso:
I got chased.
Shelby Stanger:
Let's talk about this.
Chad Caruso:
They told me-
Shelby Stanger:
Terrifying.
Chad Caruso:
They told me only in a pack is the thing you have to worry about.
Shelby Stanger:
Who's they?
Chad Caruso:
I can't remember who it was. Maybe some preservation or whoever's in charge of that land. I was just Googling and I called them up.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. So you called these people, the preservation, I don't know, whatever. Maybe you called a national park. I'm not sure who you called, but this is hilarious.
Chad Caruso:
No idea.
Shelby Stanger:
So they told you the only time to worry about coyotes is if they're in a pack?
Chad Caruso:
Yep. Yeah, that and snakes. They were like, "They sometimes crawl out onto the road, so those are the main two things you got to worry about." And then I got chased by the coyote and I was like, "Oh, he's cute. He's a little coyote, whatever. He's not going to hurt me. He's like a dog."
Shelby Stanger:
Just one coyote?
Chad Caruso:
Just one by himself.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay.
Chad Caruso:
And then he started running faster and faster towards me. And I was like, "This probably isn't a good idea. I shouldn't get close to this thing." And he's running fast, so I start pushing as fast as I can and he's keeping up with me. And I actually, for a second, I was filming, but I panicked. I didn't really film it as good as I could have because I genuinely panicked.
Shelby Stanger:
Well, yeah.
Chad Caruso:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
You worried about your life, not the footage.
Chad Caruso:
Yeah. And then a couple minutes later, I got pretty far ahead and he slowed down and lost interest. I still don't know if he was friendly or not, but didn't really want to find out.
Shelby Stanger:
Any other funny stories of stuff that happened along the way?
Chad Caruso:
Yeah. I mean, this is fast-forwarding a little bit, but in Tennessee, I think it was around the day 45-ish mark, I'm skating down a hill. I finally got up this huge hill. I'm like, "All right, I'm going to put my headphones in. I'm going to relax, eat some trail mix, listen to some music." I take out my headphones, I'm about to put them on, and a moth flies straight into my ear. Gigantic moth. I didn't know what it was at the time though, so I just started freaking out, shaking my ear, put my camera on the floor filming, and my ear's getting so red because, one, it's sunburnt. It's like burnt to a crisp. And two, I'm just ripping it, shaking it, trying to get this thing out. No luck.
Shelby Stanger:
That's terrifying.
Chad Caruso:
Yeah. And then on top of that, a viewer pulls up. He's like, "Yo, I'm psyched to meet you. I want to skate with you." And I'm talking to him and telling him what happened and he's just ignoring it. He's just like, "Yeah, yeah. Nice to meet you, man." I'm like, "All right, cool." So he gets out of his car and skates a mile with me and I'm just talking to him, pretending like this thing's not still in my head. Fast-forward another hour, another viewer comes. I tell him and I clock out of my journey, like the Guinness record measurement. He gives me a ride to urgent care and they flushed it out and I a got video of the whole thing.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, that's amazing. So then you get a ride back to where you left off?
Chad Caruso:
Back in, hour later, I clock back in and I finish my day and I hit like 50, 60 miles.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh gosh, amazing. What about the people? Did you have good interactions with humans?
Chad Caruso:
Yeah. That was the best part of the whole trip. People were coming out. It all started, I think, on day seven. This older couple came out. They're like 70 years old. They've been sober for 50 years. They came to the side of the road and brought me a packed lunch; sandwich, fruit, all this stuff, soda, water. And they're just like, "We love what you're doing," this and that. "We'll buy you dinner at the end of the day." And that was in the video. And I think when people saw that, it motivated other people to want to come out and support.
Shelby Stanger:
That's really cool.
Chad Caruso:
So as the trip grew, that was in the vlogs and it just kept growing and growing as the trip went on. But yeah, I mean, there was all sorts of people would pull up to me in the cars. Most of them good. Occasionally though, you would not be sure, but people would just pull over on the shoulder out of curiosity and just be like, "What are you doing, man? I'm just curious. Tell me about it." Yeah. And I had people just... It's funny because people lose their minds when you tell them you're skating across... They can't compute it. So either they have this crazy reaction or I'd tell someone at a gas station and it would be the other way. They would just not acknowledge it. They would just be like, "Oh, he just means he's just skateboarding at skate parks across the country." You know what I mean? It was almost too big of an idea to register, so they're just like, "Yeah, I just won't pay attention to that one."
Shelby Stanger:
Chad's biggest takeaway from the trip was that people are kind and the energy that you put into the world is what will be reflected back to you. His positivity carried him thousands of miles, and it stayed with him as he skated toward his final destination.
How did that feel when you finally got to Virginia Beach, which was less than two months after leaving Venice Beach?
Chad Caruso:
Yeah. It's so hard to describe it. It was the culmination of this 25-year path, it felt like. And I'm skating up to the finish line. Well, first, right before that, I'm still in dead silence. I've been in dead silence for two months. So now I'm just going straight into this scene. I'm skating up, police are following with me. Police officers are skating with me.
Shelby Stanger:
How did you know that they were going to come?
Chad Caruso:
I didn't.
Shelby Stanger:
Did your friends call?
Chad Caruso:
I had no idea. And my wife called me and she's like, "Should I come down for the finish?" And I go, "Probably not. There's five or six people probably going to show up. Don't. It's probably not worth it." Luckily, she came because there was hundreds of people there. A couple-
Shelby Stanger:
How did they know about you? Who organized this?
Chad Caruso:
Well, there was some news stations covering it in Virginia Beach and-
Shelby Stanger:
That just randomly followed your blog?
Chad Caruso:
Yeah. I mean, I think people just heard about it, that I was coming in. And Virginia Beach is actually a pretty big skateboarding town. Hundreds of people skating with me up to the finish line and it grew. It started like five, 10.
Shelby Stanger:
But you didn't do PR? Like you didn't have someone-
Chad Caruso:
Nothing. No.
Shelby Stanger:
... reach out to new stations?
Chad Caruso:
No, I wasn't trying to get people to skate with me. That's one thing about my whole channel. I never ask anyone to subscribe or like ... If you do it, you do it. I'm doing things based on my merit and what I want to do, and if it works, it works. So I wasn't asking anyone to come out. And it just got that way and it increased as it went on. But yeah, rolling up to the finish line, the 25 years of just all the falling, and pain, and not knowing, everyone telling me to quit skateboarding, and I dropped out of high school, and not having a job, and losing tons of girlfriends, it felt like all of that culminating and all these people supporting me. And it was kind of hard not to cry, skating up to the finish line.
Shelby Stanger:
That's beautiful. I think people love your story because you're so authentic. You're not trying to make money or get famous. You're just doing what makes you happy.
Chad Caruso:
Yeah. I mean, to me, that's what life's about, right? It's trying to do the things you love to do and enjoy them, share them.
Shelby Stanger:
So at the end, there's all these people and it's just, I'm sure, such a whirlwind for you.
Chad Caruso:
It's crazy. I skate through a sign. They're holding up a huge banner that says, "Congratulations. Welcome to Virginia Beach." I don't think I even broke it, but it fell when I went through it. I'm skating through everyone. I walk onto the beach and they're all following me. I'm just kind of walking to the water because I'm not much of a runner. I'm not like, "Yeah, I did this." I'm just like, "Yeah, cool." But then they're all behind me. I'm like, "I should probably run. This is taking way too long." So I just throw my backpack off, drop my board, and I just sprint into the ocean and front flip in.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, that's so cool.
Chad Caruso:
Yeah. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Love it.
Chad Caruso:
Yeah, it was surreal. It was, honestly, I can't even ... I'm trying to describe it, but it's tough to really put it into words.
Shelby Stanger:
Chad made a documentary about a skateboard journey across the country. You can find it on his YouTube, @chadcaruso. We'll also link to it in our show notes. Keep up with Chad's latest adventures on Instagram, @chad_caruso or at chadcaruso.com. That's C-H-A-D-C-A-R-U-S-O.
Chad's ride also raised funds for Natural High, a nonprofit that supports drug prevention programs for youth. You can check them out at naturalhigh.org.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it, and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.