The day before his 26th birthday, Tom Turcich walked out the door of his home in Haddon Township, NJ. He was setting off to walk around the world. Four months into his trek, he adopted a dog, Savannah, to keep him company. The pair’s adventure was filled with highs and lows and lessons learned.
The day before his 26th birthday, Tom Turcich walked out the door of his home in Haddon Township, NJ. He was setting off to walk around the world. Seven years and over 25,000 miles later, Tom returned home. Four months into his trek, he adopted a dog, Savannah, to keep him company. The pair’s adventure was filled with highs and lows - kindly interactions with strangers, health scares, beautiful scenery, and lots of lessons learned.
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Tom Turcich:
That's what appealed to me about the walking, was that I'm in it every day. Whether it's a place I want to be in or not, and whether it's really hot or really cold or windy, or if it's dangerous, or if it's somewhere I don't speak the language. I have to walk through that place. And I kind of wanted that. I wanted to be forced into adventure.
Shelby Stanger:
In 2015, Tom Turcich walked out the door of his home and had in Haddon Township, New Jersey. He was wearing a backpack and pushing a stroller, but there wasn't a baby inside. Instead, the stroller was loaded with gear, a tent, a sleeping bag and pad, a water filter and a camping cook set. It was the day before his 26th birthday and Tom was setting out to walk all the way around the world. Now, seven years later, Tom's returned home as the 10th person to cross the globe on foot.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living an REI Co-op Studios Production. Tom's journey spanned six continents. From New Jersey, it took him nearly two years to walk to Uruguay, where he then took a boat to Antarctica. Then he crisscrossed his way around the UK, Europe and North Africa, five years into his journey. Tom was walking through Azerbaijan, when COVID hit. He decided to reroute. After walking then through Kyrgyzstan, he flew to Seattle in August 2021. It took another nine months to make it home to Haddon Township. His total distance was over 25,000 miles. Tom Turcich, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living.
Tom Turcich:
Thanks for having me.
Shelby Stanger:
You have one of the most wild ideas, the idea to walk around the world. Can you just start with your why, why back in 2015, did you decide to walk?
Tom Turcich:
My friend Anne Marie died when I was 17 and she was 16 and we were good friends throughout our life. We grew up just a couple blocks from each other and went to the same elementary school and then high school, hung out in the same group. And she died in this jet ski accident, very freak, sudden thing. And the thing about Anne Marie, in particular, and I guess everyone says this after someone they know dies, they were the nicest person I knew, but for me, it's really true. Anne Marie was the nicest person I knew and it always drove me crazy how nice she was. I would prod her almost to get her to be anything but generous. So when she passed, it was really an awakening for me that if Anne Marie can go just suddenly then, so could I, and I didn't really know how to integrate this fact that I can go at any moment.
Tom Turcich:
And so then when I thought about what I wanted out of life, I knew I wanted to travel. I wanted adventure and I wanted to understand the world. And then I discovered Steve Newman and Karl Bushby, these two guys who had walked around the world, Karl Bushby still walking around the world. And that seemed to answer kind of everything I wanted out of life. And then it was eight years of saving and going to school and paying off loans and living at home and saving and paying off loans and working until I had enough money where I thought I could make it down two years to Argentina and hopefully get a sponsor.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm really curious, getting to the starting line is hard, especially if it's something as daunting as walking around the world. So you had this reason to go this why? But you could have done a lot of things after your friend passed to honor Anne Marie, what about walking around the world, did you just get a book? Did it hit you one night? How did that happen?
Tom Turcich:
I think it just seemed like the most immersive way to see the world. I think that's what appealed to me because I really wanted to be in these places. And I think that's always kind of appealed to me. I've always just been repelled from the touristy spots and more attracted to the simple and real places and things. And so I think that's what appealed to me about the walking was that I was very simple and it would let me see the world and I would be forced into adventure. That's the other thing about the walking is that I'm in it every day. Whether it's a place I want to be in or not, and whether it's really hot or really cold or windy, or if it's dangerous or if it's somewhere, I don't speak the language, I have to walk through that place. And I wanted that. I wanted to be forced into adventure.
Shelby Stanger:
Did you train, did you start walking? Did keep you motivated during your 18, 19, 20 years old? That's a tricky age to have that foresight.
Tom Turcich:
No, I was in college and I was in a fraternity and I was drinking and I just having a great time.
Shelby Stanger:
Where did you go to school?
Tom Turcich:
Moravian College in Pennsylvania.
Shelby Stanger:
Did you play tennis for them?
Tom Turcich:
I did. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
So you're a college athlete and a fraternity boy?
Tom Turcich:
College athlete, yeah. Fraternity president.
Shelby Stanger:
Of course, you were. You're a driven guy.
Tom Turcich:
But the world walk was always in the back of my mind, but I barely did any hikes or anything, even before starting. I did a 10 day hike on the AT with my college tennis partner and then I did a couple, three day hikes, but it's the kind of thing where I figured once I just start walking and I started in the US purposefully so that I could get my legs under me and get out all the kinks and figure out how much water I already need? How much food do I need? How does my body stand up to things? I've been an athlete. My whole life played soccer and swim and tennis. So I knew I could kind of adjust. But as far as staying motivated, it's nice to have some sort of flag in the distance that you can direct your life towards. And once I had set that flag at 17, everything in my life was kind of directed towards that.
Shelby Stanger:
Tom knew that if he was going to make the world walk, there would be a lot of planning involved. He didn't have to pay much for transportation. Walking is free, but he still had to pay for seven years of food, water, visas, and occasional hotel rooms. Tom worked summers installing solar panels, which allowed him to pay off his student loans while also saving money for the trip. Then a couple of months before his walk, he landed a sponsorship opportunity with a local business. Once the finances were in place, Tom was ready to go.
Shelby Stanger:
So everybody listening to this is like, "Okay, how did he do it logistically?" Where did you sleep? Where did you eat? What was kind of the day to day?
Tom Turcich:
The day to day is very simple. You wake up and walk and try and find a place for breakfast. Walk some more, try and find a place for lunch. Walk some more, maybe find a place for dinner, or have pasta outside the tent, find a place to sleep, go to bed and do it again. It sounds very simple. It is very simple. That's what you do. You just get up and walk. And the scenery changes around me. Sometimes I'm in the jungle of Costa Rica. Other times I was in the deserts of Peru and in Chile. And then I was in Denmark in snow and in Germany in snow and then the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. So the scenery changes and the situation changes. Sometimes I have to bring more food with me. Whereas maybe if I'm in Western Europe, I barely have to carry any food because I'm just going through pretty populated areas. There's other times, say I'm on The Camino and I have this community around me, which is really great.
Tom Turcich:
And then in the opposite of that, I'm walking across Wyoming in winter and I'm just on my own with the wind blasting me in the face. And so the scenery changes and of the amount of food I carry with me changes the amount of water I carry with me changes, but it's simple, I walk and then I find a place at camp and then I do it again the next day.
Shelby Stanger:
And every now and then a hotel?
Tom Turcich:
Every now and then. The first year and a half, I got maybe a month total worth of hotels. And the rest was all camping, but at a certain point in Peru, the hotels were really cheap and I stopped one weekend and I realized I should probably stop more often and see some of these places I decided I'm going to stop every weekend and just spend a day in some place and slow down a little bit.
Shelby Stanger:
So you carried a backpack, a stroller. I'm going to talk about your dog, but just really quickly about how many miles a day would you walk?
Tom Turcich:
I would average probably when I was walking kind at a minimum 21 miles a day. More realistically, I was probably doing 24 miles in a day. I think if you averaged out all the days with all the off days and everything else, it's probably close to 12 miles a day or 11 miles a day for how far in total I've walked and the total days. When I was going, I liked to get in at least 21 miles to feel like a full day.
Shelby Stanger:
How would you map your trail and decide where to camp as well?
Tom Turcich:
That's something on a large scale, there was two considerations in drawing out the route. The first was that I knew I wanted to hit every continent. So I drew the route, "Okay, this is how I hit every continent." And then the second thing was, how do I do that with as minimal visa trouble as possible? And so that's the reason where I didn't get into Sub-Saharan Africa or the middle east or Southeast Asia is because it's just easier to skim north Africa and then walk up to Mongolia was the plan. I wasn't able to do it because of COVID, but ultimately only needed about two visas. With the day to day stuff, it really depends on the country and the feel of the country. Some countries have a lot of roads, some countries have these great, quiet roads that I can just follow through the mountains the whole way.
Tom Turcich:
Other times it's just one road along the coast. And this is the road you're taking and you don't have any choice about it. It's the only way to go. And then figuring out where I'm going to sleep. Generally, I would look ahead just with Google Maps and have the maps, download it. And I look ahead and say, "I think this is a good spot." And I could do that pretty reliably in some places in developed countries where Google Maps has street view everything it's super easy. And it's really important when I'm in a developed area, you have to get really precise on where you're going to camp. When you have all this population around you.
Tom Turcich:
And then in other places, it's just kind of winging it. I remember in Morocco in particular, there's kind of these ravines along the coast. And I would walk until I found one of these little ravines that I could duck away into. And it was difficult to camp there though, because people were outside even in the night, because it was pretty warm. And so I was never really felt like I was totally hidden because there would be kids out playing and there'd be people out walking until 10, 11 at night. And so I'd just be laid out on my tarp somewhere, hoping I'd tucked myself away enough to get a good eight hours of sleep.
Shelby Stanger:
Walking is tiring and rest was the necessity of Tom was going to make it around the world. Unfortunately, his nights weren't all that restful mysterious noises kept him awake and he was worried about his safety and the security of his belongings. To ease his mind, Tom decided to enlist a canine companion. It's one of the reasons humans and dogs teamed up in the first place, right? Humans wanted protection and dogs wanted food and friendship. When Tom got to Texas, he decided to make a pit stop and an animal shelter.
Tom Turcich:
When I got to Austin, I went into this adoption center. I spent about two hours there and they were all kind of adult dogs. And I didn't think that was right. And then just as I was about to leave, they brought out Savannah and her sister and their puppies. And I knew pretty quickly that this is perfect, because she'll grow up on the road and she won't know any other existence.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm just really curious because Savannah's the first dog to ever walk across the world, which is so awesome for Savannah and for you, what was it like though bringing her to different countries and especially across some of those borders?
Tom Turcich:
When you read online about crossing borders with dogs, it makes it seem like it's to some impossible grand feat. And in reality, most countries just want recent rabies vaccine within a year and then a general health certificate within 10 days of getting to the border. But probably about 50% of the countries don't even acknowledge Savannah because there's strays crossing the border all day. And so they don't care, Central and South America, it was maybe 40% of the country's asked for her paperwork. And also once you're in Europe, if you get the international health certificate in the US, which is pretty straightforward, you just need a certified vet to apply for it. Then you're in and you're in Europe and it's pretty easy. I always had the paperwork just in case. I think the more difficult thing was it was a little limiting with hotels.
Tom Turcich:
In the Americas, you could always persuade the person because they were mostly mom and pop hotels and they wanted my business. In Europe, you could look up what are pet friendly hotels? The only country that was difficult was, North Africa was difficult, because dogs just aren't really part of the culture. Luckily in Algeria, I had this police escort for the whole way and they made me stay at hotels every night because they didn't want me out camping and none of the hotels wanted Savannah, but the police would basically twist the arm of the owner and be like, "You're taking this dog."
Shelby Stanger:
That's awesome.
Tom Turcich:
I would get in. And Turkey was a little difficult as well with Savannah just finding places to stay. Turkey was actually probably the most difficult because they have this very established culture that just dogs aren't inside. The dogs are really well taken care of and there's laws in place to vaccinate, spay neuter all the stray dogs and people are nice to them, but they just don't come inside. So it was really difficult in Turkey to find places to sleep. But otherwise like 99% of the time we're just walking and most nights were camping. So it's really easy.
Shelby Stanger:
Did you train her?
Tom Turcich:
I trained her for sure when we were walking in Texas. I used to push her in my carriage, had this back basket and I would push her most of the time and then I'd take her out and she would walk as much as she wanted to walk and I would kind of leash train her a little bit. But by the time we got into Mexico, she was walking the full 24 miles a day. And Mexico was really this pressure that really melded us together as one, because we had to navigate these really cramped, chaotic places and we'd have to move as one unit. So that's when we really kind of fused together in a certain way. Would she protect me? No, probably not. But at night people don't know that.
Shelby Stanger:
Even with Savannah, by his side, Tom had some sketchy interactions. In the mountains of Turkey, he was interrogated by soldiers who held him at gunpoint. Luckily they let him go, when he showed them his popular Instagram account, it proved that he truly was walking around the world. In Panama, Tom narrowly escaped a mugging when some nearby police intervened. Savannah may not have been the best guard dog, but having her by his side on the road still gave Tom peace of mind. When we come back, Tom shares some intense moments he had during his seven year walk.
Shelby Stanger:
Tom Turcich walked more than 25,000 miles to achieve his goal of traveling around the world by foot. He did most of it with his dog Savannah. On May 21st 2022, seven years and one month after his initial departure, Tom and Savannah returned to his hometown of Haddon Township, New Jersey. Together, the pair shared a lot of beautiful awe inspiring experiences, but there were some tough moments too. No adventure is really an adventure unless something goes wrong. I'm sure that you had many of these moments. Was there ever a really big OF moment?
Tom Turcich:
When we were in the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world, and we were really far from anything on a median in the shade and just taking a break midday to get out of the sun. And we'd spent about two hours there and I stood up and Savannah stands up to go and then she sneezes and her nose starts bleeding and it's not like a normal nosebleed. It's like water coming out. And so pretty quickly I'm going through my first aid kit and getting her back in the shade and I'm thinking, "Did we not take long enough break? And did she cut something," as I'm holding her head back and holding the gauze, but I pretty quickly go through the gauze. So I picked her up and I was able to wave down a jeep that was passing by with some young Chileans. And they took me to town and tried to find a vet.
Tom Turcich:
And then they took me to another town because there was no vet, but the next town had a hotel in it. And then all night she was sneezing and bleeding and sneezing, bleeding. And it was really scary. She looked pale, which is crazy for a dog, and she was losing an insane amount of blood. And I ran to the pharmacy real quick and I got a sedative, just a slow her heart rate down. And I turned the shower on full heat just to create some humidity because the Atacama was the driest desert it in the world, there's no humidity there. So the nose bleed isn't coagulating. Eventually, the next day, was able to get a cabby to take us five hours to the nearest city to Orica.
Tom Turcich:
And we went into the vet and the vet knew immediately what it was. And apparently there's this tick in Southern Peru that just has this infection that is super common there and Savannah had it and it was latent and I just didn't know, but it dropped her platelets to zero. So that's why it wasn't coagulating and so they knew what to do right away. And it was just a week recovery, something like that and then she was fine, but in the moment it was terrifying and I only had her for a year and a half at that point. And I was just thinking, "We're just getting started. I can't lose you already." And luckily I didn't. Thank God.
Shelby Stanger:
Wow. That's probably really scary. That's your baby.
Tom Turcich:
Yeah. The interesting thing about Savannah too was, like I said, I got her because of very self interest reasons to protect me. And so I could get a good night's sleep and for months, all the way through Mexico, so for probably about three months, I kind of didn't feel anything towards her. I was like, "You're tiny. You're not doing your job." And we were navigating these very tense, chaotic Mexican cities. And it kind of wove us together into one unit. But after we got through Mexico, I remember sitting in a field near Guatemala and looking at her and just thinking, "I love this little bugger."
Tom Turcich:
And so my feelings crept up on me very slowly and seeing her go through mountains and the desert and everything else, pretty quickly evolve beyond even affection. It's really just I have so much admiration for her and she's just such a tough dog. So at this point, and even back then, it was really much more admiration that I had for her or I was just proud of her. Of course, I love her. She's an amazing dog. It's something beyond that at this point.
Shelby Stanger:
I also heard you got really sick at one point.
Tom Turcich:
Yeah. I almost kicked it.
Shelby Stanger:
Wait, what? Okay. You probably should tell us this story.
Tom Turcich:
I had a bacteria infection after South America. I picked it up somewhere in Argentina or Uruguay, most likely. And it was this really, really slow going thing where, when I got back to the US and I was doing Savannah's paperwork to get into Europe, I started getting these little stomach pains. And then by the time I was in Ireland, I was getting these stomach spasms once a day. And then by the time I was in Scotland, it was like five times a day where it was 10 out of 10 pain where I'd be on the ground, riding in pain. I could not see, a blackout. It was so painful. So I took a ferry from North Ireland to Scotland and it was like three miles walk to the ferry and then three miles afterwards and I came to this little grassy knoll and I sat there and I was so tired and I was like, "I'll just set camp here."
Tom Turcich:
And then I knew something was really wrong because I never walked less than 15 miles a day. And I was ready to call it after six miles. And so eventually I just realized I'm not getting any better. And so I went to London where my cousin is and was in and out of the hospital for a month. They couldn't figure out what it was and it wasn't getting any better. Flew home was getting all the sorts of tests at home and wasn't getting any better. I developed colitis. I developed a fungus of my esophagus. I was basically in pain all day, every day. And I ended up losing 45 pounds and I'm like 165 normally. So I don't have really have 45 pounds to lose. Luckily, they put me on an antibiotic that just started to work. And then the weight came back very quickly and then recovered and got back to walking after about seven months.
Shelby Stanger:
Tom pushed himself hard to complete his wild idea. While there were moments of joy, there were definitely times when Tom questioned his whole journey. What was the point? What if he just went home? At the end of the day, Tom always remembered Anne Marie and the lessons he learned from his friends sudden passing. Life is short. So if you have a wild idea, you have to go for it. When Tom finally arrived back in New Jersey at the end of his trip, it was a cathartic moment and Anne Marie's parents were waiting for him at the finish line and there were tears. And of course there was a big celebration. I talked to Tom just a month after he got back and things still hadn't quite calmed down.
Shelby Stanger:
It's only been a month or less, so you haven't really hit that doldrum yet, but I'm just really curious. How has it been to be back or has it just been too much of a whirlwind that you haven't really gotten to decompress even?
Tom Turcich:
Yeah, I think right now it's been a whirlwind. It's been pretty nonstop since I returned home, but I think I kind of have been so ready to return home for a while that I think it'll be pretty easy in a certain way just because I'm ready for it. And also because I ended the walk walking from Seattle back home and ended in my own country when I landed in Seattle, that really felt like that's when, for me, it felt like I was home already. Because finally, you're traveling, you always have your guard up just a little bit because you don't know the culture and you don't know the language. Even if you do again, you don't know the culture, you don't want to offend anyone.
Tom Turcich:
And when I land in Seattle, I really felt like that weight fall off where was like, "I'm in this culture that I know. I'm home." And it started this process of looking back at how much I had changed and all the things I had sacrificed and given up to make this dream happen. And then also looking forward as to trying to decipher, what did I want now that it was ending?
Shelby Stanger:
What was the most surprising thing about this whole adventure?
Tom Turcich:
I think probably the most surprising thing is just how ordinary everywhere is. No matter where you go, you get there and you go, "This is just people living here." And the scenery changes. And in your mind before you get there, you're thinking, "Like Turkey, it's what a wild place. It's going to be crazy to have a Star Crescent on their flag." And then you get there and you go, "It's just people living like anywhere else." And the scenery changes and there's a call to prayer rather than church bells. And maybe they have a few different customs and the food's a little bit different, but it's pretty much the same thing. It's people living.
Shelby Stanger:
Talk to me about what you learned about people.
Tom Turcich:
I think most people just want to make a little money and hang out with their family and everyone has different personalities. It's not like every person is going to go out of their way to be generous to you. But I think really, what I learned about people is people are small. Life is far more dictated by geography and the system someone is born into than it is their willpower. I've met people all around the world who are just as competent as I am, more driven than, I am kinder than I am. And maybe they're in the foothills of Turkey and they're a shepherd just by circumstance and not to say that's a bad life, but people's lives are dictated by much larger forces than stick to witness. And you see it a lot when you cross borders, especially when there's a wealth gap or a geography difference.
Tom Turcich:
The one that comes to mind most is going from Ecuador into Peru. I left Ecuador from this little town of Macara and it's a really verdant place. There's a lot of runoffs from the mountains, from the Andes and there's hammocks hanging all over and there's school kids reading textbooks and the hammocks and there's hotels. And there's a little landing strip for airplanes in the center of town and there's good restaurants. And then you cross the border into Peru and you're pretty quickly into the desert and people don't have running water. And the difference there is geography. It's also that Peru is a weaker state and Lima is pretty far away from the Northern parts of the Peruvian desert. So the state just doesn't reach up that far, but really it's a roll of dice that you're a kid on the Peruvian side, bringing your donkey to well to get water or your kid in Macara, in Ecuador, eating ceviche and laying in a hammock.
Tom Turcich:
So you see that over and over again and you just realize how small people are and how little influence they have over their own life. And it's really the same thing for me when I'm walking, walking is really meditative and you're constantly picking up memories and you're thinking about your influences on your own life and the decisions you made and over and over and over again, you're turning over all these things and you realize pretty much all of it's just circumstance. And then when I was in the Atacama desert and laid beneath the stars every night and you'd see the Milky Way every night and it just sits on your chest like an elephant. And just reminding you that you are nothing.
Shelby Stanger:
You said walking can be really meditative. You probably had a lot of time to think. What did you learn about yourself?
Tom Turcich:
Something about just walking in itself, let's your mind kind of run in the background. And after about a year and a half for me, I got to this point where I was in the desert and just thinking, I had thought all the thoughts and I just had reached the bottom of myself and sort of had resolved any angst that I thought I had and kind of came to terms with all of it. The first thing I resolved was before beginning the walk, when I was in college, I dated this girl, Leanna, and we dated for about four years and she was great and I would've married her probably and started a life with her. But instead I chose the walk and then it was two years or so in between ending things with her and starting the walk and two years is a good amount of time.
Tom Turcich:
And I thought I had resolved it. And then when I was walking, I would kind of see her everywhere. And I was like, "No, you have not resolved this clearly." And over those four months of walking, it finally afforded me this opportunity to really work through whatever it was that needed to be worked through. And it wasn't necessarily this trauma. And I didn't feel like I was scarred by it, but there was something there that needed to be worked through. And so just like the act of walking, you're able to just pick up a memory, put it down and then you pick it up two weeks later, look it at a different angle and put it down and you do that over and over and over again. And it sort of just loses luster or you just understand it and you've seen it from so many angles that you go, "Okay. That's how it is." And then you set it aside and it's kind of forgotten or understood at least. You do that over a year and a half or longer and yourself really, really well.
Shelby Stanger:
Wait, what happened to Leanna?
Tom Turcich:
She's married, has kids. And that's life. And that's part of being small as well. When you're young, you think you can control everything in your life, but it's like the Sylvia Plath quote, "The Fig Tree." It's like, "You have to choose a fig."
Shelby Stanger:
This is so dark though.
Tom Turcich:
I wouldn't say it's dark because I lived my dream. And if I had stayed with Leanna, I would have that probably resentment towards myself or some bitterness towards myself, maybe towards her eventually, but also I just wouldn't know myself. I wouldn't know who I was in the same way that I do today.
Shelby Stanger:
What advice do you have for people who want to pursue a wild idea?
Tom Turcich:
I would say be a bit more reckless with your life, because you have a very little amount of time here. It's in our nature to play it safe. But I think people kind of handle their life with a little too much care sometimes. And I don't mean recklessness and just go and just trample the flowers and jump off cliffs. And I don't mean reckless in that way, but I mean in a broad sense, you're going to die. It's already over the game is over. You lost already. It's over. So for the little bit amount of time you have here, be a little bit more reckless because you already lost the game. So you may as well have some fun.
Shelby Stanger:
Now that he's home, Tom is planning on playing a lot of tennis with friends, writing a book about his walk and doing some public speaking. There may be even a movie in the works. Mostly, Tom's just enjoying having a more permanent home, sleeping in, under sheets on a bed and getting to spend time with his loved ones.
Shelby Stanger:
Tom Turcich, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and talking to me and pursuing your wild idea that I'm sure will inspire so many more. To learn more about Tom's journey, check out the worldwalk.com or check out his Instagram @theworldwalk. "Wild Ideas Worth Living" is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, written and edited by Annie Fassler and Sylvia Thomas of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Chelsea Davis and our associate producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Palo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you write a review on this show, wherever you're listening to it, when you follow it and when you rate it and remember some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas. Who is next going to walk around the world? I don't think I am, but if you are, let us know.