Mario Rigby is a serial adventurer who pushes himself to his limit out in nature. He's kayaked across Lake Ontario, biked across the entire country of Canada and walked the length of Africa. No matter what kind of expedition he's on, the motivation remains the same, to witness the good in humanity and challenge others to see it as well.
Mario Rigby is a serial adventurer who pushes himself to his limit out in nature. He's kayaked across Lake Ontario, biked across the entire country of Canada and walked the length of Africa. No matter what kind of expedition he's on, the motivation remains the same, to witness the good in humanity and challenge others to see it as well.
Connect with Mario:
Thank you to our sponsors:
Listen to REI’s Camp Monsters Podcast!
Mario Rigby:
I started reflecting on my life, and that's when I started to realize that it's the life of discovery, of exploration, of adventure that I really gravitate towards. And that's where I always feel good. Being a child back in Turks and Caicos, I used being outdoors as a way to have therapy in a sense. So why can't I recreate that in Toronto as an adult?
Shelby Stanger:
Mario Rigby is a serial adventurer who pushes himself to his limit out in nature. He's kayaked across Lake Ontario, biked across the entire country of Canada and walked the length of Africa. For Mario, one idea has led to another and another, which has turned into a full-time career as an explorer. He's been featured on CBC, CNN and countless other news publications. No matter what kind of expedition he's on, the motivation remains the same, to witness the good in humanity and challenge others to see it as well.
I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-Op Studios production brought to you by Capital One. Mario Rigby has made a life going on what he calls human-powered adventures, traveling extraordinary distances by foot, boat, or bike. His trips have taken days, months, even years to complete.
The expedition that started it all was his longest and hardest, a 7,500-mile walk from the southern tip of South Africa all the way up to Egypt. He did that trek when he was 30 years old. But Mario has always been an adventurer at heart. When he was young, he spent a lot of time exploring the beaches and islands of his home in Turks and Caicos. Mario Rigby, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. You've probably done at least the top 10 wildest things we've ever heard of.
Mario Rigby:
Yeah, it's been wild. Thanks for having me on the podcast. Really love to share my story.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. Well, let's just start with your story then. So you were born in Turks and Caicos. Do you have a fond memory of growing up in Turks and Caicos of some stuff you did with your brother?
Mario Rigby:
Oh, yeah. So we would create bush shelters. We would climb coconut trees. I remember during hurricane season, most people would be afraid of hurricanes, but me and my friends, we would actually go out in search of places that we can fish during hurricane season because that's when we can get the most fish. But then we would hide out in caves. And it was just this really crazy, bizarre experience where if you went out of that cave, the wind could literally pick us up and blow us away.
It was that intense. But we weren't afraid of that. We were just really outside nature before we even learned about camping and hiking. We didn't know these word. We didn't know this. We just understood that we wanted to go fishing or we wanted to just go for a little walk and we would just call it a walk, and we would just essentially go out, look for fruits. And it's not even whatever we wanted to do. If we're going for a long walk, you need to stay hydrated.
And we didn't have water with us, so that's when we would climb coconut trees. Or if we needed some sugar or something like that, we would go and climb papaya trees. So there was all these fruits and vegetables that were abundant to us as kids, and that's something I really treasure. And that's kind of what inspires me to continue going on the role of being an eco explorer and really being a advocate for sustainability.
Shelby Stanger:
I love these stories. You were also a very good track runner, right?
Mario Rigby:
I started to move up the ranks as a track and field athlete, so I started competing at a very high level. And anyone that knows anything about track and field knows that if you're competing at NACAC Championships or at CARIFTA Games, which are one of the biggest track and field championships in the Caribbean, if you place anywhere, even top 10 in a sprint competition, you will probably be the top 10 sprinter in the world. And so it was a big deal.
And my last year I competed in the CARIFTA Games as a 200, 400 meter sprinter specialist. And that was actually the same year that Usain Bolt came out and competed in the 400 meters before he was a 200 and 100 meter sprinter, and we would compete against each other. I didn't really know him, and he obviously did not know me at the time, but I knew that he was in one of my races. And seeing how competitive we were, I believed that that's where I was going to go in my life.
Shelby Stanger:
Mario loved the challenge of track and field and how it allowed him to explore the limits of his physical abilities. He thought his skills would carry him all the way to the Olympics, but at 16, his life took a turn when his family moved to a small city in Ontario, Canada. In his new home, it was harder for Mario to go explore nature the way he had in Turks and Caicos.
Mario Rigby:
What I realized quickly was once you're in the city, it's really costly to go out to the woods. The closest thing that you might have is a park. And then if you're in a poor area, those parks aren't very nice. So I pretty much didn't see the outdoors again for about a decade after moving to Canada.
Shelby Stanger:
In Canada, track and field was expensive, and for financial reasons, Mario stopped competing. He finished high school and moved on to university where he was able to run again on the college circuit. After some time, Mario became overwhelmed by injuries, work and his studies, and he ended up dropping out of school. He moved to Toronto hoping city life could offer him more opportunities. For work, Mario became a personal trainer, and eventually he opened his own gym. In his free time, he started exploring the beautiful expansive parks in the city.
Mario Rigby:
I was like, "Whoa, these parks are amazing. They're massive." And I thought, "This is really peaceful. This is very healthy. I like this." And my hour walk started to become two-hour walks, and then I did a five-hour walk one time, just walking around. And I started reflecting on my life like, "Why am I not happy? What is going on?" And I started to reflect over this TV show that I used to watch with my brother called The Black Panther.
It was on BET, Black Entertainment Television at the time. And I think just a few people saw it. It looked really old, like it was a kind of vintage comic book cartoon, but it was the only cartoon that had a character in which reflected my values. The Black Panther, whose name in the show was T'Challa, same like in the movie, but what they did not show in the movie was that before he became the king of Wakanda, he decided to go on a walkabout around Africa to discover and explore what the people are like, what the wildlife is like, and what the continent has to offer.
So I looked at that and I thought that that was one of the most beautiful episodes I've ever seen. It was just this man that wanted to learn more to become the best possible leader that he could become for his people. And he fell in love and I was like, "Man, I'd love to fall in love too." And he's like, he gets into all these really cool crazy adventures and experiences.
He sees wildlife. And I thought to myself, "That's exactly how I want to see my life." And I thought to myself, "Well, why can't I be the person to do a rites of passage for myself?" And I can do it in a modern day by recording the whole thing. And this was around the time when vlogging and things like that were just becoming popular, so.
Shelby Stanger:
So this is 2015-ish?
Mario Rigby:
Exactly, yeah. 2014, 2015. That's when travel vlogging was just at the beginning, just at the height.
Shelby Stanger:
So you get this wild idea to walk the entire length of Africa, like this character in Black Panther?
Mario Rigby:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
The Black Panther.
Mario Rigby:
Yeah. It didn't start with, "Let me just go with starting walking across Africa." It started with I wanted to backpack around the world in a single backpack. That's all I would be traveling with for one year. And I thought that that idea was cool, but then I started to think, "Well, we can go bigger. What is the craziest possible thing that I could think of?" And then I thought, "Man, what if I just walked the length of Africa?"
Shelby Stanger:
Do you remember when the whole idea downloaded and what that was like? Or did it come in bits and pieces and you started to color in the lines as you kept going?
Mario Rigby:
It came all together in one go. I remember I was sitting on my sofa looking at this blank wall, and I'm thinking to myself, "I have to do something. And then is this something that I want to do?" And it's a weird thing to come up in your head because it doesn't become real for a while until you start doing the planning for it.
Shelby Stanger:
But how did you know not to say, "This is a stupid idea, let's do this."
Mario Rigby:
I constantly thought this is a stupid idea. I was constantly thinking to my myself, "This is ridiculous."
Shelby Stanger:
But it didn't leave your head. It kept coming, and so you kept pursuing it.
Mario Rigby:
Because it kept calling me. And I'm not afraid to go towards something that is calling me, even if it gives me anxiety and your heart is pumping, your heart is just-
Shelby Stanger:
I know this feeling.
Mario Rigby:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
You want to run away from it, but you also know this is the thing you should do.
Mario Rigby:
You know. You know this is the thing to do.
Shelby Stanger:
It's like falling in love. You immediately, you just know.
Mario Rigby:
You just know.
Shelby Stanger:
You know this is what you are supposed to do, but it's terrifying.
Mario Rigby:
It is. It's extremely terrifying.
Shelby Stanger:
At first, Mario didn't tell any friends or family about his plans to walk across Africa, but when he was alone, he would study Google Maps and try to figure out the best path. Once the route was set, Mario moved on to the logistical parts of leaving behind his life in Toronto, shutting down his business, training for longer walks and moving out of his apartment. How long did it take you to prepare and then leave?
Mario Rigby:
I would say it took me nine months to basically get rid of all the things that I have in my life. And then I started living very cheaply. And at one point, I would say the last couple of months too, I was actually homeless. I was literally sleeping in parks. I was sleep-. And nobody knows this really, this is the first time I'm actually saying this publicly.
Sometimes I would sleep over at friend's houses, I would sleep over at my partner's place, and nobody knew. Nobody knew anything. It was just like, "Hey, if I'm going to get ready for such a trip, sleeping in the park in Toronto, that should be beginner level. That's quite easy." I think where the truth really started to set was when I trained, she was a news broadcaster for CTV, I believe, which everyone in Toronto watches. She was my client, and she asked, "What are you up to?"
And I said, "I'm going to do this walk across Africa." And she said, "Are you kidding me right now?" I'm like, "I'm going to send you a message real soon." So the entire news crew came to my gym where I was working out at, and they wanted to interview me, and I thought it was going to be just a phone interview, but no, they came with a camera crew.
It was just a wild experience. So they put me on the news and then all of a sudden, boom, I just gained a bunch of supporters. People were sending me monies, people were rooting for me. I had potential sponsors coming to support me. And it was really intense. So now I'm like, "Whew, now I have to do this."
Shelby Stanger:
So did you do any endurance training or actual walking to prepare?
Mario Rigby:
I did a walk from Toronto that was about 70 kilometers, and I had no idea what I was doing. That was just, I had Converse shoes on. My backpack just had a bunch of weight in it. And man, it was horrible. It was the worst experience I ever had. Blisters, my feet cramping. I was like, "Is this what I'm going to be experiencing? This is insane."
So I started to get really worried. And there was this walking coach who I used to know, and she was an ultra marathon walking coach, a speed walker. So she suggested that I walk from Toronto to Montreal, which is a 550 kilometer walk, and it would take me 14 days, and she would teach me how to maintain my cadence, how to carry heavy weight, what kind of stuff I should wear, what my kit should look like, and what kind of foods I should eat.
And so she taught me all of this. And through this whole entire process, I really went through a huge learning curve. So those nine months were essentially just me, literally just being like, what is this whole hiking, walking thing? And for me, it wasn't about like, I'm doing this because I love hiking. It's because I just wanted to go to Africa and I wanted to see the culture by foot. That's it.
Shelby Stanger:
After tying up loose ends on his life in Toronto and dialing in his gear, Mario was off. When we come back, he tells us about his first day on the trek and shares some of the wildest stories from his time on the road.
Mario Rigby has built a life around adventure. He's crossed lakes, countries and even continents using his own human power, biking, kayaking, swimming, and walking incredible distances. Mario's career as an explorer started in 2015 when he set out to walk the length of Africa. He began the 7,500-mile journey in Cape Town on November 24th, which was actually his 30th birthday. At first, Mario was nervous, but the day before he started walking, he got his first taste of trail magic.
Mario Rigby:
I remember landing there. That was the most insane feeling of all time. I'm like, 'There's no freaking way that I'm just going to walk. Who does that?" And so I landed in Cape Town, and funny enough, the day before I left to start my walk, I had to take a train even further South to get to the tip, to get to the most southwestern point of Africa. I overheard this conversation between two Zimbabweans at a restaurant, and they were discussing politics between Zimbabwe and South Africa.
And I was like, "Wow, this sounds interesting." I wanted to join their conversation. So I actually turned around. I went to them and I said like, "Hey, I love what you guys are talking about. Do you mind if I chime in?" And they said, "Yeah, absolutely." And we became tight. And then they asked, what am I doing? I said, "I'm doing this walk." They thought it was crazy. I got the usual response when I tell people this, which is shock and awe.
And this young kid, I think he was 19 years old, just coming out of university, and he asked me, he said, "Listen, can I join you on day one? Can I help take you to the most southern tip of South Africa?" And I said, "Yeah, okay. That would be awesome." I didn't believe it, really. I was just like, "Mm." Because it's a big thing to just go out of your way and just join someone on a 30K walk. So the next morning it was four A.M. I heard this guy yelling my name from outside the window, and I was like, "Oh my God, this kid's crazy. He actually came."
But because of him, my first experience was actually really remarkable. We had a lot of fun. He carried my backpack half the time, and he really gave me an insight of Africa that I didn't really know before. He was just so happy, so jolly. There was no negative, there was no downtime with him. And that's kind of the spirit that I started doing the walk with. A lot of people say, "Well, how'd you survive it? Wasn't it tough?" It was probably from that experience that I learned that you don't have to see it that way.
You can decide to look at it a completely different way. And I started to look at it the way that that kid was looking at it. He was constantly admiring everything. He's like, he saw baboons for the first time and we were on this train ride and it was the most incredible train ride with all the mountains on the side, and the clouds just kind, they look like curtains over the mountains. It was incredible. So I would say day one was definitely one of the most fascinating days I've ever had. And to celebrate it that way I think is what kind of set the precedents for the rest of my trip across Africa.
Shelby Stanger:
The second day was almost as eventful. A group of kids started walking with Mario from the local township and stole his wallet. Luckily, Mario had hidden $200 in his shoes. Things continued like this with moments of joy and wonder followed by fear and intense fatigue. Eventually Mario found a rhythm.
He would walk, find a spot to sleep, walk, and then when he came to a big city or town, he would stop for a few days or even a couple of weeks. Most of the people he encountered were kind to him. But Africa has a complicated history, and as a black man, Mario still encountered racism and prejudice on his journey.
Mario Rigby:
I've seen people just, their faces just turn into such hatred and such disgust just looking at me. And I know they're not looking at me, they're looking at the idea of me or what they think. And you can really see that when people are not looking at you for who you are, but they're looking at you for who they think you might be. And I think one of the abilities that I have is to be able to look past that and just do a countdown like, "Okay, three, two, one, they'll figure it out."
Hopefully they'll not be completely blindly racist towards people of color, black people in particular. So I had to deal with a lot of that. I even stayed with some people who fought in the apartheid. And this guy, literally, I had a braai with him. And a braai, it's like a barbecue. And he told me straight up and word for word, he's like, "Never in my life did I think I'm would be sitting here having a braai with a black." And I thought, "Wow. This guy is like I'm the first person, the first black person he sat down with since he murdered them back in the apartheid days."
And he was crying and he knew that the mistakes that he made were because he was just a part of this kind of, I would call it a sickness. When people allow the hate to creep up in their souls, I think that is a part of, I think that's a mental sickness in a way. Because it doesn't do anything good for you.
Your heart rate goes up, you become very tense, you start looking at things negatively, which is not good for growth or happiness. So there's nothing positive about it really. And I started to meet a lot more people like that. And that's the thing, it's just meeting different people who have different perspectives all the time. There was an Indian family in... Where was this? In Elizabeth Town, I think.
Shelby Stanger:
Port Elizabeth?
Mario Rigby:
Or maybe Port Elizabeth, yeah. But there is this really wealthy Indian family. They were awesome. They took me out and they taught me really a lot about the culture and the spirit of what South Africa is, especially as a person of color. And the father, the husband of the family, he really was an incredible spirit to me because I was at a crossroads because I had dozens of rivers to cross that I didn't really foresee doing.
I just thought I was going to walk. I didn't think I had to swim across the most dangerous rivers known to men. And these rivers are massive, and some of them are just mud, and they're moving so fast that as soon as you put your hand in the water, it's just like a slap. And I had to cross these because it was either I stayed there and I run out of water and food and I die.
Or if I go backwards, if I go back, the distance is like 150 kilometers. I run out of food, water, and I die. Or I can go through the land. This is me on the coast, right? So the other way is to go through the land, but then there are venomous snakes, spiders, there could be cliffs that, or unforeseen things that I don't know about. And then you could die. So there was lik every option was you will die. So you take the option that is moving forward. So you have 50 kilometers left to go to make it to this village, but there are three rivers that you have to cross.
And of course you have sharks there that are doing figure-eights, waiting to catch freshwater fish. And then you have crocodiles that are too far in, so you have to make that calculation perfect. Right? And this guy that I met, the Indian guy, he suggested that I get a toy boat, one of those inflatable ones and just... because it's small enough to put on my backpack, but sturdy enough to carry my large heavy backpack.
And I had a rope, and I would tie this rope around my waist, tie it to the boat, take off all my clothes, whatever, and then jump into the water and just swim as quickly as humanly possible. And I'm just really blessed and I'm really happy that I learned as a kid, even since Germany, how to be a good swimmer. And so for me, swimming was not a big issue. It was just more about what was in the water. And the knowledge that I learned from the people that I met along the way.
The guy taught me, "Okay, if you jump in the water quickly, crocodiles will go under for about two, three minutes just to assess the situation. But they can't really see well, and that's your time to get out and try to make it across." Anything more than three minutes, you're putting your life in danger because the river will suck you. It will push you out into the ocean.
And some of these rivers I've crossed people on the other side have said, "People die in this river every single year, and you, my friend, had crossed the river. You are crazy." And I think this is where I started to believe like, "Man, I'm an incredibly lucky person." I should have been killed or I should have died in so many different situations where for the life of me, I just made it out alive somehow.
Shelby Stanger:
Mario walked from South Africa up to Tanzania where he took a three-month break. Then he continued North. He crossed a total of eight countries on his trek. It was not easy. Along the way, he contracted malaria, dodged bullets with government soldiers in a war zone and was attacked by wild dogs. In one town, Mario was taken prisoner because the police didn't believe he was a tourist. What surprised you most?
Mario Rigby:
I wish I could even have more time to tell the stories, but there are beautiful stories like in Malawi where I was jailed for a number of days and it was the chief of the village who set me up to get me arrested, and apparently the police chief was in on it. And it was a whole bad situation in this tiny little village that's off the grid, by the way. People are still living in mud homes in this place and I'm out here now being entangled in their situation.
And when I got released, the people of the village knew that it was the chief who was in the wrong, and I had people surround me when I finally came back, because I had to retrieve my kayak. I was kayaking at the time. I had to retrieve my kayak from the chief's house, which is a mud home, and had to make sure that all my items were still there while the entire village is watching.
And the chief tries to shake my hand and I refused. And the entire village all at the same time, just went, "Ooh." It felt like this immense echo. Just it felt like, 'Whoa, what did I just do?" I ended up getting my kayak and the entire village, they carried my kayak to the water. They carried it. I videotaped this whole thing. And when I finally went in the water and I left, again, the entire village just kind of cheered and roared. It was like the biggest roar I ever felt.
I still feel it, just kids on top of each other's shoulders, people getting up as high as they can and just cheering and going nuts. And I was like, "This is not real. This can't possibly be a real life situation." And you can only find stories like that if you really go into the deep end of things. You know what I mean? That's where real authentic fairytale stories come from in a way. I think these fairytale stories in the past, I think they come from real life situations, and this could be an example of that.
Shelby Stanger:
Wow, that story's insane. What did you learn about yourself?
Mario Rigby:
I think it was a phone call I had with my mom, actually, and she told me that, she's like, "Mario, everything that you've done in your life has led you up to this point." She's like, "You're an athlete. You're fit. You have been in different countries around the world that are complete opposites. Therefore, you have the flexibility to understand, I think cultures quicker than someone who has not seen other cultures.
You also had struggled in Toronto and in university with money and things like that." So knowing how to survive, knowing how to use the little bit of resources that you have to get ahead, I think those are the things that really got me out of a lot situations that could have gone South very badly.
But I think the biggest surprise for me was not even myself, it was really people. No matter where I went, people were just so incredibly beautiful. I think that's the best way to say it. They were just so friendly and so accommodative, and they would give literally their last grain of rice, which happened a few times.
Shelby Stanger:
Mario completed his walk in Cairo, Egypt in February of 2018. It took him a total of two years and three months. After spending some time in Cairo, Mario returned to Toronto. There he dealt with the depression that many adventurers face after they accomplish a huge feat like this. He knew that in order to find his footing again, he needed to set off on another adventure.
So the next year, he biked across Canada, and the year after that, he kayaked 220 miles across Lake Ontario. Three years after his Africa Trek, Mario embarked on an expedition he dreamed about since he was young, a human powered crossing of Turks and Caicos. He spent six days hiking, swimming, biking, running, and kayaking 140 miles across the Archipelago. Past guest, Chev Dixon actually joined him on the kayak crossings.
If you're interested in learning more about it, you can watch a short film on his website MarioRigby.com. You can also follow Mario on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok at Mario Rigby. That's M-A-R-I-O R-I-G-B-Y. Wild Ideas Worth Living recently won three w3 Awards. One, Best In Show for General Lifestyle Podcast, and two, for our episode with Ruby Gates and Lael Wilcox. We'll link to those in our show notes if you haven't listened. 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 Pierz Mintzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hanna Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Motala 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.