On the 12th episode of Travel Tales by Afar, Tom Turcich, the 10th man to walk around the world, shares a story from his memoir, The World Walk, about an unexpected encounter in the Peruvian desert during his seven-year walk with his dog, Savannah. Two years after their return, he talks to Travel Tales by Afar host, Aislyn Greene, about how the walk transformed him and how others can experience the benefits of walking— whether they are taking a pilgrimage or walking for 45-minutes around their neighborhood.
Transcript
Aislyn Green: I am Aislyn Greene and this is Travel Tales by Afar.
Every week, we hear stories of life-changing travel from poets, scientists, authors, entrepreneurs, and so many more. This week, we’re going to hear from the man who walked around the world with his dog, Savannah, in tow. In 2015, Tom Turcich set out for what he believed would be maybe a five-year journey with his dog, Savannah, who at the time was four months old.
He had a modified cart for supplies, a sponsorship for five years of walking and a lot of hope. It wound up being a seven-year journey that included challenges like the pandemic and getting held up at knife point—but also, so much beauty. All of which he chronicles in his new memoir, The World Walk: A Grand Meditation, One Step at a Time. The book is out on October 8, but today we’re going to hear an excerpt from it.
And in this excerpt, Tom is one and a half years into his journey and crossing one of the most inhospitable stretches of desert in Peru.
And he’s starting to lose, maybe not hope, but a little bit of momentum . . . until one very special encounter.
Be sure to stick around after the excerpt for my interview with Tom. There we go deeper into where he is now, his relationship with walking, and how the walk changed him in the most fundamental ways.
(The Night in the Desert: An excerpt from The World Walk: 7 Years. 28,000 Miles. 6 Continents. A Grand Meditation, One Step at a Time.)
Tom Turcich: Fueled by empty hours and coca leaves that numbed my lower lip, I managed one stretch of desert after another. Savannah and I covered a minimum of twenty-seven miles a day. Sometimes we walked thirty miles or more to ensure we made it to town before running out of water. During the stretch of desert after leaving Joe, we walked thirty-six miles in a single day. After that, when we arrived in Mórrope, I found us a twenty-dollar room where Savannah slept fourteen hours and I stayed in bed listening to my legs throb in my ears.
In the north desert, the road was flat, but as we moved south, the Pan-American was nudged to the coast by the last ripples of the Andes as they descended into the Pacific. Beside the coast, the air was salty, and the towns were tucked into narrow valleys. The desert became drier and more lifeless, too. Sometimes I didn’t speak to anyone for days. With no internet, I listened to old podcasts just to hear someone’s voice.
I blared Sam Cooke, The Black Keys, and The Beatles on my speaker. I sang with uninhibited passion, often pushing my cart ahead so I could conduct with my hands.
When I grew tired of singing, I talked to Savannah. I wasn’t delirious enough for full conversations, but I was bored enough to make comments throughout the day.
“What a view.”
“At least it’s cloudy.”
“Peanut butter, peanut butter, peanut butter.”
My fraternity brother and native Peruvian, Arturo, was waiting to host me in the capital, Lima. That made the desert more challenging. I had nothing to do but fantasize about the plush days that waited ahead—his parents’ vineyard, their beach house, ceviche in the city. Thoughts of a bed and a shower were poison for my happiness, but that didn’t stop them from coming; in fact, I welcomed them. The desert was numbing. Each day, I felt less and less, but at least with visions of Lima I had something to hold on to, some reason to push through the never-ending sand. I was increasingly dull, empty, lobotomized. What I was doing, I could barely remember.
One morning, I sat in an abandoned house tapping the back of my head against the wall to knock some life into myself. By looking at the map, I knew I wouldn’t encounter a thing for another two days. I dreaded it. My boredom would turn each mile into five.
With the length of the days increasing, I should have been enjoying a morning coffee, but I left my stove in Bogotá. I knew water would be scarce in the desert and by leaving my stove I could save some weight, so instead of sipping on a hot coffee, I washed down a caffeine pill.
“Come here, Savannah.”
I pulled her head to my chest and rested my head against her side. I closed my eyes and focused on how her fur felt on my cheek, how her chest rose and fell, but Savannah wasn’t one for affection. The moment I let go of her collar she walked off and sat by the steps to tell me she was ready to start walking.
At noon, I rested on a rock off the side of the road. I didn’t feel like making a sandwich or having mixed nuts, so I ate peanut butter with a spoon. After enough scoops, Savannah and I resumed walking.
The miles passed slowly, but in the early evening we stumbled upon a restaurant that I hadn’t seen on the map. La Balsa was at the intersection of the Pan-American and a dirt road that led to the fishing village of La Gramita.
For a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, it was surprisingly busy. I took a seat at a table along the wall and tucked Savannah by my feet. I wondered if I could convince the owner to let us sleep inside for the night. They would open early, which meant I’d have to leave early, but spending another night in the desert was as appetizing as a mouthful of sand.
“From where do you come?” asked the waiter.
“The United States.”
“On bicycle?”
“On foot.”
“We’ve had only one other walker.” The waiter pointed to a collection of photos on the far wall. “Look.”
I dropped Savannah’s leash and walked over to the collage. On the wall was a familiar photo—Karl Bushby, my idol, hands to his chest, face wrapped against the sand, standing in the Peruvian desert. It was the very picture that had been burnt into my head since seventeen. Surrounding the photo of Karl in the desert were framed clippings from Peruvian, Chilean, and British newspapers.
“I know him,” I said to the waiter across the room. “I spoke with him before I left. That’s Karl Bushby.”
The waiter came over and stood beside me.
“He started walking in 2000,” he said
“No, it was more early, ’98, I think,” I corrected.
“Ah yes, that’s right. He was here in 2000.”
I leaned closer to the articles. Even though I’d seen the photos before, they held new meaning now that I was walking the same road Karl had walked sixteen years prior. I wasn’t as tough as Karl—I wasn’t an ex-paratrooper. I skipped the Darien Gap while he crossed it, and I had no interest in swimming the Bering Strait like he had, but we were of the same cloth. The club of world walkers was few. Although I’d spoken to him only once, I felt I knew him. I understood what it meant to leave, to be a stranger, and to have the insatiable need to be out there.
I inspected Karl in the desert, two-wheel cart attached to his waist. He was covered head to toe, only his hands were bare. If I hadn’t seen this photo at seventeen, I would have never bought a bike trailer then gone to The Factory to have it modified. I would have never met Tom Marchetty and he would have never held a press conference. Without a press conference, I wouldn’t be sponsored by Philadelphia Sign. I was connected to this photo by a straight line, and looking at it I understood how one thing leads to the next and the next thing leads to all others. I wasn’t an individual set apart in time, but a continuation of ideas; not the brush, but the paint; not self-governed, but guided by greater forces.
The photo brought me to the photo.
“Bring your cart in.”
I turned to the waiter.
“Bring your cart in so nothing is robbed,” he offered.
“Oh yes. Good. Thanks,” I replied.
With the cart, the waiter led me to an area behind the register where an old man wearing a surgical mask sat at a table going over four tomes of handwritten notes. I parked my cart and the waiter gestured for me to sit across from the old man.
“This is Clemente,” he said. “The Angel of the Desert.”
“Good afternoon,” I said.
“Your friend.”
Clemente turned one of the tomes and slid it to me.
Scrawled on the page was the drawing of a man in hiking boots and patched pants with a cart attached to his belt and a British flag flying behind him. Above and below the drawing was a note:
ON FOOT FOR THE WORLD RECORD!!
GOLIATH EXPEDITION
Punta Arenas – London. No Planes, no ships, no cars, no buses, no train and . . .
NO BIKE !
36,000 miles / 57,000 kms (-7,300 km)
11 years (-1 year 4 months)
Alone in a bad-ass world, chin straight with just enough money in my pocket to rub two pennies together, little food or water. Then, stumble out of the desert into this place and find the kindest man on Earth, Clemente. God bless you, dear old chap! Fed me like a king, restored my faith in humanity, pay your respects to this man, people!
Karl had drawn a map, too, marking points of interest—nice and green, bad arse desert, lots of fun, cute girl.
I put my head in my hands and cried.
Other than my parents or Layla, Karl was the only person who could have written a note that cut to the core of me. I knew he was only a man, but he was also an idea that had fossilized in my soul over ten years. He was adventure, discovery, perseverance. He had written a note in the desert sixteen years before and now I was reading it—reaching Clemente and his restaurant while experiencing the same relief as Karl himself.
“Where is he now?” asked Clemente.
“Russia, I believe,” I said.
“It’s been a long time. It makes ten, fifteen years. When was that written?”
“It makes sixteen years. He’s been walking for more than sixteen years.”
I read the note a dozen times and with each pass I felt color returning to my thoughts. The desert didn’t seem the burden it had a few hours before. Karl had walked it when it was even less developed. At least I had abandoned houses to sleep in and podcasts to listen to.
“There’s more,”said Clemente.
He moved a blank sheet of paper which was covering a page I assumed was empty. On it was a final note:
Whatever your plans, go for it! Keep on the road. Drive hard. Live it!
Rage on you crazy mothers you!
—Karl Bushby—
Copyright © 2024 Tom Turcich. Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Aislyn: Tom, welcome to Travel Tales.
Tom: Thank you so much for having me.
Aislyn: So good to see you—and you’re sitting down. You are not walking.
Tom: I am not walking, though I did go for a walk this morning.
Aislyn: Did you? How long?
Tom: Oh, probably about 45 minutes. I go for a walk every morning, and it’s just a nice way to wake up.
Aislyn: Yeah.Yeah. Get that early sunlight.
Tom: Yeah, get the early sunlight, and for me, I find that if I have, like, coffee first thing in the morning or breakfast or I sit down first thing in the morning, I get all this, not necessarily anxiety, but then I start feeling, like, the pressure of the day. And if I go for a walk, it kind of lets my thoughts unfold a little bit more gradually and naturally, and then I can kind of get started working.
Aislyn: Yeah. So I was curious to know your relationship to walking now. You know, as listeners just heard in the excerpt, you walked for about seven years around the world. So what is that relationship to walking now? How has it changed?
Tom: It’s very different. I did not appreciate walking, I would say, not at all, but I had . . . compared to my appreciation for walking now, it was very little. And I think it was just really an understanding. It probably took me maybe four or five months of walking before I was able to notice what’s happening underneath the surface when you’re walking and how your mind, how your emotions are being processed differently than when you’re in one place or when you’re doing something active or when you’re distracting yourself with television or video games or whatever it is.
And it’s just very subtle. You . . . you have these thoughts that crop up and then fall away and then crop up again from a different angle and fall away, and it’s just kind of happening over and over and over again. And in a certain way, I guess it’s like meditating, where they say, ideally, you just watch your emotions and your thoughts kind of pass like clouds.
I think walking is just that happening naturally, so it really allows you to resolve any sort of conflict or idiosyncrasies that you might have, because if you walk long enough, you end up looking at these thoughts from so many different angles that [you] kind of don’t have any more ways to look at them.
And then you go, okay, all right, well, I’ll just set this aside and move on to the next thing. And so now when I walk in the morning, it’s really about that: Okay, just let these thoughts that build up over the night or whatever it is, let them sort of pass by and then ease into the day.
Aislyn: So it sounds like it has become your meditation and almost like you just fall back into that habit that you built over seven years.
Tom: Yeah, yeah certainly. It’s definitely a habit and it’s definitely a rhythm, and I feel like my days aren’t complete without a walk, for sure, and that was not the case before.
Aislyn: Do you consciously not listen to, say, a podcast, or, like, are you just walking, for lack of a better [word]?
Tom: I would say . . . I would say it’s about 50/50. It depends on if there’s a good podcast that I want to listen to. But also, even when I’m listening to a podcast, I don’t listen super intently. It’s more something in the background, and even when I am listening, I’m aware of the thoughts that are coming and going.
And I think that also is just from having walked for so long. And especially in this excerpt, I think there’s a reference to just the overall boredom (well, there should be, I’m walking through the desert), and a lot of that with the podcast when I was walking through the desert, I would have that on, just to, like, hear someone’s voice and just to kind of have it in the background.
And I still have a part of that where I’ll just put it on and not really be listening and really be paying much more attention to the thoughts that are coming and going and so . . . and then hopping back into the podcast when something comes about that’s interesting. But I think the half listening kind of comes from walking forever.
Aislyn: Forever. Well, I want to hear more about all of that, but for listeners who aren’t familiar with your journey, could you take us back to the beginning and share why you decided to walk around the world, kind of what triggered it and how you made it happen? Because that’s a story unto itself.
Tom: Absolutely. So when I was 17, my good friend Anne Marie passed in this freak, jet ski accident. It was very sudden and . . . the thing about Anne Marie was that she was the nicest person I knew, and wasn’t close, and when we would spend time together, I would spend it trying to get her to say anything less than really kind and really generous . . . and it would just never happen. She was just so, like, flawless in that way and so consistent, and you know, she was a better student, a better person. . . . I knew forever that she was just a better person than I was, and then she died. And I went, “Oh, if she can die, then clearly so can I.” And I’d thought about death for years, and at a certain point, maybe when I was 12 or 13, something like that, I set aside the thoughts of death basically as unresolvable.
I remember I would lay in bed at night and I would lay perfectly still. So I’d lose the sensation of having a body, I’d put my thumbs to my ears so I couldn’t hear, close my eyes so I couldn’t see, and I’d try and imagine what it was like to be dead. But then you think—and you can’t think in death. And so then I would freak out and I, at a certain point, just couldn’t take that and realized, okay, this is just something that is unknowable, unreachable, put it aside.
And then when Anne Marie passed, all of that came flooding back: All those unresolved emotions and thoughts were back in my life. And . . . for a few months, I lived in this sort of haze, really unsure of how to integrate that fact that I was going to die, that it could happen at any time, with life and with action.
And it wasn’t until someone played Dead Poets Society in class that I found a way out, which was “carpe diem.” Seize the day. Action. And that really became my mantra at 17. And it’s evolved a lot since then. I still think it’s very valuable. But initially it took the shape of just doing anything and everything.
My friend said, “Hey, join the swim team.” So I joined the swim team, you know? My teacher, my choir teacher said, “You should do the one acts.” All right, I’ll do the one acts. I was just saying yes to everything. And then through that, you realize, okay, you only have so much time to give, and not everything gives you the same amount of joy, and so, to live a life . . . to seize your life, to make the most out of your life, you have to decide what you value, and you have to know yourself. And so, I really reflected on this for a while, and ultimately I came to the answer that I wanted to travel. I wanted to be forced into adventure. Forced. Because I knew I was timid and introverted, and I was naive and I grew up in an idyllic suburb.
And so I knew, I just knew little of the world, and so I wanted to be pushed out into it. And then I wanted to understand the world. And then I searched for ways to travel. I didn’t have any money, so walking seemed like the best way to do that for the longest stretch of time. And then it was eight years of going to school, paying off loans, living at home, working, saving until I had enough saved that I thought I could bleed it out for two years and get a sponsor. Then, luckily, a sponsor found me before I began, and I was able to make it happen.
Aislyn: In the excerpt that we just heard, it kind of focuses on one of your walking heroes, Karl Bushby. Where is he in his journey, and have you stayed in touch with him over these years?
Tom: Yeah. Karl is in Kazakhstan, and he’s planning on swimming across the Caspian to Azerbaijan with Angela Maxwell, who’s this woman who walked around the world, and they’re in training right now and hopefully beginning soon. But he’s been walking for well over 20 years now, and he has very strict rules that say he’s not going to finish the walk unless he takes every step along the way.
Everything is human-powered. So that’s why he’s swimming across the Caspian. For me, I was going to ferry across the Caspian, or I ferried in between Europe and Africa. So I didn’t have the strict parameters. I didn’t want to be out walking for 25 years. But he’s like the, he’s kind of the, maybe not the godfather, but he is like the world walker, I would say, if you talk to the 10 other people who have walked or are walking around the world.
Aislyn: The very small club.
Tom: Yeah.
Aislyn: Do you all meet? Do you talk?
Tom: Some of . . . I talked to a good amount of them actually.
Aislyn: Really?
Tom:Yeah, I talked to a good amount of them. You know, it’s a very unique experience, and it’s really hard to relate with other people on certain things about it, and I think even, especially, after the fact, there’s this really difficult transition period; and you go from living this life where every day is really rich and fruitful and interesting to just a life and the world not coming at you so much anymore. And . . . so yeah, I talked to Angela Maxwell recently and it was fantastic. It was really such a pleasure.
Aislyn: Have you noticed, like, do you think that there is a through line or something shared that all of you “world walkers” have?
Tom: I would say it’s like similar motivations to myself, which was to get the most out of life. I think we all sort of found that was the answer. You know, for Angela Maxwell, she frames it in the sense of she wanted to feel the earth. And I say that’s actually a really great way to frame it because walking, in a way that no other form of transportation provides, really gives you a visceral sense of the scope of the world, and you sort of get to feel how cities are these little exceptions—and they’re great and they’re busy and there’s a lot going on in them—but they are these little islands, and then the in-between is much more common, these little towns, these little villages, or just pastures and desert, plains, whatever it is.
And so you do get to really feel the earth. But I would say the through line pretty commonly is, you know, a lust for life, is a curiosity to live.
Aislyn: Yeah. Well, I want to hear more about that, but I just want to kind of honor and acknowledge that Savannah passed earlier this year—and I have had to put pets to sleep before, but this seems like it would be leaps and bounds beyond that, because she was such a companion to you.
So, how have you been since then, and what are you doing to honor her spirit and presence in your life for all those years?
Tom: So Savannah died ultimately of Lyme nephritis, kidney failure, essentially is what it comes down to.
Aislyn: Yeah.
Tom: Where it was going to die. I put her to sleep, um, but . . . so I dealt with, uh, a lot of guilt that this was something I could have prevented. Even though I always had her on, you know, tick prevention medicine. A lot of the time it was this off-brand stuff that we’d find wherever we were at. And we were just bit by 10,000 ticks. And so for one week when I got told that she should probably be put down, kind of tried everything in my power to give her a chance and maybe the kidney would turn it around.
And it’s just, honestly, it was just unrealistic. But I wanted to try. I had to give her a shot. And it was the worst week of my life. And then the weeks afterward were terrible too. And it’s gotten better since then. I still see her all the time. It’s only been, like, two months. And some days are better than others.
But, you know, it’s the sort of thing where we lived a life that no other human and dog have ever lived. Ever. She’s the first dog to walk around the world, and we spent every minute of every day together for seven years.
And unless I was going out to the supermarket and we were at a hotel and she stayed in the air-conditioning, we were together all the time, and we relied on each other for . . . a lot, just to get through the day, and we grew together and we went through all these challenges and changes, and she was the one that was always there, and I was the one that was always there for her. And then to lose that is, you know, like, impossible to express how, you know, connected we were. And the memoir does a great job of honoring her and shows her greatness.
And then I have a children’s book called Savannah’s World of Adventure. It’s the beginning of a series. The first one is, I’m crossing the Andes. The next one will be in Kyrgyzstan; hopefully it’ll come out this year.
And that, I think that is, I think for me, like, the primary vessel to help her live on and show kids the beauty of the world.
Aislyn: Well, I am so sorry for your loss because, I just, I can’t fathom that. She did seem, at least from what I’ve read and heard, uniquely suited to walking. Like, in that excerpt, she wanted to go. You wanted a little bit of affection, and she’s like, come on, let’s hit the road.
Tom: Yeah, I would say, especially the first two years, she was such a brute, and she did not know how to cuddle at all. And she did not really even have . . . I mean, she played at night, and she would run circles around at night. But those first years through Central and South America, we were attacked by dogs, if not every day, then pretty close to every day.
And, you know, it’s not that the dogs are malicious, but generally in some of these places, it’s like a dog comes around someone’s house, they feed them a little bit, but they don’t give them affection. But then the dog stays and they—this is where they get their food—so then they become territorial of it, but they’re not getting affection.
So they’re not, like, nice. This is just, I’m gonna protect this place because this is my source of food. And so we would pass through some of these places, and we’d just get attacked all the time. And so for the first two years, Savannah really did not have a good relationship with other dogs and . . . and then even with myself, it wasn’t like, we . . . the bond was there, but it wasn’t to the depth that it was later on.
We were—I mean, myself—I was just kind of treading water. I was trying to figure out, How do I do this? How do I get her through it? I didn’t have the space of mind to really, I don’t want to say take everything in, but to do anything but, beyond survive and adapt. Then, after the first two years, I got very sick from a bacteria infection that I picked up somewhere in South America.
And . . . so I was forced to stop for, I think it was five months, four or five months. And that was the first time Savannah slowly relaxed, and we were home, and we’d go to the dog park every day. And she used to stand all the way on the side, and then gradually she realized, Okay, these dogs aren’t going to attack me, and she became a little friendlier and less defensive. And then my parents were so sweet with her, and I was so sick, dying, essentially, and I would just force her to cuddle me and she hated it. Then gradually she came to really, really love it. And then from then on, after those first two years, I knew what I was doing, well enough, that it kind of just became life in a certain way. And then we could really take things in and bask in it and relax. And we knew what was dangerous, what wasn’t dangerous and, and how to deal with maybe some of these aggressive dogs.
So we just got better at managing things, and she was definitely well suited—I mean, she grew up on the road. She was four months when I adopted her, maybe younger. And so she knew no other life but a life on the road.
Aislyn: That is so cool. I love some of the photos that you have. There’s the one with her and her goggles that I think is in the story that we have on afar.com. That’s just . . .
Tom: Yeah. She did not like those. But sometimes she had to have them on, and I tried so many times to get her to wear booties, especially in Central America where it’s so hot, and she would just never have it. She would walk and she’d flick them off as much as she could. And it’s like, we’d be walking through, like, in Honduras or Costa Rica, some really hot days, really hot days, and the asphalt was even hotter. And she’s like, No, I’m not wearing these booties. No way. But her paws were, like, just stones. It was incredible.
Aislyn: Oh my gosh. She was a force of nature. I mean just . . .
Tom: She was.
Aislyn: What a personality.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah. She did have a lot of personality, for sure.
Aislyn: What was it like to write the memoir to relive all these memories and assemble it in this way?
Tom: It was . . . I loved it. It was, it was a great joy. I’ve been writing since right after college, I would say. And I wrote a bunch of really bad science fiction novels over and over and over and over and over again. And then when I started walking, uh, that was the first time I wrote in the first person.
And so I think over the seven years, I was able to kind of clarify my voice in that way, and my point of view. But then doing the memoir was entirely different because you’re really trying to solve this massive puzzle of piecing together this very complex and very broad growth that you experience—going from suburban, protected young man to a world traveler and someone who, you know, has, in a certain way, expanded their consciousness a lot and just understands much more about the world.
And so . . . I would spend days and weeks going through my journals and highlighting, Okay, here’s something interesting that’s happened that I think could be useful as a story. But then also, How does this represent my growth, and then how does it represent what is happening in the world and that particular culture?
And so you’re trying to layer everything all at once and trying to find the right stories that represent this narrative. So, it was really such a joy to go back through my journals and remember all these things that I had maybe forgotten or just that you don’t recall as readily. And then going through the photos and going through the videos and everything like that, it was kind of like reliving it again from a different perspective.
Aislyn: Well, in one of the other excerpts that we had talked about, you were in Georgia, and one of the things that jumped out at me was that you were talking about the ambience, that you really liked the ambience of Georgia, the country, not the state, although maybe you also like the state.
I was curious to know what you meant by that and if there are other places that you really felt some connection with or that you’d return to if you could?
Tom: Yeah, it’s a . . . it’s a hard idea to convey. And really what I think it’s about is just that, culture or a place has a sense of self, a sense of identity, and that comes across in a really subtle way, and it’s something you don’t pick up on at first when you first start traveling. You just don’t have enough places to compare. You don’t have a good enough sense of the world. But as time goes on and you spend more time in different places, you realize that some places do some things better than others. And one of these things is . . . is just the sense of ambience, which is, What are they talking about? What is the color of the walls?
What’s the furniture? What’s the food? It’s kind of all these little things all taken together. And really I think it just comes down to this sense that, like, this is a complete place. This is a place that has existed for a long time. And I think Turkey is one of these places as well, which is right by Georgia. And Turkey’s a very heterogeneous—I guess I’m using that right. It’s a mix of a lot of different cultures and histories, but it still has that sense of pride that this is what this place is, and it embraces that, and it sort of exudes that.
So it doesn’t have to be necessarily like Georgia, where Georgia is a little bit, a little more homogenous in its culture. It’s a Georgian culture. But also it’s an ancient culture, and it has its own language and its own cuisine. And so you feel that. I would say Denmark has that feeling as well. Algeria had it. Algeria is a sort of bizarre place. It’s very closed off, and it’s very devout, and kind of all the conversations go in a similar direction.
Aislyn: Oh, really?
Tom: But it also feels like, you know, this is an entire place. And so apologies if I’m not explaining it well, but it’s a hard idea to convey.
Aislyn: It is. But, I get . . . it’s almost like they have a strong sense of self or they know themselves, even if there’s a lot of different factors. Was Algeria the place that you had the police escort for most of the walk?
Tom: Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I had actually a police escort in all of North Africa. So through Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and in Morocco and Tunisia . . . they’re [the police escorts] pretty short because I was only in [each] country for a little bit. But in Algeria it was for 45 days, and in the beginning it’s fantastic because you have these local guides, basically, that’ll tell you where the nearest restaurant is, and they’ll order you the best local food.
But then after, like, two weeks, I was so ready to just not have people watching me all the time, and then also I had to stay in a hotel every night, and that sort of truncates the days in a way that I didn’t really like. I still don’t really like . . . when you sleep outside, one day flows into the next more naturally, more comfortably, and so yeah. It was great, though.
I mean, they’re always, the escorts were always fantastic and really friendly.
Aislyn: Well, you referenced that boredom earlier that came across at different times, and I’m just wondering, why do you think that’s kind of important to the pilgrim process? Why should people stick with it when, you know, they’re just kind of like, Oh my god, what am I doing?
Why am I here?
Tom: Yeah. That’s a great question. A great way to frame it. It’s important because that’s the key to getting to know yourself is that boredom, and it’s giving yourself that space to let your mind wander and to just let yourself have absurd thoughts, you know, and just let things pass over. And going back to what was said earlier, was just, like, today there’s just so little space to let your mind wander.
And the benefits of walking are really subtle and gradual, and they don’t hit you over the head, and when you are bored, say you’re walking the Camino or you’re walking the AT or the PCT [the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail], whatever it is, and you go through these stretches of four or five days or even four or five hours when there’s nothing there to sort of distract you, that’s when I think you get the best sense of what’s happening underneath when you’re walking. If you pay attention closely, you can kind of see how your thoughts are coming and going and how you’re processing them. And it also just sort of accelerates the process of finding and establishing this internal peace or this more substantial peace that you get from walking and from knowing yourself, which is a result of the walking.
Aislyn: Yeah, that makes sense. Do you recognize the Tom that set out all those years ago?
Tom: I would not. He was such an idiot; he was such an idiot. I mean, I was always, you know, a nice kid, but man, I was such an idiot, and not even by any, you know, fault of my own. It’s just I had known so little of the world. I had experienced so little of the world, and it’s the sort of thing where you just don’t know what you don’t know.
Aislyn: And you have to start.
Tom: You have to start somewhere, and then when you get out there and you look back and you just realize, like, these things that now I take for granted, these understandings that I take for granted that are really deeply ingrained into me, I had no sense of before. And again, that makes the transition a little more difficult, from walking into not walking, because I think I have a difficult time relating to some people. And just because, you know, there’s things I take for granted that other people don’t or that [they] don’t necessarily see in the world.
But yeah, from . . . it’s, it’s that transition going from just a protected suburbanite to someone who has, you know, seen a lot more. But yeah, I was, I was such a dummy.
Aislyn: Well, what advice would you have for people who want to make some kind of walking pilgrimage, even if they don’t want to walk around the world—you know, do something smaller or shorter, Kumano Kodo or the Camino?
Tom: Yeah, I mean, what advice? I mean, I would say definitely do it. Um, I think it’s, it’s great. And, uh, speaking to the sort of growth and the peace that you get from walking in the self . . .understanding . . . I would say, you know, embrace the boredom in a certain way. Don’t expect and don’t ask the walk to constantly provide for you. You know, the way walking provides is just by giving you space and by letting you sit under the trees when you’re tired and watching the leaves or sweating and your legs being sore and, you know, getting really angry because it’s so hot and then getting into the shade and finding relief, and being in heaven.
So I would say, you know, try not to go into the walk looking for anything, and just let it give you space to sort yourself out and sort your thoughts out.
Aislyn: Yeah, wow, I feel like you’re just going to inspire a legion of walkers.
Tom: Yeah, I mean, honestly, like, it’s such a, it really is so subtle, and it’s—we already talked about it—but it just takes a long time to really start listening to the benefits of walking. And it’s so underrated, but it just takes a long time to . . . to start hearing it. And it’s difficult to walk enough, I think, to start recognizing what’s happening.
Aislyn: Well, I just would love to end with what’s next for you: Do you know?
Tom: I don’t know. Um, you know, I’ve been putting in so much effort and time into this memoir over the past two years, and it’s just going to press today.
Aislyn: Wow.
I looked over the final manuscript a couple days ago, so this is the first time in two years where I truly have it out of my hands.
Aislyn:Amazing.
Tom: And now I’m trying to throw around ideas for what’s the next thing, you know, that I’m going to do. I’m doing motivational speaking, which I really enjoy and, and sharing these things that I really believe in, where before I would have, I would have felt like such a fraud getting on the stage and talking about things. So I enjoy that. But I would say as far as what is the next, you know, aim, I’m still sorting that one out.
Aislyn: Do you think walking will be involved?
Tom: I definitely want to keep walking, and I would love to do the Camino again. I’d love to do the AT. I did sections of it. Um, so there’s, there’s stuff I would love to. I would love to get out and do. Um, but we’ll wait and see. We’ll wait and see what it’s going to be.
Aislyn: All right, well, we’ll keep an eye out. See where your feet take you.
Tom: Yes.
Aislyn: Thanks so much, Tom.
Tom: Yeah. Thanks so much.
And that was Tom Turcich. To preorder his memoir, visit his website, the worldwalk.com. You can also find details about his children’s book. We’ll include those links in the show notes, as well as the link to the YouTube version of our chat, which includes a little bonus content. And you can find and follow Tom on Instagram @theworldwalk.
Next week, we’ll be back with our final episode of Travel Tales, season five: a dive into Switzerland’s river-swimming culture with writer and open-water swimmer Bonnie Tsui.
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This has been Travel Tales, a production of AFAR Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland. Music composed and produced by Strike Audio.
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