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The person who walked world wide: Tom Turcich on his seven-year seek for the that means of life | Strolling

The person who walked world wide: Tom Turcich on his seven-year seek for the that means of life | Strolling

2023-04-11 01:42:26

At the age of 17, Tom Turcich had loved life up to now. He had fantastic dad and mom, nice associates, did effectively in school and was a gifted sportsman. However two issues gnawed away at him: he thought he was too timid, and he was afraid of loss of life. As slightly boy, he would run down the steps at evening to verify that his dad and mom have been nonetheless alive. On the age of 11, he’d lie in mattress trying to simulate death so he might put together for it. “I’d lose the feeling of my physique,” he says, “and I’d cowl my ears and shut my eyes so I couldn’t see and couldn’t hear, and I’d attempt to think about what loss of life was like. However then you’ll be able to’t since you’re pondering. And there’s no pondering in loss of life.”

Then, in 2006, his life was turned on its head. Turcich remembers each element. He was in a automotive with three associates – Nick, Kevin and Fitz. Kevin was driving his father’s convertible. Again then, the boys used to hang around with a gaggle of ladies who have been within the yr under in school in Haddon Township, New Jersey. There was Shannon who was going out with Kevin, Ann Marie, Amanda and Jess. They’d grown up collectively, been associates since they have been seven or eight, and so they have been as shut as shut may be.

The radio was blasting and the boys have been having time when Kevin obtained a name from Shannon. He was distraught. “Kevin yelled for the music to be turned down and stated, ‘Ann Marie has died.’” Sixteen-year-old Ann Marie had been killed in a jetski accident. They drove to Shannon’s home. “We sat within the entrance yard. There have been possibly 10 of us, we have been in a circle and everyone’s crying, not sure what to do. That evening I lay in mattress and I keep in mind feeling this fog. It lasted about six months.”

Not solely was Turcich frightened of loss of life, he now knew he might die at any second. Hardest of all was reconciling that it had occurred to any individual like Ann Marie. “She was super-clever and exceptionally type,” says Turcich. “Ann Marie was good to the purpose it drove me loopy once I was youthful since you might by no means get her to say something imply. Once we have been hanging out I’d prod her, making an attempt to get her to say something not beneficiant.”

He by no means succeeded. Not solely did Turcich lose a tremendous pal, however the accident left him questioning the that means of life, and bolstered his worry of loss of life. Briefly, he had the last word teenage existential disaster. “I assumed: if Ann Marie can die, who is certainly a greater scholar and higher individual than I’m, then for certain I can go on the identical time. That’s why it actually hit dwelling.”

Turcich went right into a decline. “It introduced all these unresolved questions flooding again. I assumed: OK, you’ve obtained to resolve this drawback simply to go about your life.” What was the issue? “That loss of life can come at any time – arbitrarily and immediately. It was like, with this data, how do you reside? What do you do? How do you combine that reality into your life?”

He was caught for a solution. Then at some point in school, the scholars watched Dead Poets Society, the movie a couple of instructor referred to as John Keating, performed by Robin Williams, who evokes his college students by means of his love of literature. Simply because the film’s seminal speech about seizing the day – carpe diem – and dwelling a rare life had a huge effect on the scholars within the film, so it additionally did on Turcich.

He watched the movie time and again, asking himself how finest he might seize the day and make his life extraordinary. It struck him for the primary time that he might form his future relatively than merely let it occur to him. From then on, he did simply that. He gained a spot within the faculty swimming crew, carried out in a one-act play, returned to taking part in tennis and have become faculty champion, on a regular basis carrying the blue “AML” bracelet his faculty had designed as a tribute to Ann Marie Lynch. He lastly conquered his passivity when he braved his first kiss, after three (nervous) dates with a woman referred to as Britney.

That kiss proved to be an epiphany. “It was just like the beginning of the universe in my head,” he says. “Hastily I might see all the probabilities increasing out. It lastly clicked: the actions you’re taking actually can have an effect on your life.” Turcich determined he was going to grab the day by getting out of protected, pleasant Haddon Township, with its inhabitants of roughly 15,000, and seeing the world.

Turcich in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Turcich in Montevideo, Uruguay. {Photograph}: Thomas Turcich

He began to make plans. He didn’t need to simply see a little bit of the world: if doable, he was going to see all of it. “As a result of the world is complicated and huge, and since my normal temperament is fairly timid and extra in direction of the shy aspect, I wished to be pressured into journey. The purpose of journey is it’s uncomfortable and it’s a must to develop in it.

“I had $1,000 in my checking account so I wanted to discover a low cost technique to journey, and that led me to the blokes who had walked world wide.” He learn up about Steve Newman (an American who circumnavigated the globe on foot over 4 years within the late Nineteen Eighties) and Karl Bushby (a British ex-paratrooper who set off in 1998 and remains to be strolling right this moment), and now he had his reply. “It appeared to resolve all the pieces I wished out of life,” he says.

As in Lifeless Poets Society, the scholars in his class shared a deep friendship and belief. Once they needed to give end-of-year talks to one another, Turcich introduced his plan to stroll the world. His associates have been “genuinely supportive” – after which he advised his dad and mom. As a younger man, his father, additionally referred to as Tom, had seized the day: he headed off to Hawaii on the age of 20 and spent 4 years spear-fishing, engaged on a sugarcane plantation and dwelling below a tarp within the woods on a tiny plot of land. He met Turcich’s mom, Catherine, on the tail-end of his journey.

Tom Sr, who now runs a catering enterprise, remembers how badly affected his son was by Ann Marie’s loss of life. “That basically threw him by means of a loop,” he tells me over the cellphone from Haddon Township. “It simply turned a swap on. Ooof! Boy, if that may occur at 16 I higher get dwelling, you already know. And hastily, he turned actual.” Tom Sr thought the world stroll was an impressed concept. “For me it was like, go – journey!”

However his spouse, Catherine, an artist, was much less enthusiastic. What did she assume when her son first talked about the stroll? “Hahahaha!” She’s obtained a stunning vibrant snicker. “I assumed how naive he was. Does he really assume he’s going to stroll world wide? I simply thought it was a loopy concept, a passing whim.” She pauses. “However Tommy was at all times any individual who’d get an concept and observe it by means of. He caught to a problem.”

“She was like, ‘You’re 17 and that is only a 17-year-old’s concept,’” Turcich says. And she or he was proper. However he wasn’t planning to behave on his concept simply but. For the subsequent few years he hardly ever talked about it to anyone. He knew that many would dismiss him as fanciful at finest. “I don’t like individuals who simply discuss in regards to the issues they’re going to do,” he says.

For the subsequent eight years, Turcich quietly labored away at making it a actuality. He graduated with a level in psychology and philosophy from Moravian College in Pennsylvania, and made a dwelling putting in photo voltaic panels till he turned 25, at which level he give up and labored as a waiter in a restaurant and at an insurance coverage agency doing knowledge entry.

The pair snooze on a forest path in Panama.
Tom and Savannah take a break by their customised child buggy in Panama. {Photograph}: Thomas Turcich

All of the whereas, Turcich was busy making his closing preparations. He would endlessly examine maps, figuring out the very best routes. A lot of it relied on practicalities corresponding to which nations insisted on a visa. He determined to stroll to Argentina for the primary leg of his journey. Shortly earlier than he was as a result of depart he met one more Tom, Tom Marchetty, who customised a child buggy for his travels. The buggy would maintain all his necessities – tent, sleeping bag, laptop computer, digital camera, batteries, plastic meals crate (partly to carry his meals, partly to insulate the odor from animals), water bottles, six pairs of socks, 4 pairs of underwear, a pair of trousers, a pair of shorts, long-sleeved shirt and short-sleeved shirt, wool shirt, hoodie, jacket and waterproof footwear.

Marchetty, who knew everyone out and in of city, was taken with Turcich’s plan. He referred to as a press convention to advertise the journey, with the hope of discovering him a sponsor. The Philadelphia Inquirer turned up and wrote about it. The article was learn by an area businessman, Bob Mehmet, who was additionally struck by the story and provided to sponsor the stroll. “It was lower than minimal wage, however it was like, I’m homeless, I don’t want a lot,” Turcich says. “It was greater than sufficient to outlive off all through the stroll.”

On 2 April 2015, Tom Turcich walked out of Haddon Township. At his sendoff, his father couldn’t have been extra excited. “I used to be like, hey, go for it! Aw gee, simply watch out, have time!” he says. “However his mom cried for months when he left.”

“I used to be scared for him, and I used to be pleased with him,” Catherine says. “It was all these emotions blended up collectively. I had a really arduous time of it at the start. However he was so good at calling each Sunday. I relied on that. It was my lifeline.”

Turcich says his mom was proper to be frightened. “She knew how inexperienced I used to be. I’d grown up on this actually idyllic suburb. I used to be only a comfortable fool and slightly too trusting.” He was 6ft 2in, skinny, and he’d by no means needed to fear about his security. He admits that he didn’t actually know how you can take care of himself in any respect: “You assume you’re powerful, however you’re not. Now I’m an entirely totally different individual.”

If I used to be heading off from dwelling to Argentina, I say, I wouldn’t have a clue which technique to flip. He should have sense of route. “Fortunately, there’s Google Maps now so that you don’t have to fret about that an excessive amount of!” he says.

Turcich spent the primary two years making his technique to Argentina by way of Colombia. In Austin, Texas, he picked up a rescue canine who had been deserted as a pet and named her Savannah. She turned each firm and safety; Turcich might sleep peacefully at evening figuring out she was listening out for intruders. They turned quick associates. And nonetheless are. As we discuss over Zoom, she is lazing round within the background, taking a well-earned relaxation.


What does it imply to stroll world wide? In a pedestrian circumnavigation, travellers should transfer across the globe and return to their place to begin below their very own energy. Guinness World Information units the necessities for a circumnavigation on foot as having travelled 18,000 miles (practically 29,000km), and crossed 4 continents.

Turcich walked 21-24 miles a day for roughly half of the seven years he was away. In whole, he walked 28,000 miles (and Savannah 25,000 miles), travelled by means of 38 nations and crossed each continent besides Australia, which he couldn’t do due to lockdown restrictions. He’s the tenth individual to have walked the world, and he assumes Savannah is the primary canine to have executed so.

He believes his lack of avenue smarts helped him. As a result of he was such an harmless, he wasn’t as fearful as many people would have been. Eleven months of the primary yr was spent strolling and sleeping out – sometimes behind church buildings and in woods. He got here throughout tarantulas and snakes, notably on the palm plantations the place he slept in Costa Rica.

It sounds fairly scary. “Yeah, undoubtedly!” Did he know what to do if attacked? “No, probably not. Simply keep away from it.” Fortuitously, the tarantulas and snakes left him alone.

Often, when in notoriously tough areas, he paid to spend the evening indoors for worry of being mugged. “After I walked by means of El Salvador, it was on the peak of its highest homicide price yr. It was the worst month of the worst yr for murders. I noticed the our bodies of a husband and spouse who had been executed. They’d been shot at the back of the top and have been mendacity in a subject. It made it very actual.” In Mexico, disbelieving locals would ask him what he was doing, saying that even they didn’t dare stroll right here.

He was by no means attacked as such however, he says, there was slightly incident in Turkey, on the Syrian border. “I used to be crossing a distant mountain by the border of Syria and this man jumps off a bike and factors a shotgun at me. I assumed I used to be simply going to get shot and so they’d take my issues. Nevertheless it turned out they have been plain-clothed army, and so they thought I used to be a terrorist or spy. I obtained detained for 3 hours and it was actually intense, however they have been very nice ultimately.”

Then there was the time he was held up at knifepoint in Panama Metropolis. “I walked into this store, and the man was standing there with the knife fairly near my chest. I used to be on the lookout for one thing to defend myself with. Time was getting into gradual movement. However after yelling at me for a minute he took off. The man with the knife obtained me away from issues, whereas the opposite man grabbed my backpack and took off.” The backpack contained all his necessities. However once more, destiny smiled kindly on Turcich. “I went out of the store and there’s a crowd pointing down the alleyway, and amazingly the cops have been there throwing the man in opposition to the wall, and my backpack was mendacity on the bottom. It had my passport in it, my laptop, Savannah’s paperwork, all the pieces. I used to be so fortunate.”

Savannah wears goggles as protection against the wind in Peru.
Savannah wears goggles as safety in opposition to the wind in Peru. {Photograph}: Thomas Turcich

However these have been remoted incidents. He says he met so many fantastic folks alongside the best way. He was already an optimist when he set off, however by the point he returned he had much more religion in humankind, if much less in a few of the programs we reside below. The primary leg of his stroll was a studying course of, he says, that noticed lots of his preconceptions overturned. He sounds barely embarrassed by his naivety. In Central and South America, he would stroll by means of cities and see homes with rebars sticking off the roof. He assumed the areas should be tough or rundown as a result of the homes have been incomplete, however quickly realised that the rebars have been an indication of aspiration. The households have been hoping to save lots of sufficient cash to construct a second storey.

Turcich had at all times been taught that those that work arduous might be rewarded; that in case you are succesful and decided there may be nothing to cease you reaching. However the extra he noticed of the world, the extra he realised this was not true. “You find yourself realising so little is right down to willpower, as a result of there are a lot smarter, a lot kinder folks than me everywhere in the world who don’t have my alternatives.” He tells me a couple of man he met in Peru promoting petrol to passing vans from his roadside hut. “He was an awesome man, and really vibrant; undoubtedly smarter than me, and doubtless a more durable employee. However he’s by no means going to depart Peru due to the geography or historical past he’s born into. You see over and over that what actually impacts folks is the programs in place.”

To Turcich, the stroll was a seven-year meditation, notably the primary two years, which have been extra solitary. As he walked, a lot was going by means of his thoughts – his historical past, his values, his hopes. All of it got here to a head within the deserts of Peru and Chile. “I used to be by myself a lot, simply with my ideas. The way in which I describe it’s like weeding your backyard. You don’t realise it, however your head is stuffed with these weeds and while you’re strolling, you’re in your knees pulling weeds. After a couple of yr and a half, once I was down in south Peru, I felt like I’d thought all of the ideas, and the backyard was clear. There was no extra angst, no regrets, nothing I might decide by means of. I used to be within the Atacama desert, mendacity below 1,000,000 stars, and it felt I used to be on the backside of myself. All of the doubts went.”

What did it really feel like? “It was a hollowed-out feeling. A easy sense of present – you’re only a small little creature within the universe. It was simply peace.” It’s so transferring to listen to Turcich discuss his expertise. At occasions, I really feel like I’m talking to a person who has been to the opposite aspect and witnessed issues that the remainder of us haven’t been aware about. There’s a childlike simplicity to Turcich, however he additionally has a contact of the seer.

Tom and Savannah in Morocco.
Considering the infinite in Morocco. {Photograph}: Thomas Turcich

There have been many days when Turcich couldn’t face strolling, although Savannah was by no means fazed. “Generally I simply needed to stroll,” he says. “It relied on time pressures and climate. If I knew there was going to be a downpour or it was going to be 100 levels, I’d attempt to get to a resort or shelter.”

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Over the seven years, he returned to Haddon Township just a few occasions. In Uruguay, he caught a horrible bacterial an infection and was ultimately flown dwelling. By that point he had been travelling for greater than two years. Catherine was shocked by his look: “He had dropped a lot weight. He couldn’t maintain something down, and he was in excruciating ache.” Simply recalling it upsets her. “It was very scary. He lay there on the ground, and he was so skinny. It appeared like he was dying.” Docs stuffed him with a wide range of antibiotics. Finally one in every of them labored, and he returned to his travels.

The ultimate 5 years of Turcich’s stroll have been extra social than the primary two. By now he felt his thoughts was absolutely open to embracing all of the totally different experiences. He realized sufficient French, Russian, Turkish and Italian to make sure he didn’t really feel like an everlasting vacationer.

“The primary two years have been about me and the thoughts. After that, it turned way more in regards to the world. I began to grasp it extra. I turned extra serious about what influences folks and why nations are the best way they’re.” Turcich talks of the otherworldly great thing about Kyrgyzstan; the otherness of Uzbekistan, the place locals had by no means met foreigners, there have been no ads and American Chevrolets have been the one vehicles on the street; the friendliness of Turkish shepherds and their large anatolian shepherd canines; the French countryside, the place he awakened one evening surrounded by 200 boars; the shaman within the Amazon who served him the psychedelic tea ayahuasca.


Egill Halldorsson, a 30-year-old Icelander, got here throughout Turcich in Kaş, a fishing city in southern Turkey. It was 2021, and by now Turcich was six years into his stroll. “I requested what he was doing,” recollects Halldorsson. “He tried to make it sound prefer it wasn’t a giant factor, and he stated he was strolling the world over. My jaw dropped. I stated, what? It takes you a very long time to know simply what it means.”

What have been his first impressions of Turcich? “As I walked away, I stated to my then girlfriend: ‘Wow, that’s the most fascinating man on the planet. I’ve to get to know him higher.’ And she or he stated: ‘Sure, however I feel I sensed some unhappiness, or unease.’ She was referring to him being a bit lonely. Truly, drained may be a greater phrase. Later, once I requested him, he stated he’d been strolling world wide all this time and as quickly as he clicked with folks, he’d at all times be saying goodbye. My girlfriend sensed he was bored with that.”

Halldorsson and Turcich stayed in Kaş for a few months due to the pandemic and have become good associates. They’d have change into shut regardless of the circumstances, Halldorsson says. “He’s adventurous, however right down to earth and enjoyable to be round.” He appeared to have realized lots from his travels. “He’d travelled by means of so many nations, met so many individuals. He got here throughout as an outdated soul.”

Through the closing leg of his stroll, he met a lady referred to as Bonnie in Washington DC, echoing his father’s expertise in Hawaii years earlier than. “I finished to put in writing for a few days,” Turcich says. “We met and hit it off, and that was it.” Turcich and Bonnie, who’s coaching to be a physician, have been collectively ever since, and so they now share a house in Seattle.

On 21 Might 2022, seven years and 49 days after setting off, Turcich arrived again in Haddon Township. Trying again over the time, when was his happiest second? “Crossing the ending line.” For thus lengthy, he says, he’d thought in regards to the day he would get dwelling, and now it was right here. “The world stroll is a fantastic technique to reside, however it’s additionally actually tough and exhausting. I’d missed my household and associates a lot. As I crossed the road, the first feeling was reduction – it’s over, you probably did it!” I assume he slept for a very long time afterwards, however he laughs on the suggestion. “No, we had an enormous social gathering. It was nice.”

As for his mom, Catherine, she says it was the proudest day of her life. “All of the city turned out for him. There have been most likely 400-500 folks. He got here by means of Philadelphia and folks began becoming a member of him. He had this crowd of individuals strolling alongside him. Oh gosh! He was just like the Pied Piper.”

There have been bands and banners and an official end line. “We put up an archway of balloons for him to stroll by means of and a ribbon, and folks simply cheered,” Catherine says. “We have been so thrilled to have him again, and he’d made it – he’d completed his dream. He was overwhelmed, grinning from ear to ear. Then he began crying.”

Tom (second left) at the ‘finish line’ in NJ last May, with his sister Lexi (left), his parents Tom Sr and Catherine, and his girlfriend Bonnie (right).
Tom (second left) on the ‘end line’ in NJ final Might, along with his sister Lexi (left), his dad and mom Tom Sr and Catherine, and his girlfriend Bonnie (proper). {Photograph}: Joseph Kaczmarek/Rex/Shutterstock

Turcich had left a callow 25-year-old, and returned a worldly-wise 32-year-old. Has it made him extra assured in himself? That’s a tough query to reply, he says. “It’s a form of Dunning-Kruger. You recognize, the psychological examine the place the dumbest individual within the room is probably the most assured? The extra you already know, the much less assured you might be. I feel I used to be fairly assured at the start, however I used to be an fool. As soon as you already know you don’t know all the pieces, you lose a few of the confidence and change into much less certain about issues.”

Tom Sr says his son has modified dramatically within the seven years he’s been away. “He’s a person now. He sees the world so otherwise. He’s been to locations the place folks with zero cash work all week so as to add a cinder block to their home, and they’d share all they’d with him. To see that could be a life-changer.”

Of all of the locations he’s seen, Denmark is the place Turcich would most prefer to reside. “It was the primary time I noticed there was a distinct technique to do infrastructure,” says Turcich. “It appeared very peaceable. I beloved with the ability to journey my bike in every single place and never be blasted by an F-150 truck. America could be very car-centric and it takes away lots from cities and day by day life.” Denmark has obtained its priorities proper, he provides – it’s a rustic that has used its wealth to offer nice healthcare and training.

Did wherever really feel like his religious dwelling? “Man, that’s query.” The extra we discuss his journey, the extra it brings out his interior hippy. “In all probability Croatia, as a result of that’s the place my ancestors are from on my dad’s aspect, so I used to be capable of see plenty of my household there, and go to my great-great-grandfather’s home and great-grandfather’s home. There’s a cemetery on the island of Krk, and a 3rd of the burial plots are Turcich. I’d travelled lots by then, however this was the primary place I felt this deeper, inherent connection, figuring out that is the place I got here from.”

A huge green field with mountains behind.
On the street in Peru. {Photograph}: Thomas Turcich

Since returning to the US, Turcich admits he has discovered it powerful adapting again to common society. Though a part of the explanation he left was as a result of he didn’t need to bow right down to the conventions of nine-to-five work, he discovered that the strolling offered him with a distinct form of routine he has discovered unattainable to exchange. “Among the best issues in regards to the stroll was daily I awakened with a goal. A really speedy goal and human goal the place I walked a specific amount. So daily I’d accomplish the little purpose and inside that I’d see new issues, discuss to new folks, study in regards to the world, simply by means of strolling. Then I’d lie in mattress, pondering: ‘That was day, mission completed, let’s do it once more tomorrow.’ And now the stroll’s over, you don’t have that innate sense of discovery. So it seems like I’m constructing a life from the bottom up once more right here in Seattle.”

He’s actually higher outfitted to cope with life than the 25-year-old greenhorn setting out on his stroll. Turcich, now 33, has languages, data, sensible expertise, associates the world over. Over time, he picked up 121,000 followers on Instagram as he documented his travels below the deal with @theworldwalk. The day we spoke, he signed a ebook deal to inform the story of his stroll. And there are the speaking engagements. Individuals love to listen to his story about how the lack of his nice pal Ann Marie despatched him world wide to seek for that means in life.

After I ask if he discovered what he was on the lookout for, he takes me again to that evening below the celebrities within the Atacama, and the sense of his smallness within the universe. It made him really feel insignificant but additionally really feel that he might make a distinction, albeit in little methods. “I got here to the conclusion that it’s happiness. Happiness is the one forex for man. You attempt to be completely happy and attempt to create happiness. Happiness can imply plenty of various things and take plenty of totally different kinds. However when you make the world a greater place, you’ll be able to depart behind gross happiness in your descendants.”

As for himself, he nonetheless finds it tough to imagine how a lot his travels have modified him. These days timid Tom Turcich will fortunately stand in entrance of a paying viewers and inform folks what he found in regards to the world by strolling its floor. Earlier than he launched into his odyssey, he didn’t imagine he had something value telling anyone. However now he thinks otherwise – in each sense. “Once you stroll world wide for seven years you study lots,” he says.

Do you’ve gotten an opinion on the problems raised on this article? If you want to submit a letter of as much as 300 phrases to be thought-about for publication, e-mail it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com



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