One of my life dreams is to walk across the entire U.S. It seems like an amazing adventure. I’ll stop in places and maybe sleep on the road or in cheap hotels/hostels, and meet lots of interesting characters.
Last weekend, I asked my 71-year-old mom to join me for a nearly 30-mile-walk to an Indian restaurant. I was looking at this walk as a small test of what my cross-country walk would be like.
I work out almost every day, but I did not train specifically for this walk.
Mom and I started walking at 6:45 a.m. I saw an amazing sunrise. We stopped a couple of times on the trip. The longest stop was a 30 minute break for lunch. The temperature was great. I did not fully realize it when the sun went to the west side of the sky. Just kept walking. As the day progressed, we realized we might not make it the full 30 miles. We did not want to walk in the dark. We called it at like 4:30 p.m., 8 miles away from the Indian restaurant. My mom did not want to walk anymore. She’s hard-core for a 71-year-old, but she has limitations. I was walking on pure stubbornness, because I was tiring as well.
As the walk progressed, I began to question my dream of walking across the United States. 25 miles, which is really the maximum distance I could walk in a day, doesn’t seem like enough miles to accomplish. This doesn’t leave me enough time for adventures. I was thinking I could add in hitchhiking, But I don’t think anybody would pick me up — no one wants to pick up a 200-pound hitchhiking man carrying a backpack.
I began questioning if I could do this walk across the U.S., which led me to despair. I started considering a 150-mile test walk, but that just didn’t seem fun, anymore.
My girlfriend gave me an idea of purchasing a used electric car, driving it to each of the lower 48 states, and then walking 30 miles in each state. I am wondering if I could do this with an electric minivan. If I do this, here are my goals for each state:
- Train in 10 martial arts schools
- Hike 20-30 miles
- Interview 30 people on tattoos
- Visit the top 10 tourist attractions
I also am looking at options for low-cost housing. I could potentially use Planet Fitness for intermittent workouts and showers.
Weird thing we saw on the walk
I will update as I come up with more ideas, or as I test things out.
Please advise if you have any ideas!
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