Tom Turcich my good friend from New Jersey in the United States, took the first steps out of his home instarting what would become a mammoth seven-year walk around the globe.
It was 2015 and all Turcich had was a good pair of walking shoes and a few essential items.
At the time, he didn't know that he would become the 10th person to cross the globe by foot. He also couldn't have foreseen that he would be accompanied by a “tough and steady" mutt, Savannah, who will become the first canine to do so.
“It was very undramatic, I just walked out of my front door and the first day I was in Philadelphia," Turcich says.
“I was not far from home at all, I was 20 miles (30 kilometres) away.
“For months I was on the Eastern Seaboard, but because it was finally happening … I was on fire.
Turcich has since walked through 37 countries in six continents and has covered roughly 45,000 kilometres. But it was early on that he decided he needed company.
“After walking and camping in strange places, you automatically wake up during the night when you hear a twig snap," he says.
“I kept thinking it would be really nice to have a dog with me … to alert me if someone was coming.
Four months into his walk, Turcich went to an animal shelter in Austin, Texas.
“I was just about to leave and then they brought out two little puppies who had been found by the side of the highway.”
Turcich has since walked through 37 countries in six continents and has covered roughly 45,000 kilometres. But it was early on that he decided he needed company.
“After walking and camping in strange places, you automatically wake up during the night when you hear a twig snap," he says.
“I kept thinking it would be really nice to have a dog with me … to alert me if someone was coming.
Four months into his walk, Turcich went to an animal shelter in Austin, Texas.
“I was just about to leave and then they brought out two little puppies who had been found by the side of the highway.”
The walk was a goal Turcich had set for himself as a teenager, after he suddenly lost a close friend in a jet ski accident at the age of 16.
“When she passed away, it was really formative for me,” he says.
“I recognised the impermanence of life and when I thought about what I wanted to do with my brief time here, I wanted adventure, I wanted to travel and to understand the world.”
He was inspired by other adventurers, including Karl Bushby, a British ex-paratrooper and American world trekker, Steve Newman.
While Newman is listed as the first person to walk solo around the world, Bushby began his attempt to become the first person to walk an unbroken path around the world in 1998.
Having paused his walk in 2019 due to visa issues with Iran and the COVID-19 pandemic, Bushby was recently planning to restart when Russia's invasion of Ukraine threw off his plans. He is currently 42,000 kilometres into the 58,000 kilometre walk.
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| Tom Turcich with his best friend |
"I recognised the impermanence of life and when I thought about what I wanted to do with my brief time here, I wanted adventure."
Bushby's original motivation to begin walking was to overcome adversity, including coping with the horrors he had seen on the battlefield and his marriage collapse in 1995.
The idea of walking as meditation and as a challenge-based endeavour is relatable for Turcich.
"Walking gave me some solace," he says. "When I was faced with death, I was okay with it, because of the actions I took. "I've tried to live a full life." Little did Turcich know that he would see and experience some of the best the world had to offer. “When I was walking the Pan-American highway from Peru into Chile, these truckers would go by, and people would stop and give me water or Gatorade or fruit. “I’ve had so many shopkeepers give me food and I’ve been taken in a bunch ... there’s been a lot of goodness.”
He also says he had some realisations while crossing borders between countries."There were a couple lessons, the first was how much of life is decided by fortune or luck," Turcich says."Just for myself, I would not be able to do this walk if I wasn't born in Canada or Germany or Japan or the US, somewhere with a strong passport.
"The other lesson was how important a good system of governance is to give people the best chance of a good life, and I would see this border to border." While walking every day may sound like a dog’s dream, Turcich says the road wasn’t always easy, recalling a point when he reached his limits. “When I was crossing the Andes between Chile and Argentina … I started pushing my cart through the sand and my legs just gave out on me and I fell into the sand,” Turcich says.
“I was laying there totally exhausted, looking out at this sandy mountain … and I turned over and Savannah came and sat beside me. “I was two years of walking away from my home … and I had pushed my body to the limit and found the end of my physicality, but I was there with Savannah, who I never thought I’d have.” The pair also endured extreme heat in Central America and torrential rain during the Argentinian summer.
Turcich was held at knifepoint in Panama City, almost succumbed to a bacterial infection acquired in South America and stared down the barrel of a shotgun high in the mountains of Turkey. “I was crossing over this mountain just north of the Syrian border and these two guys jumped off a moped and pointed a shotgun at me,” he says.
“It turned out they were plain clothes military looking for terrorists – it took about three or four hours to work out.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Turcich and Savannah were stuck in Azerbaijan for 6 months. "There was literally no way out for us, everything was closed, there were no flights in or out," he says. "Ultimately it threw off our plans, but we went back to Turkey and walked more of Turkey as it was one of the few bigger countries that was open." While Turcich describes Savannah as “extremely tough", she would also encounter some strife of her own. “We were in the Atacama Desert in Chile, the driest desert in the world, and Savannah sneezes and blood starts coming out of her nose like water,” Turcich says. “I used my med kit as much as I could before carrying her into the street.
“We were both covered in blood but amazingly I was able to wave down a jeep of young Chileans who were able to take us into town.”
After a harrowing night during which Savannah continued to lose blood, Turcich says he was lucky that a vet in a nearby village saved her life after realising Savannah had been bitten by a tick in Peru.
Turcich is now on his home stretch.
This Saturday, he will cross the Ben Franklin Bridge from Philadelphia with Savannah by his side and walk home to New Jersey, where he will be greeted by a welcoming party. “The first two years of the walk were such a challenge and I was on fire with excitement and joy to be out there and it really got me through,” he says. “Since then after walking Europe, North Africa, bits of Asia and walking America, it’s really strange because I’ve been doing this for so long that I am relaxed, almost too relaxed.'' When he gets home, Turcich doesn’t plan to put his feet up but instead will start writing a book about his adventure.
He credits Savannah for keeping him going.
“Her tail is always up and she will do 50 kilometres a day if needed, without complaint. So, I try and do that myself," he says. "I have a lot of respect for her. "She’s seven, the same age as the walk, so it’s probably a good time to retire."
