Unusual circumnavigation of the world: an American traveled around the world on foot

Very few people attempt to circumnavigate the world, and even fewer make it. On May 21, 2022, New Jersey's Tom Turcic became the 10th recorded person to accomplish this remarkable feat, with his four-legged companion Savannah becoming the first dog to achieve this. The publication told about their unusual journey CNN.

Photo: Shutterstock

They were greeted with a grand homecoming celebration attended by many of Turčić's friends and family.

The triumphant moment ended the seven-year journey of 48 kilometers (000 miles), and preparations took even longer.

“It was very surreal,” Turcic recalls. “I’ve been imagining what the final will be like for a long time. And when that happened, people lined the streets and walked with me. The main emotion was just relief. It's been in my life for 15 years."

Inspiring journey

The inspiration for the trip came from a sad loss in 2006 when his longtime girlfriend Ann Marie died in a jet ski accident at the age of 17.

“Her death had a huge impact on me,” he explains. She was a much better person than me. And I realized that I will die one day, and it can happen at any moment. I have reviewed my entire life."

Turcic, who has been compared to Forrest Gump, decided that he needed travel and adventure in his life and began to look for all possible ways.

After reading about Guinness World Record-listed Steven Newman, the first person to circumnavigate the world, and adventurer Carl Bushby, who has circumnavigated the world on foot since 1998, Turcic decided to take on the challenge himself.

“It seemed like the best way to understand the world and get to new places,” he says. “I didn’t just want to go to Paris and Machu Picchu, I really wanted to understand the world and see how people live from day to day.”

Turčić began planning the route and also tried to raise funds for his travels.

Working the summers while he was in college, and returning to his parents after graduation, he managed to save enough to last about two years on the road.

However, shortly before Tom's departure, the owner of the local Philadelphia Sign company found out about his plans and decided to sponsor the trip.

“He knew Anne-Marie and her family,” he explains. “And he just wanted to support me in any way he could.”

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Nearly nine years after he first came up with the idea, Turcic took the first step in his world tour.

He hit the road on April 2, 2015, shortly before his 26th birthday, pushing a baby carriage with camping equipment, a sleeping bag, a laptop, a digital camera and a plastic box in which he kept food.

Turcic says he designed his itinerary with two main factors in mind: he wanted to "visit every continent and travel with as little hassle as possible."

“I thought it would take about five and a half years,” he shares. “And it turned out to be pretty accurate.”

Faithful Companion

However, in total, the entire journey lasted seven years - mainly due to two significant delays. The first happened when Turcic contracted a bacterial infection that took him months to recover from, and the second happened due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Along the way, he inevitably experienced various ups and downs, including being invited to local weddings in both Turkey and Uzbekistan, and being threatened with a knife in Panama.

Before he started his journey, Tom traveled very little, except for visits to England, Ireland and Wales during a school trip, and vacations in Canada and the Dominican Republic.

He didn't have much hiking experience, although he had previously done a 10-day hike with a friend, as well as a few weekend hikes.

On the first leg of the journey, he walked from New Jersey to Panama. About four months later, Turcic acquired his companion puppy Savannah from an animal shelter in Austin, Texas.

Although he didn't originally intend to get a dog, Tom struggled to relax, especially when he went to bed at campsites and constantly woke up at night convinced he "heard something coming."

He felt that having a furry friend close by who could "watch" at night would make a big difference, and it turned out to be true.

“She was fantastic,” he says of Savannah. “It’s just nice to have someone to share moments with.”

When they reached Panama, they flew over the Darien Gorge, a treacherous patch of jungle between Panama and Colombia. After this first year on the road, Turcic created an account on the donation platform Patreon so that his followers would have the opportunity to help fund this journey.

For most of their second year, they walked from Bogotá, Colombia to Montevideo, Uruguay, where they boarded a boat and sailed to Antarctica.

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Around this point, Tom briefly returned home to get the paperwork needed to travel to Europe with Savannah.

Arriving in Europe, they passed through Ireland and Scotland, but were forced to take a long break when Turcic became too ill to continue walking.

In the UK, he spent several weeks in the hospital, but eventually returned home to the US to recuperate.

Tough times

Turcic, who has documented his journey on Instagram and on his blog The World Walk, resumed hiking in Copenhagen in May 2018, but it took some time before he returned to his normal state both mentally and physically.

“When you go out and spend all that time alone, you really need to be able to keep yourself in good company,” he explains. “Especially when you're constantly exposed to the elements. So I didn't have much fun."

Although Turcic admits that he began to doubt whether he would be able to continue, he says that he never seriously considered giving up.

“There were definitely times when I just wasn’t in a good place,” he says. “I used to think: “What am I doing here? I could be with my family and friends, but instead I'm walking in this cold rain in Germany." But I didn't consider the option of ever stopping. I had been thinking about the hike for eight years before I even started it. So it would be crazy to give up after a couple of years.”

It wasn't until he completed the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage that includes several routes in Spain, France and Portugal, that Tom began to feel great and was ready to fully immerse himself in the journey again.

Then he and Savannah moved to North Africa, passed through Morocco, Algeria, where they were accompanied by the police, and also Tunisia.

From here they moved through Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece. After Greece, the wanderers made their way to Turkey, where Turcic became the first private individual to be allowed to cross the Bosphorus Bridge on foot.

Then they went to Georgia, the Caucasus Mountains and Azerbaijan - just at that moment the pandemic broke out. Ultimately, this meant that they had to stay in Azerbaijan for at least six months.

Way home

“Back then it was just waiting,” says Turcic, who originally intended to travel through Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia before flying to Australia and then returning to the US.

Unfortunately, the strict travel restrictions in place at the time meant that Turcic had to abandon plans to visit Australia and Mongolia - both destinations were closed to foreign visitors for about two years - along with Kazakhstan.

After passing through Kyrgyzstan, a small country in Central Asia bordering China, he and Savannah flew to Seattle in August 2021 and began their journey home to New Jersey.

Of all the places he traveled on the trip, Turcic says that Wyoming, the least populated US state, was the most difficult.

“It’s deserted out there,” he admits, remembering how he and Savannah walked all weekend without seeing a store or even a person, until they finally stumbled upon a tiny gas station.

“It took me by surprise. I returned to the US thinking, “I’m back home. Everything is here." But I might as well have been in the deserts of Chile or Peru,” Tom muses.

During his trip around the world, he crossed six continents and 38 countries with his dog, spending most of the nights hiking.

The Guinness Book of World Records sets the requirements for a walking circumnavigation of the world: one must walk 18 miles (about 000 kilometers) and cross four continents - a goal that Turcic has surpassed.

He and Savannah averaged 18 to 24 miles (29 to 38 kilometers) per day.

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“The thing is, Savannah has always had a lot more energy than me,” he notes. This journey from country to country is all she's ever known. There were times when we were walking through the desert and I would fall at the end of the day and she would come up with a stick and want to play.”

As soon as they moved to the United States, Tom was more eager than ever to complete the long journey and return to normal life.

“Seven years is a long time,” he says. “When the end was near, I just couldn't wait to get back. I was already ready to hang out with friends and family again, and not pack my tent every morning.”

be in one place

His late girlfriend Anne-Marie's family were among those who met him at the homecoming celebration, and while Turcic stresses he doesn't want to talk about them, he'd like to think that his journey and the attention it has garnered is at least a little helped them.

“I didn’t just do it for Anne-Marie,” he admits. “But she was the catalyst and inspiration for it. Her death really inspired me to live. And as soon as I finished the journey and got there with her family, it seemed to me that they became a little closer.

Now that he's back in his hometown, Tom is enjoying a reunion with his friends, spending time with his family along with his girlfriend, whom he met on the final leg of the journey.

He would like to go to Mongolia, one of the places where he could not go due to restrictions due to COVID-19, Turcic does not plan to take Savannah with him.

“The flight is insanely long and Savannah doesn’t care about Mongolia,” he says. "Maybe we'll get there one day, maybe we won't."

For now, Tom is focused on writing a memoir about his journey, while Savannah is adjusting to staying in one place all the time.

“My dad takes her for a four-mile walk around the river every morning,” he says. “So it helps vent some of her energy. She comes back, jumps on the sofa and takes a nap. She seems to be quite content."

When asked if he would like to hit the road again, Turcic replied that such thoughts did not cross his mind. In fact, Tom does not plan to go anywhere for a long time.

“I want to enjoy life without walking and even without traveling,” he sums up. - I'm so tired. Right now I just want to be in one place and get into the rhythm.”

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