Has anyone here ever walked cross-country?

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard How cool an adventure!!!! I suppose your odds of getting thrown in jail is based on the roads you take.
I bicycled around lake superior during college, but yours is a huge undertaking.
Good Luck!

There is no distance greater than that of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.

Nope, when I was a kid though I often flirted with the idea whilst on random adventures.
What would it be like if I just kept on walking, didn’t go home for a while?
Alas the unavoidable/inevitable conclusion was that my shoes would become tattered & i’d have wept like a baby come nightfall.
Still, the thought flickered, however briefly.

The longest I’ve ever walked is about 26 miles, over 3 days. I’ve always wanted to do something like the Appalachian Trail, if time and my body would allow. It’s such a different way to look at the world – and it makes you think about distance differently

Why would anyone throw you in jail? :P.

I don’t hear about people walking across the country very often, at least walking across America. But I’ve gotten super interested in long distance biking and that is very common for people to do cross-country trips. I’d suggest looking up some of that just to get more accounts of cross country travel. You will find a lot of the trails and roads that are legal to do these kinds of trips on.

I don’t think you’re likely to be thrown in jail at all. Be stopped by the cops so they can check you out, sure, that would happen quite a bit. But once they know you’re not intent on hitchhiking (I’m not sure if this is actually illegal, but maybe just a little dangerous), you’re not carrying drugs, you’re not insane, you’re not an illegal alien, etc, they’ll just wish you well and let you go on your way.

Honestly, after all the videos and stories I’ve read. I’d suggest doing this on a shorter distance to start with. I want to do a 100–200 mile bike ride by the end of the summer. But I’m going to be starting with 20–60 miles round trip rides to close cities, and out to Lake Michigan. With other people on some of them. Training and preparing mentally and physically for the long distance bike tour.

I don’t know if you’re ever heard of this/saw it, but there is this great documentary called Long Way Round. Ewan McGregor & his buddy Charley Boorman ride motorcycles around the world. From London to New York, over about 4 months. Its SO good, and it was one of the first things that spurred my interest in extended travel. The parts when they’re in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Eastern Russia are particularly inspiring. You can watch it all on Youtube here. They have another one where they ride through Africa, but I haven’t watched that one yet.

I would love, love, love to hike the Trans Canada Trail one day. It goes from coast to coast and is 16,500km long.

Driving cross country is enough of an adventure for me. Won’t the joints and ligaments in your knees be destroyed after something like that?

I hitchhiked a few thousand miles, of which probably a few hundred was walked. That’s a lot of walking. I didn’t really enjoy it that much.

Speaking from experience, if you don’t do it, you will still want to many years later.

Read Peace Pilgrim and this book if you can find a copy, although I’m sure they’re not the last word in pilgrim lit.

(Also, Into the Wild)

I once walked the Hadrian’s Wall trail from Carlisle to Wallsend (Newcastle). Technically it’s right across England from west to east coast but it’s the narrowest point. It took 3 days though we probably could have done it in 2 if we’d planned it better.

My son, then in his mid-twenties, flew himself and his bike from Ann Arbor to Buffalo. Then he biked to Boston, considered it a great adventure and then had to have surgery for a slipped disc a year later.

I didn’t see this question when you asked it. Have you thought any more about it? Do you have any definite plans? It sounds like a great adventure.I have friends who have hiked great sections of the Appalachian Trail and had a wonderful time. I have done a lot of hiking in Australia but never across the country. That would be a hell of a trip here, right through the red center! You should come on over Fiddle and just do it!