Question. Walk across US.

When Im 19-21, I want to walk across America. Anything I should do/look into right now to prepare/plan? Anything I need to know?

 

ello?

 

Teach yourself/read/learn all that you can.

Can you start a fire? Do you know how to chop wood?
Can you cook?
Can you work on an engine? Change oil? Change a fuel filter? Fix brakes?
Can you do electrical work?
Carpentry?
Do you know the difference between a pipe wrench and a crescent wrench?
Speak other languages?
Do you know how to survive in the wild? Do you know how to survive in the city?

Have you read the great writers? Have you seen any movies made before you were born? Have you ever seen a black and white movie??

If you want to travel and do it well educate yourself. Learn all you can now. You have the time.

KevinH

 

There is already an established hiking trail just for this. It starts at Cape Henlopen, DE and goes all the way to just north of San Francisco. Google "American Discovery Trail".

It's great, I plan to hike it after I do the Triple Crown (AT, CDT and PCT).

 

ive wanted to do something like that but i got lil kids and its hard to get up and go
all you need is money and the desire to go.everything else will take care of itself

 

Peter Jenkins did this and wrote a book about it, "Walk Across America." You should get some insight from reading it. Be sure you have sturdy shoes and plenty of socks. Sounds like a great trip.

 

I wouldnt make fires unless youre in a national forest or a state park, most times you will want to stealth camp,


If I was gonna walk long distance, Id probably walk the Appalachian Trail,

If I wanted to travel the country, Id hitchhike

riding a bike across the country might be cool,

if youre gonna be walking, carry only what you need,

get a good backpack, good sleeping bag, good boots, a good bowie knife on your side, you cant go on an adventure without a knife, make sure you have the right gear for the weather, get a seriosly good raincoat, pack cover,

prepare your mind for the humbling experience of panhandling, its a great thing to know how to do when youre on the road, it can save your ass so dont diss it, adventurers are worthy of their penison,

start doing long local walks to prepare for it, like 10 milers, 20s if you can do it, if you have hills near your house, start walking up the hills, with your pack and all your gear, get used to it, make sure its at the right weight, do some local campouts, find out what you use, and what is useless dead weight, every lb counts,

save up some money if you want

figure out where you want to go, what great natural beautys you want to see,

your mind is your greatest weapon

 

I would do a combination hitchhike/hike/camp/hotel trip across America..be fun if you found some cool places to stop for a month or so and stay and live and then continue your quest across america.
I did meet a very nice hippy lady who walked across america in 86' in a fight against nuclear weapons.

 

That sounds pretty damn ambitious??

How far have you hiked before?? Like Treadge said, you really have to prepare. And you need to do some hills. I would look into that American Discovery trail and read Peter Jenkins book, that sounds awesome. I thought I was plenty ready for hiking, because I was in good shape when I went and hiked the Tour de Mont Blanc. Apparantly, I wasn't in as good a shape as I thought, cause those hills proved to be very tiring. So, I would definately spend the next couple of years hiking shorter 3 day to a week trips carrying a decent load. And get up in the mountains. If there are no mountains, climb the steps at a stadium. I used the stadium where they play the Nasdaq-100 tennis tournament, and just walked or ran up and down up and down.

See if you can find someone to go with you. Of course, you meet more people when you travel alone, but sometimes it's nice to have somebody that is going to be there with you. Plus it's a security measure. What happens if you fall down or get attacked by a bear and then you are lying there busted and bloody and can't walk to safety and you are too high up in the mountains for cellphone service, and you haven't seen another person in 5 hours? (That was a really bad run on sentence. Usually, I hate it when people here have no idea how to write properly, so I apologize.) Your friend could run down and get help. Anyways, yeah, we only did an 11 day trip around Mont Blanc, me and two English guys. It was great. It was wierd walking from one country to another and no seeing any border patrol. But then of course with the EU, they don't have much patrol anyways. But still wierd, because they never had any patrol.

Have a good, and safe trip

 

Thats cool. Im reading an autobiography called Planet Walker about a guy who walked the US and all the way to the tip of South America after witnessing an oil spil. He thought, "well, if we didnt drive cars, there would be no oil spills", so he started walking!