May 23, 2025 • 8 mins
Tom Turcich is the author of THE WORLD WALK: 7 Years. 28,000 Miles. 6 Continents. Why did he do it? How many shoes did he wear out? Let's find out!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on the Brett Sanders Podcast, my guest is
Tom Tursich. He walked around the world and wrote a
book about it.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey, Brett, how you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Terrific? You great this book The World Walk seven years,
twenty eight thousand miles, six continents. What a story, sir,
and I have a deep respect for you for undertaking
this adventure.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thanks, I appreciate that. Yeah, it was a phenomenal adventure.
Learned a lot of experience a lot, but glad it's over.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
You walked around the world. How do we boil this
down to its essence? What did you walk away from
at the end of this incredible experience?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I would say that we are smaller than we realize
is the main takeaway. I think that was driven home
to me over and over and over again. Where you
see everyone doing their best everywhere you go. You know,
it's just people living. Whether you're in the US, whether
you're in Peru, whether you're in Uzbekistan, it's just people
(01:04):
doing their best wherever they are. And you know it's
you just see how much culture and geography and politics
affects people's lives. And for myself personally, I'd say that
the primary tech takeaway is just being okay with living
one life and then trying to find the things that
(01:25):
you value and work within that and hopefully maximize and
find some peace within your your one single life.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
So what I'm hearing from you is someone in Whuzbekistan
and someone in let's say, Baltimore. They're really not that
different when you break it down.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Oh no, absolutely the same. I think that's one of
the one of the really mind blowing things in a
certain way, which it shouldn't be. I think you probably
understand it intellectually, but when you first start traveling. For me,
I remember thinking, oh, man, one day, I'm going to
wake up in l Salvador it's gonna be so crazy,
and I'm gonna wake up in Peru and it's to
be totally wild. And then you get to these places
(02:03):
and you realized, oh, it's just like people hanging out
like anywhere else. And it's obviously it's like very obvious
in a certain way because it's just people that's the
main ingredient. But then when you get there you realize, okay,
well they eat a little different because this is what
the local ingredients are, and the language is different, and
you know, the architecture is different because whatever the geography
is and so everything kind of certain things are adjusted.
(02:25):
But when you boil it down to its basic elements,
it's people just want to make a little money and
hang out with their friends and family.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Tom, what sent you on this journey?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I had a friend who passed away when I was seventeen,
and it was very formative for me. I had never
been close to someone who died before, and Amory, my
friend who passed, was the nicest person I knew, and
so when she died, it really drove home the fact that,
oh Amory can die, then so can I. And so
(02:56):
it forced me to reflect on the things that I
want it out of life. And when I did that,
it was I wanted to travel, I wanted adventure, and
I wanted to understand the world. And then it was
trying to find a way, trying to find a life
that fit into those things. And eventually I discovered Steve
Newman and Carbush be the two men who had walked
around the world, and that just lodged itself into my head.
(03:18):
And then it was eight years of saving, planning, paying
off loans, working, saving until I was able to begin.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You weren't alone on this journey, were you? No?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Thankfully no. I adopted my dog Savannah in Austin, Texas
after four or five months of walking, when I had
camped enough on my own and thought, man, it'd be
really nice to have a dog that could listen while
I slept, And so yeah, I adopted her when she
was just a puppy, and she grew up on the road,
and she knew no other life but walking eight hours
(03:51):
a day, and she was a beast and my best friend.
And I write in the beginning of my book the
the devotion is to her. It says, to Savannah my
only constant. And because when you're out there walking and
living out of the baby carriage in a tent, you
are constantly exposed to newness and to challenges and to
(04:16):
the elements. And every day is this new way that
you're forced to grow. And through that all, it was
Savannah by my side. And she was this one through
line through a lot of change. And the best parts
of my walk were when I would sit down at
the end of the day, my legs throbbing, and in
(04:39):
a beautiful forest or overlooking the sea, and Savannah would
sit beside me, and we could just take in how
far we had come.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
What kind of dog was Savannah?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
But just so yeah, I got her a DNA test
a few years in and she she had she's actually
mostly child She was twenty five percent chow. But then
you know, like fifteen other things. So just a total mutt.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That sounds like the perfect dog. Hey, was everybody friendly
on your adventures? Tom?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah? I had a few runnings. Nothing you know, crazy
held up a knife point in Panama City, at gunpoint
in Turkey, But that was kind of not actually not
as bad as it sounds as plain close military. But
other than a few encounters, say, ninety nine point nine
percent of people very good. I was helped almost every day.
(05:32):
Someone would stop and try and give me food, or
give me water, or offer me a place to sleep.
So yeah, I would say, overwhelmingly good people out there.
The other thing I learned, also very early on, was
that there's some people that you are just not going
to trust, and that you're not going to if you
(05:54):
get a bad sense off of them. Basically just to
trust that, because later on I would meet someone I
knew that I would trust immediately you could just set
in their eyes and so I think also I probably
filtered as it went on very well into just knowing
who to trust and who not to trust. But I
would say, for the most part, like I said, people
(06:15):
just trying to make a little money and hang out
with their family.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Okay, a couple of more technical questions for you, Tom
before I'll let you go. How many pair or pairs
I'm never sure if it's pair or pairs of shoes.
Did you go through walking around the planet Earth?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, probably forty five is my guest. They would last
roughly eight hundred miles. So I worked very hard to
have Brooks Cascadia after like a year of walking. I
had tried all these different shoes, and Brooks were the
ones that didn't give me blitzers or caused me to
lose toenails, and so I would have them shipped ahead
and I would sometimes that meant wearing a pair of
(06:51):
shoes for twelve hundred miles until I could get another
pair of Brooks. Sometimes it was five hundred miles. So
I would say on average they lasted maybe eight hundred
miles pretty well before they really were, you know, reaching
their breaking point. And I think I went through about
forty five pairs.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, by the way, Brooks does not sponsor this, but
it's a quality shoe. That's the shoe that I run
into most of the time. Also, how many calories did
you have to consume a day to keep going?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Oh? Man, more than I could eat. Honestly. Yeah, I
was burning at least five thousand calories a day, and
I would just eat as much as I possibly could.
And it became really changed. Some countries where there just
wasn't as robust of trade. You get to some of
these little shops and you just couldn't unless it was
(07:42):
really junky food. Maybe you just like couldn't even find
enough calories. So whenever I get to a restaurant or something,
I would just eat as much as I could. In
the US, you know, where it's just like the land
of abundance. There's just so many things. Even these little
gas stations are just like grocery stores in some countries,
then I could I would just be able to carry
(08:02):
like a bag of donuts with me and an extra
liter of milk and you know, top off with a
cool two thousand calories to keep me going through the day.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
We probably need this book now here in America more
than ever, so I'm glad you wrote it. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Brett.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
All right, nice talking to you again. The World Walk
seven years, twenty eight thousand miles, six continents. Nice talking
to you, thanks Brett, and nice of you to listen.
I'll see you next time on the Brett Sonders Podcast
This week on the Brett Sanders Podcast, my guest is
Tom Tursich. He walked around the world and wrote a
book about it.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey, Brett, how you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Terrific? You great this book The World Walk seven years,
twenty eight thousand miles, six continents. What a story, sir,
and I have a deep respect for you for undertaking
this adventure.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thanks, I appreciate that. Yeah, it was a phenomenal adventure.
Learned a lot of experience a lot, but glad it's over.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
You walked around the world. How do we boil this
down to its essence? What did you walk away from
at the end of this incredible experience?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I would say that we are smaller than we realize
is the main takeaway. I think that was driven home
to me over and over and over again. Where you
see everyone doing their best everywhere you go. You know,
it's just people living. Whether you're in the US, whether
you're in Peru, whether you're in Uzbekistan, it's just people
(01:04):
doing their best wherever they are. And you know it's
you just see how much culture and geography and politics
affects people's lives. And for myself personally, I'd say that
the primary tech takeaway is just being okay with living
one life and then trying to find the things that
(01:25):
you value and work within that and hopefully maximize and
find some peace within your your one single life.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
So what I'm hearing from you is someone in Whuzbekistan
and someone in let's say, Baltimore. They're really not that
different when you break it down.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Oh no, absolutely the same. I think that's one of
the one of the really mind blowing things in a
certain way, which it shouldn't be. I think you probably
understand it intellectually, but when you first start traveling. For me,
I remember thinking, oh, man, one day, I'm going to
wake up in l Salvador it's gonna be so crazy,
and I'm gonna wake up in Peru and it's to
be totally wild. And then you get to these places
(02:03):
and you realized, oh, it's just like people hanging out
like anywhere else. And it's obviously it's like very obvious
in a certain way because it's just people that's the
main ingredient. But then when you get there you realize, okay,
well they eat a little different because this is what
the local ingredients are, and the language is different, and
you know, the architecture is different because whatever the geography
is and so everything kind of certain things are adjusted.
(02:25):
But when you boil it down to its basic elements,
it's people just want to make a little money and
hang out with their friends and family.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Tom, what sent you on this journey?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I had a friend who passed away when I was seventeen,
and it was very formative for me. I had never
been close to someone who died before, and Amory, my
friend who passed, was the nicest person I knew, and
so when she died, it really drove home the fact that,
oh Amory can die, then so can I. And so
(02:56):
it forced me to reflect on the things that I
want it out of life. And when I did that,
it was I wanted to travel, I wanted adventure, and
I wanted to understand the world. And then it was
trying to find a way, trying to find a life
that fit into those things. And eventually I discovered Steve
Newman and Carbush be the two men who had walked
around the world, and that just lodged itself into my head.
(03:18):
And then it was eight years of saving, planning, paying
off loans, working, saving until I was able to begin.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You weren't alone on this journey, were you? No?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Thankfully no. I adopted my dog Savannah in Austin, Texas
after four or five months of walking, when I had
camped enough on my own and thought, man, it'd be
really nice to have a dog that could listen while
I slept, And so yeah, I adopted her when she
was just a puppy, and she grew up on the road,
and she knew no other life but walking eight hours
(03:51):
a day, and she was a beast and my best friend.
And I write in the beginning of my book the
the devotion is to her. It says, to Savannah my
only constant. And because when you're out there walking and
living out of the baby carriage in a tent, you
are constantly exposed to newness and to challenges and to
(04:16):
the elements. And every day is this new way that
you're forced to grow. And through that all, it was
Savannah by my side. And she was this one through
line through a lot of change. And the best parts
of my walk were when I would sit down at
the end of the day, my legs throbbing, and in
(04:39):
a beautiful forest or overlooking the sea, and Savannah would
sit beside me, and we could just take in how
far we had come.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
What kind of dog was Savannah?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
But just so yeah, I got her a DNA test
a few years in and she she had she's actually
mostly child She was twenty five percent chow. But then
you know, like fifteen other things. So just a total mutt.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That sounds like the perfect dog. Hey, was everybody friendly
on your adventures? Tom?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah? I had a few runnings. Nothing you know, crazy
held up a knife point in Panama City, at gunpoint
in Turkey, But that was kind of not actually not
as bad as it sounds as plain close military. But
other than a few encounters, say, ninety nine point nine
percent of people very good. I was helped almost every day.
(05:32):
Someone would stop and try and give me food, or
give me water, or offer me a place to sleep.
So yeah, I would say, overwhelmingly good people out there.
The other thing I learned, also very early on, was
that there's some people that you are just not going
to trust, and that you're not going to if you
(05:54):
get a bad sense off of them. Basically just to
trust that, because later on I would meet someone I
knew that I would trust immediately you could just set
in their eyes and so I think also I probably
filtered as it went on very well into just knowing
who to trust and who not to trust. But I
would say, for the most part, like I said, people
(06:15):
just trying to make a little money and hang out
with their family.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Okay, a couple of more technical questions for you, Tom
before I'll let you go. How many pair or pairs
I'm never sure if it's pair or pairs of shoes.
Did you go through walking around the planet Earth?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, probably forty five is my guest. They would last
roughly eight hundred miles. So I worked very hard to
have Brooks Cascadia after like a year of walking. I
had tried all these different shoes, and Brooks were the
ones that didn't give me blitzers or caused me to
lose toenails, and so I would have them shipped ahead
and I would sometimes that meant wearing a pair of
(06:51):
shoes for twelve hundred miles until I could get another
pair of Brooks. Sometimes it was five hundred miles. So
I would say on average they lasted maybe eight hundred
miles pretty well before they really were, you know, reaching
their breaking point. And I think I went through about
forty five pairs.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, by the way, Brooks does not sponsor this, but
it's a quality shoe. That's the shoe that I run
into most of the time. Also, how many calories did
you have to consume a day to keep going?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Oh? Man, more than I could eat. Honestly. Yeah, I
was burning at least five thousand calories a day, and
I would just eat as much as I possibly could.
And it became really changed. Some countries where there just
wasn't as robust of trade. You get to some of
these little shops and you just couldn't unless it was
(07:42):
really junky food. Maybe you just like couldn't even find
enough calories. So whenever I get to a restaurant or something,
I would just eat as much as I could. In
the US, you know, where it's just like the land
of abundance. There's just so many things. Even these little
gas stations are just like grocery stores in some countries,
then I could I would just be able to carry
(08:02):
like a bag of donuts with me and an extra
liter of milk and you know, top off with a
cool two thousand calories to keep me going through the day.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
We probably need this book now here in America more
than ever, so I'm glad you wrote it. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Brett.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
All right, nice talking to you again. The World Walk
seven years, twenty eight thousand miles, six continents. Nice talking
to you, thanks Brett, and nice of you to listen.
I'll see you next time on the Brett Sonders Podcast
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