This podcast and video is for people who want to understand the full impact of long term travel.
For many people, more than a couple of weeks travelling/hiking/backpacking/camping may seem like a long time. However there are those who have made it a life’s journey or project to go further, much further for much longer.
This is a story about two women who have travelled by self powered means almost 20 thousand miles over 7 years in one continuous trail.
It is a journey that began in South America on Nov. 23, 2015. It was on that day that Bethany Hughes and Lauren Reed embarked on Her Odyssey, a human-powered journey on trails some established, others ancient which connected the Americas.
Their objective to travel from the southern most tip of the Americas to the northern most tip where it meets the Artic ocean. All by self powered means, walking, cycling and paddling.
In the middle of all this came Covid and my first interview with them back in July 2020 they were just south of the Canadian border trapped by lockdown.
Please listen to Podcast No 526 and 527 on your chosen podcast player.
The self funded and supported by a handful of Patreons quest has been anything but a small endeavour which they completed on the 24th August 2022.
In total the journey has covered 18,221 miles and taken 7 years.
It would be easy in a conversation like this when the topic is so big to stick to surface level questions about ‘how many pairs of shoes’ and ‘what did you eat’, but I wanted to explore the more emotional bigger questions about the difficulty in letting go of fear and opening yourself up to people, their communities and human interaction.
They travelled together for much of the time, but still had time apart one cycling and the other walking different route, always starting off from the last latitude to ensure the spirit of continual travel was adhered to.
I ask them about how they interacted with section hikers when they shared campfire stories on the trails. If their 18 thousand mile project blew the mind of through hikers on the CDT. How do they pigeon hole themselves now, how differently do they see themselves now to seven years prior. And also if they now feel calm, with no urgency to rush off to another destination without good reason.
I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope you do too. Please leave a comment below and on social media.