When I saw this book listed on NetGalley, I couldn’t resist requesting it. I love stories about expeditions, exploration and long distance travel. Even though I admire Tom Turcich’s determination and fitness, the book didn’t really fulfil my expectations because it didn’t really give me a feel for many of the places he visited and the people he met. There are a few more vivid descriptions of people he really connected with, but they are few and far between and mainly towards the end of the book. The one character who really shone through was his dog Savannah, a rescue dog he adopted in Texas She gave him someone to care for, a constant companion, a point of connection with strangers and a feeling of safety. Although that was not what I personally wanted from the book, I felt the level of self-reflection portrayed in the book is not enough to justify the subtitle of ‘A Grand Meditation’.

“We had walked eight thousand miles together, always each other’s shelter, and now we rested at the top of the earth changed from who we were. We faced our fears side-by-side and discovered they were born of inexperience, and that adventure was really just an education. Somehow I knew that we had walked the earth already, that we would walk it again, and that we would be walking it forever.”

After the death of a lifelong friend at the age of sixteen, Turcich decided to make Carpe diem his life motto and to grab every chance he got to live. But it wasn’t until he did just that by actually kissing his new girlfriend instead of just thinking about it that he changed his life. The way Turcich decided to travel seems right to me: on foot and not only to the most touristy places. The road less travelled, in fact. However, it took ten years of dreaming, route planning and saving to make it happen, plus meeting a man who promoted his adventure so that he ended up with sponsors and a handmade cart to carry his gear.

One of the unusual things about Tom Turcich’s journey was that he started from his parents’ home, walking on roads and through towns in rural America, rather than flying to some more exotic place to start. This exposed him to random strangers. He soon discovered that he needed to listen to his intuition, but also that there are plenty of helpful people out there. After five months, he stayed with family in Texas and adopted a puppy who he named Savannah. After staying long enough to address her health issues and toilet train her, he expected her to be able to walk with him without any preparation, even though she had been abandoned in a busy road; she was understandably frightened of traffic.

Being aware of danger is one thing, but in Central America he had to learn that the majority of people are friendly. It started with the paranoia he had in the Mexican border area. American children are brought up to distrust strangers and learn that Mexicans in particular are dangerous, so crossing the border was fraught with anxiety. In fact, most of that was in his head, though Mexican towns remained stressful.

In contrast, Guatemala sounds idyllic. They rested for three days in a new age resort of a town standing on the edge of a stunning lake in an extinct volcanic caldera, San Marcos La Laguna. He ended up staying three and a half weeks, but used the time wisely to take Spanish lessons. Ironically, when he carried on, he missed the English speakers.

Next up: El Salvador. So far, I have gained virtually no feeling for the places he has walked through or the people he has met. He spent far longer on a drug addict who presteren him in Georgia than anyone he met in Mexico and Guatemala. I’m sure he did interact with locals, but he’s not telling me about it. Then he was interviewed in Spanish by a television crew in El Salvador, but in the next paragraph he’s suddenly in Honduras, with the prospect of being in Nicaragua the following day! They are now covering 25 to 30 miles a day, staying in hotels. Blink and you miss it: he’s now in Panama City. What happened to Costa Rica? He’s now waiting for a flight to Bogotá (Colombia). But the next conversation takes place in Peru, where he tries to find water unsuccessfully until he discovers boys going to get water on donkeys and finds chatty women clustered around a well.

The In the Atacama Desert, everything is incredibly dry and monotonous. Turcich feels peaceful and at one with the world, until his dog Savannah has a health issue. He realises how much he has taken her health for granted. Fortunately, after a desperate journey to find veterinary help for her, they are back on the road, crossing the pass where flocks of flamingos take to the air, climbing to Salary Luna de Tara, where there are two highly reflective lakes.

Without any warning, we discover Turcich is in Iceland with his sister Lexi before she leaves home and he is planning a three-year leg in Europe. He worries about his mother having neither of her children at home, which rather boggles my mind; shouldn’t she be glad they’re independent adults? Conversely, he feels reassured that he has ‘hundreds of cousins’ in Ireland, one in London and a dozen relatives in Croatia. I can’t imagine just calling upon people I’m vaguely related but have never met before nor has any real contact with. Ironically, I’d be more likely to meet up with an online friend. He enjoys connecting with distant family, but now he has his own health issue that is sapping his strength. After tests in London that give him no answers, he decides he has to return home.

After he has healed and regained weight and fitness, he returns to Europe, but he isn’t really enjoying himself; he sounds depressed and homesick. An old friend reminds him that he’s seeing his home in the USA through rose-tinted glasses; the reality wouldn’t be as nearly as good as he thinks. He walks from Copenhagen to San Sebastián in Spain, where he has to renew his visa. His AirBNB host offers him a room for free, so he stays to study Spanish and takes out a girl, Isabella, on dates.

Once his visa comes through, he spends the rest of his time in Spain, trying to walk through the Pyrenees, then taking the Camino de Santiago, then another walking route, the Via de la Plata south. He crosses to Morocco, then takes the ferry back to Spain to cross to Algeria as the Moroccan-Algerian border is closed. In both countries, the police take an interest due to the dangers from people smuggling refugees. In Algeria, he has a police escort.

He spends 45 days in Algeria, but is constantly under surveillance and usually unable to communicate because of the language barrier. Mentally he is on high alert, so once he crosses into Tunisia, he decides to stay put for two weeks.

After Tunisia, he travels back to Spain, on his way to Italy, where he turns thirty, feeling his life is falling behind his peers’. “While my friends had careers and homes, I was earning twenty thousand dollars a year and living out of a tent.” This is one of the mysterious gaps in Turcich’s account. Where did he earn that money? Was that all sponsorship? Later on he mentions subscribers and patrons without specifying if they were [to be continued].

I love a memoir that details triumphs, challenges, and travels and this was enjoyable on many levels. I loved traveling the world with Tom and getting to see and hear about parts of the world I'll never visit. I loved that he shared about the dog he adopted along the way. My biggest criticism was that I felt it was surface level at times. In memoirs surface level writing can really stand out and that happened here. Overall, an enjoyable and interesting memoir

After a close friend of Tom's died, Tom decided to take a walk around the world. Something he had been saving up for and dreaming of for a long time. So on April 2nd 2015 he finally starts his walk from New Jersey down through Latin America.
I did follow his Journey both on Instagram and YouTube, and was curious to see what he chose to write about in his book.
I think he did a good job of highlighting the most memorable parts of his journey, people and places.
When he got to Texas and before crossing the border into Mexico, he decides to adopt a dog, for companionship and protection. He found the perfect young dog and named her Savannah. It was a challenge at first since she was a young dog and could not for awhile, walk the daily distances they eventually traveled, but Tom had a push cart for his belongings and she spent part of her early time in there.
She turned out to be an amazing companion to him.
He did a great job at deciding what to put in the book which would keep everyone wanting to know more.
Tom is the tenth person and Savannah the first dog to walk around the world, coming across many obstacles for the seven years they were out there.
I highly recommend this journey.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing for a copy of this book.

I reviewed on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Goodreads. I wrote different reviews for each site. I wrote a different review for each site for SEO reasons.

3.5 stars rounded to 4

The World Walk is a memoir by Tom Turcich, documenting his seven-year journey walking around the world with his dog, Savannah. The book details the challenges of traveling on foot, camping outdoors most nights, and getting by with limited funds.

While I enjoyed the story overall, I found myself wanting more depth. Many transitions felt abrupt, and some details were either glossed over or left out entirely. At times, it seemed like chapters started in the middle of a conversation or story, prompting me to flip back a few pages to ensure I hadn't missed something.

I understand that condensing seven years of such an extraordinary adventure into a 300-page book is no easy task, and much was likely edited for length.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

This is a very interesting story, and the writing is generally good even if there are some abrupt transitions. The most interesting element is the personal and mental side, as sore feet are expected.

I love adventure stories and, especially, memoirs that tell about a person's own journey. The World Walk appeared to be right up my alley. I could not connect with the author. I made myself finish the book but found myself daydreaming and having to reread pages.

Wow, what a story, what an adventure. I enjoyed hearing about the experiences--even the scary ones of this book. Thank you for the opportunity to read this one!

A lot of people dream of seeing the world. But, for Tom Turcich, his walk around the world was no ordinary trip. When asked why he would attempt such a wild adventure, Tom's response is his biggest gift to readers -- "I want to see what I can become." In simplest terms, this is a compelling narrative about a man, his infinitely loyal dog, Savannah, and their travels across six continents as they experience a multitude of cultures, food, and landscape. But, more than that, this book examines the ideas of humanity and connection and how we experience both with others as well as within ourselves. Alongside Tom, the reader encounters sorrow and hardship, eclipsed by unexpected kindness and curiosity of friends and strangers, and witnesses the unparalleled companionship of a beloved dog -- a true joy. As the miles and years go on, readers wrestle with the same questions Tom asks of himself while walking – Who do I want to be? What are my truest values? How can I experience every aspect of myself? While most people will never embark on such a grand adventure as Tom's, readers may embrace the idea that all travel provides an opportunity to ask these questions, to learn about humanity and ourselves. The more we try to learn about the world, the more is revealed that we do not know. However, immersive travel can, if we allow it, pull back the curtain on who we are, on our values, and on how we connect with others. Ultimately, it is exactly as Turcich states -- "Traveling, you see, is a perpetual revealing."

The World Walk by Tom Turcich is a memoir detailing the author’s walk around the world. Tom and his dog, Savannah walked for seven years and encountered many challenges along the way. It’s a fascinating tale of humanity and the value of a canine companion. It’s an epic undertaking to walk around the world, Tom explains how lonely it can be but he also has plenty of time to reflect on his life.

I would recommend this book for readers who enjoy nonfiction and want to experience a walking trip around the world with Tom and his dog. He is honest about the challenges and dangers of his trip but the most prominent parts of the story are the people who go out of their way to help him. These people renew your faith in humanity and show how there are good people in all parts of the world.

Thank you Skyhorse Publishing and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own.

People are truly resilient and amazing. In his memoir, Tom Turcich recounts his harrowing journey of over 27,000 miles. Pick up The World Walk to read all about it.