1Imagine walking your dog eight hours a day, across 35 different countries.
2Meet Tom and his dog Savannah!
3They are doing just that.
4Together, they've walked 18,000 miles over the past 5 years.
5I wanted to be off the beaten track. I wanted to have adventure.
6Walking was the solution to that.
7When I was 17, my close friend Annmarie died.
8Suddenly, I realized how fleeting life was
9and how I needed to make the most of things.
10What I wanted to do was to travel
11and to experience humanity in the deepest, most immersive way possible.
12On his 26th birthday, Tom packed a sleeping bag, an extra pair of shoes
13and a few essential items and left the comforts of his New Jersey home to embark on this journey.
14Day 5, my ankle is wrapped up. It's all swollen right there.
15After four months of walking on my own, camping in strange places
16and waking up in the middle of the night, I realized it would be really nice to have a dog with me.
17so when I got to Austin, Texas, I went to an adoption center.
18...
19From Texas, Tom and Savannah crossed their first border into Mexico.
20Mexico was the first foreign country that I was walking through so it was an onslaught of new experiences, new sounds.
21After walking 24 miles a day for 72 days, they made their way into South America,
22where they faced some challenges.
23Costa Rica became the most challenging walking that Savannah and I experienced.
24The walking has been really tough, super humid down here,
25it was 100 degrees, 100% humidity, walking through jungle, there's no wind.
26And then in Chile, Savannah sneezes and her nose starts to bleed.
27Savannah almost died from a tick bite.
28Luckily, some locals helped them get to a vet and she recovered.
29Through moments like these, Tom began to realize the power and beauty in the kindness of complete strangers.
30One evening in the middle of the desert, Savannah and I came to a crossroads where there was a little restaurant and nothing else around.
31And when we asked if we could stay there for the night, the owner gave us dinner and put us up.
32And so it seemed, no matter how far we were from everything, someone was always there to help us.
33Day 799, I am pretty tired.
34She's not tired... never tired.
35She is never tired.
36This pair of shoes... they are fairly destroyed.
37After two years of walking, they took a boat to Antarctica
38before picking his walk back up in Europe and continuing East.
39Italy provided everything in abundance -
40beautiful landscape and food and culture.
41Every little village is just more beautiful than the next.
42Croatia was a magical place.
43Turkey... it was one of the most beautiful, warmest places that Savannah and I crossed.
44Today, Tom and Savannah are currently in Baku, Azerbaijan.
45They have 2 years and 7000 miles of walking to do.
46When I began the journey I thought I knew a lot about the world. I thought I knew a lot about myself.
47I didn't know how much I didn't know.
48Passing through little villages in the desert in the mountains, in the jungle...
49you realize the surface level things change
50but all anyone really wants to do is make a little money and spend time with their family.
51That's universal.