- Tom Turcich and his dog Savannah walked 28,000 miles.
- It took seven years.
- For the first two years, he followed summer.
For the first two years of his journey walking 28,000 miles around the world, Tom Turcich followed the summer.
He started in New Jersey and made his way down to Argentina, where the seasons are opposite from North America. A few months in, during a stopover at a cousin’s house in Austin, Texas, Turcich adopted a puppy named Savannah to keep him company.
They walked together across six continents over the next seven years, sidelined twice for long stretches of time due to illness and then the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Winter finally found them, too, in places like Denmark and Germany and Kansas and Colorado.
“Especially when I was going through Wyoming … 8,000 feet and the wind is brutal,” Turcich said.
Freezing temperatures on the road meant carrying and wearing enough gear to keep both him and Savannah warm, including heavy coats and blankets. Turcich pushed a modified jogging stroller to haul it all.
An early snowstorm in Wyoming caught him off guard. So did hail in Ireland.
“The good thing about walking, luckily, is that it progresses very slowly,” Turcich said.
That leaves time to figure out where to get water, pick up some of the language and learn a bit of the culture.
“And it’s the same for the weather,” he said.
Once he experienced any kind of weather for the first time, like the snowstorm in Wyoming, Turcich knew he had to be prepared because chances were it would happen again.
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Camping at night alone was unsettling. Turcich figured a dog would help. He spent 2 hours at an adoption center in Austin, not feeling a connection with any of the pups.
Then they brought out Savannah, a 3-month-old Australian shepherd who had been found on the side of a highway. That was it. Turcich decided he would raise her on the road. It would be all Savannah would know.
Turcich’s instinct about the puppy was spot on.
“She’s a beast,” he said.
“We’ve slept through hundreds of thunderstorms and, you know, it doesn’t faze her. And the same goes for the wind or for the snow, which she loves.”
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How safe an area was dictated how long they walked each day and where they chose to sleep.
The trip was pretty loosely planned, but there were certain points on the map as goals – a friend’s house in Lima, Peru, for example.
The first couple of months were “very much a trial by fire.” Turcich tried to pick roads with little traffic and smooth pavement, traversing countries that were as easy as possible in terms of bureaucracy.
“For me, it was just that I wanted to see the world and walk it. It seemed like a good way to do that,” Turcich said.
“And every day would be an adventure and would be a challenge and discovery. So that was really more of a priority than anything else.”
Turcich and Savannah completed their walk around the world in May.
He’s one of about 10 people known to have done so. Savannah is believed to be the first dog.
(Tom Turcich was interviewed this month by weather.com editor/producers Dan Wright and Andrea Rainone. The video at the top of this article tells more of Turcich and Savannah’s story.)
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