Walking and Cycling Across the United States

Rodent in Wyoming

“I want to fall in love with America, step by agonizing step,” writes Rodent in her travel blog Walking & Biking Across America. And this Oregon native has done just that: she traveled across the United States by herself, on foot and bicycle. Starting off in New York City, Rodent’s itinerary was to head down the East Coast through Pennsylvania to Virginia, then join with the Appalachian Trail through the Great Smoky Mountains. After crossing the Midwest, she took the Oregon Trail through Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming. She plans to wind down through Montana and Idaho on her way to her final destination: home to Oregon. Rodent is nothing if not ambitious!

Though she suffered a leg injury last spring that had her abandoning her original plan to travel the country only by foot (without planes, buses, or the occasional car ride), she rested a few weeks and then bought a bicycle and kept on going. She has suffered sunburns, set-backs, flash flood warnings, and even found herself cycling more than once through downpours of rain, but nothing stopped her perseverance. Check out this touching passage from her blog overview, describing her intention for her trip:

“I am moved by every story I read about families taking this same trek in the dust-bowl, gleaning corn from abandoned fields, poor Irish children gathering coal from the lanes and surviving on sugar water. The people who brought this country into being, from those who picked biscuit-root on the hillsides, those who picked cotton in fields, those who had to leave their belongings in Europe because they wouldn’t fit on a boat, those who had to leave their belongings along the trail, because they wouldn’t fit on the wagon, those who had to leave their families in Mexico so that they might cross in greater safety- they survive with something to say for it. In comparison, my little trek with my bank account and health insurance and gps unit will never know even this hunger or hardship or danger, but this much at least, I must do. For me it is not a trip with a goal, but a pilgrimage. It is about the journey.” (more…)

Read Rodent’s travel blog to find out how she completed her journey and returned home this September. Here’s an excerpt from her stay in Yellowstone National Park, where she had a wildlife encounter with bison, her favorite animal:

“There were another hundred across the river and still I could hear them. Oh the trees and the sun and the frigid air and the sound of their footsteps and my heart racing and then a white pelican flew overhead and landed in the water- it was too much. You’d know me as the mouse on a bike with a silly grin plastered to her face, riding loopily from side to side like any kid on a sunny summer day with nothing to do but pedal along and feel the wind in her hair.” (more…)

Makes you want to drop everything and hit the road, doesn’t it?

Traveling solo is the perfect opportunity to experience life in its rawest form. With no discussions and group decisions about where to stay or at which restaurant to stop for dinner, you are freed up to find out your own preferences. And without traveling companions for socializing, you will have plenty of time for quiet reflection as well as meeting new friends that you’d never meet otherwise. Whether traveling during a Gap Year or celebrating your retirement, traveling alone is an unforgettable experience.

Be inspired further with other stories of traveling solo from Fretless, ~jason~, Global Citizen, Mike E, and Janet.

Start planning your own unique adventure with these useful links:

United States Travel Guide
United States Travel Map
United States Travel Information
Round the World Travel
Multi-Country Travel Deals

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