I’d like to see Rocky try conquering these stairs with a 70 lb cart to push!

After following two days of rest in the great city of Philadelphia with an unnecessarily strenuous hike for this photo-op, we are headed out of the city towards West Chester. We are incredibly grateful to our hosts the past three nights, Conor and Elana, who let us tend to our blisters in their apartments, fueled us up on cheese-steaks and Thai food, and watched us plan the next leg of our route towards Pittsburgh. As always, many thanks to all the beautiful people we’ve met and interacted with along the way!

We have received a lot of questions lately about our gear, and what we have brought with us, so we unpacked our cart and laid everything out for this post.

Pictured above are all of the supplies we bought before beginning our journey. With everything from our camping equipment to the electronics we’re using to communicate with you, we worked hard to keep our equipment to only the essentials. And while this is everything we packed into our cart, it is important to note we are both carrying our clothes in our individual packs.

Below we have also included a picture of our trusted cart, Caddy. We often refer to her as the Cadillac of carts to the people we are meeting, and soon the name Caddy stuck. She might require a lot of effort to go uphill, but she has provided us with ample storage for all the necessities for our trip.

#InCaddywetrust

We crossed the Delaware River today, officially leaving New Jersey and entering Pennsylvania! While it was our longest day yet, at 23 miles, we felt some extra motivation after seeing this sign directing us towards our goal, San Francisco.

Thank you to our couch surfing host Zak, as well as his roommates, for letting us stay with them at Princeton  yesterday, and to Lauren and Tim for hosting us tonight in Holland, Pennsylvania!

Day 5 – Newark, NJ

We passed by this mural after leaving Jersey City, along our route towards Cranford, New Jersey. For us, it was an encapsulation of the beauty of America, and the promise of opportunity that it is to so many people. We spent the night before with Erich Sekel, talking about the beautiful, immigrant communities that populate much of Jersey City. After a night discussing the great lessons that a community like Jersey City could offer the rest of the country, we could not pass up a photo-op like this!

From Cranford, we are headed to Highland Park, New Jersey. We’ll update further when we get there!

We made it from Bed-Stuy to the Upper West Side yesterday! A big thank you to all the people we met and talked with yesterday on the street, and a bigger thank you to Phil and Julie Finnegan for opening their doors and feeding us some delicious gumbo! We’re off to Jersey City today via the George Washington Bridge.

Don’t forget to like and share our Facebook and Instagram pages! @walkacrossamerica2017

20 miles later, some sore feet, and a few podcast episodes later, we finally made it to Brooklyn. While it was our first challenging day of the trip, we made it to open arms and comfortable beds in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. The picture above was taken at the Crescent Street 2 train stop. We somehow managed to fit a church steeple, a subway stop, and our massive cart all into one frame. It is a perfect encapsulation of the contrast between the high-stress, frantic pace of New York, and the slow-burn, patience guiding our walk. Hopefully the slow speed of our walking will continue allowing us to appreciate little moments like this.

A special shout-out to Jack MacGregor, Nick D’Agostino, and Carter McNeil for warmly welcoming us into their home and sharing their cold beverages with us. A special shout-out to Jeff Marino for traveling the four subway stops to Bed-Stuy to bid adieu to us, and to partake in our interviews for the evening.

Expect our first posts in the Stories page to pop up soon! We wrapped up our interviews late in the evening, but hope to have them to you within the next day or so.

Off to the Brooklyn Bridge in the morning, followed by a trek to the Upper West Side!

So, you’re walking?

Yes. We are walking.

The whole way?

The whole way.

How long is A Walk Across America estimated to take?

Anywhere from five months to a year, with our estimated arrival in 6 – 7 months.

Where are you walking?

From the Atlantic to the Pacific, starting in Long Beach, New York and ending in San Francisco. Along the way we will be going through Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Denver.

For a more detailed breakdown of the route visit our Where Are We Now Page .

How many miles is that? How far will you walk each day?

Our planned route is approximately 3,200 miles, with an average of 15-18 miles per day early on, and, after building our stamina up,  20-30 miles per day by the time we finish.

How can I support the walk?

We have been saving for the past year and will be self-funding the walk. However, we will be raising money for JOIN, the homeless day space and housing agency we served at as Americorp volunteers in Portland.

If you would like to support the walk financially please visit our fundraising page to learn more about JOIN, homelessness, and how to donate.

Where will you sleep?

For the most part we will be camping and couch surfing. We will camp in designated camping areas in state parks and yard camp at people’s homes. To keep costs as low as possible we will try to stay in motels as a last resort.

We have posted our route on the Where Are We Now Page, and will update it daily with our location.

If you know anyone along our route who may be willing to host us for a night please contact us!

Will you be posting updates along the way?

Yes. One of the main reasons we decided to create a blog was to share stories and conversations with the individuals and communities we meet along the way. To see those types of posts click on our Stories page. We will also post personal reflections, pictures and updates from the road on our Blog page.

If you have other questions we didn’t answer post it in the comments and we will reply!

Easy first day to start our trek! We left from the Atlantic Ocean in Long Beach early this morning, and have arrived already in Rockville Centre. Thank you again to everyone for their love and support of this walk. We can’t wait to share in this journey with everyone!