Biography
I grew up in Detroit, Michigan.
My travels began early - There was no car in the family, so it was
walking, pedal power or the bus. At a young age I was making sense of
bus schedules, paying fares etc.
Free All Expenses Paid Trips
I started delivering newspapers
for The Detroit News at 11 years old. This is where my traveling began. You see, The
Detroit News would run contests from time to time that carriers if
successful, could win trips. I have to say I really enjoyed winning
those totally free trips. You had to get 25 people to subscribe to the
paper for 13 weeks and I guess I was a good salesman because I could
always come up with the 25 people. I was about 13 or 14 years old. We
traveled to Florida and Disney World three times, Washington DC, New
York City and upstate New York to a dude ranch and my
favorite the Bahamas, my first big step outside of the U.S.
Summer Camp - 6
weeks each summer
No Car Blues
Sometime before I turned 16
and had my own car I decided to go up north in Michigan on my bicycle
to Mackinaw island. I did average of about 80 miles a day. It took me four days.
With a lot of pedaling and goal I made it and had a great
adventure.
Europe - The Fast Track
Sometime around 1990 I found myself out of work
and a good friend suggested I should travel and 10 days later I was
in Europe with a euro rail pass and a copy of Let's Go. I visited 13
countries in 33 days that's a different country every other day. It was
on this trip I first tried hitchhiking, it was Greece about 300 miles
from a trucker who I couldn't understand a word of Greek but had a great
time anyway. So when I returned from Greece flying into New York City I
hitch hiked back home to Michigan.
The Odyssey
"The Odyssey" in 1991. I hitch
hiked some 12,000
miles over five months going from Michigan to Alaska, California and
everywhere in between. This is the short
version - enough to have a few pages devoted to the trip.
Extended Duration World Travel
What would you do if you had enough money and weren't happy
with your high paying, high stress soul crushing job? I just
couldn't ignore my spirit for adventure. I
thought I'd try extended duration travel abroad. 5 months in
Mexico, 6 months in South America, 3 months in Asia, Several months road
tripping the United States and NEXT!?
Erik
