About Erik Murphy
Creator and publisher of TravelThisWorld.com. I grew
up in Detroit, Michigan and its adjacent suburbs. 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
Six
weeks each summer at Detroit Recreation Camp (DRC)
No Car Blues
Sometime before I turned 16 and
bought my first car, a yellow 1973 Gremlin, 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 solo 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
found myself in Europe with a
Eurail Pass
and a copy of Let's Go: Europe.
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 Backpacking
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, 1 month in Russia and several months road
tripping the United States and NEXT!?
Erik |
