General video · Level B2 - Part 1

Walking around the world with a dog

Imagine walking your dog eight hours a day, across 35 different countries. Meet Tom and his dog Savannah!

Level: B2 · 51 sentences

Transcript

  1. Imagine walking your dog eight hours a day, across 35 different countries.
  2. Meet Tom and his dog Savannah!
  3. They are doing just that.
  4. Together, they've walked 18,000 miles over the past 5 years.
  5. I wanted to be off the beaten track. I wanted to have adventure.
  6. Walking was the solution to that.
  7. When I was 17, my close friend Annmarie died.
  8. Suddenly, I realized how fleeting life was
  9. and how I needed to make the most of things.
  10. What I wanted to do was to travel
  11. and to experience humanity in the deepest, most immersive way possible.
  12. On his 26th birthday, Tom packed a sleeping bag, an extra pair of shoes
  13. and a few essential items and left the comforts of his New Jersey home to embark on this journey.
  14. Day 5, my ankle is wrapped up. It's all swollen right there.
  15. After four months of walking on my own, camping in strange places
  16. and waking up in the middle of the night, I realized it would be really nice to have a dog with me.
  17. so when I got to Austin, Texas, I went to an adoption center.
  18. ...
  19. From Texas, Tom and Savannah crossed their first border into Mexico.
  20. Mexico was the first foreign country that I was walking through so it was an onslaught of new experiences, new sounds.
  21. After walking 24 miles a day for 72 days, they made their way into South America,
  22. where they faced some challenges.
  23. Costa Rica became the most challenging walking that Savannah and I experienced.
  24. The walking has been really tough, super humid down here,
  25. it was 100 degrees, 100% humidity, walking through jungle, there's no wind.
  26. And then in Chile, Savannah sneezes and her nose starts to bleed.
  27. Savannah almost died from a tick bite.
  28. Luckily, some locals helped them get to a vet and she recovered.
  29. Through moments like these, Tom began to realize the power and beauty in the kindness of complete strangers.
  30. One evening in the middle of the desert, Savannah and I came to a crossroads where there was a little restaurant and nothing else around.
  31. And when we asked if we could stay there for the night, the owner gave us dinner and put us up.
  32. And so it seemed, no matter how far we were from everything, someone was always there to help us.
  33. Day 799, I am pretty tired.
  34. She's not tired... never tired.
  35. She is never tired.
  36. This pair of shoes... they are fairly destroyed.
  37. After two years of walking, they took a boat to Antarctica
  38. before picking his walk back up in Europe and continuing East.
  39. Italy provided everything in abundance -
  40. beautiful landscape and food and culture.
  41. Every little village is just more beautiful than the next.
  42. Croatia was a magical place.
  43. Turkey... it was one of the most beautiful, warmest places that Savannah and I crossed.
  44. Today, Tom and Savannah are currently in Baku, Azerbaijan.
  45. They have 2 years and 7000 miles of walking to do.
  46. When I began the journey I thought I knew a lot about the world. I thought I knew a lot about myself.
  47. I didn't know how much I didn't know.
  48. Passing through little villages in the desert in the mountains, in the jungle...
  49. you realize the surface level things change
  50. but all anyone really wants to do is make a little money and spend time with their family.
  51. That's universal.