03/03/2025
The reason I'm walking:
I became homeless about ten months after I got out of the Army, so I started walking between towns to look for work. No one wanted to hire me because my car got smashed during a tornado and they didn't think my feet were a reliable source of transportation. So for six months, I was basically just surviving outdoors before I decided to walk across America. I don't really know why I decided to do that. Maybe I thought I may have a better chance somewhere else, or maybe I just didn't care anymore and knew I could go live freely. What I did know, however, was that walking and just being outside made me feel good, so in late August of 2012, I started walking across America.
Alone, unsupported, and with little to no money, I spent the next four years traveling from Tennessee to Delaware, to California, to Florida, to Alaska, back to Florida, and back to California again. I then caught a bus to Wyoming, where I lived and worked on a ranch for a year. During that time, I started working on a book about my travels. Once I was finished with my book, "Walking America : A 10,000 Mile Journey of Self-Healing," I took off walking again and made my way to California. Except this time, I had two backpacks. I had my normal backpack that I used to walk with, along with a second backpack that I had filled with my books, strapped across my chest. I walked up and down the entire west coast, selling copies of my book to people on the streets. After making it back down to Los Angeles that time, I used the money I'd made to buy a car, moved into a condo, and started working for Amazon.
I was living and working in Los Angeles for two years before before I finally had enough of the city life. I sold my car and took off with a cart, which I had loaded with copies of my book. I didn't really have any purpose other than to walk and try to sell my book, but I ended up making it all the way to Utah before I decided to turn around and start over with some meaning to it. After making it back to California, I headed up the coast again until I reached Newport, Oregon. From there, I began walking west and the goal was to try and sell enough copies of my book by the time I made it across to start a nonprofit campground that would be setup to help vets with PTSD.
For a while, everything was going great. But after I made it to East Tennessee, the printing company changed the shipping times that I could get my books from three days to two weeks, which just wasn't fast enough when all I could carry was twenty at a time, and I also had no idea where I was going to be in two weeks to have them shipped ahead. At that point, I felt like the best option was to create a website where people could just order my book online, so that's what I did and I continued walking. I then continued walking for a whole year after that and had zero book sales during that time because everyone wanted me to hand deliver them. Due to the lack of interest, I stopped walking and began focusing on my photography. However, people had grown accustomed to just watching me walk and no one really cared for my photography either, so I got back to walking just to give people what they wanted. I then walked from Tennessee to Ohio and my page got shut down for a month. During that time, I made my way back to Indiana to watch the solar eclipse and ran into a girl named Sandy and we've been together since.
Recently, I decided to get back to walking to try and promote my book again, but I'm kind of having the same problem. I don't think it's that people don't care or that they're not interested, but I don't think they know. But the reason I am walking is to promote my book, which is about my previous walks across America. Obviously, I've worked really hard just trying to get my book out there, so if you could take the time to just know that my book does exist and understand that is the reason why I'm walking, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks!
You can find my book, audiobook, and fine art prints here: jakewalksamerica.com
