Meet the man who took a dog for a walk—around the world

A piece of motherly advice has stuck with Tom Turcich: Pay attention.

Like many of us, he ignored his mother’s wisdom for much of his youth. But when his friend Ann Marie died at 16 years old, Tom began to understand what his mom meant: Life is here now.

This realization put him on the path—both figurative and oh-so-literal—to where he is today. Having been overwhelmed by thoughts of death in the aftermath of Ann Marie’s accident, Tom was introduced to the movie Dead Poets Society and latched onto its central theme of carpe diem, seizing the day. As he writes in The World Walk, teenage Tom came to recognize a fundamental truth: “An extra-ordinary life exists in the realm of action.”

Tom wanted to see the world. Squeeze what he could out of life before it was too late. He stumbled across stories of world walkers like Steve Newman, who completed the first documented solo walk around the world between 1983 ad 1987, and Karl Bushby, a British ex-paratrooper and adventurer who’s attempting to become the first person to completely walk an unbroken path around the world. Tom gave a speech in high school, outlining his plan to do something similar. His dream, however, would have to wait another eight years.

“I knew you got one shot at life and I’d really reflected on what I wanted and valued,” Tom says. “It’s insane when I look back on it. I had such a clear vision. But I had loans [from university] to pay off, and I couldn’t do that in a year or two, so it took time.”

Tom’s vision anchored his teens and early 20s. Graduating from college, he remembers his contemporaries being paralyzed by the possibilities before them. He was thankful to have direction, something to aim towards.

As he walked, ordinary places—even those he’d known all his life—became more vivid and interesting. Small towns and villages contained universes.

A walk around the world—according to The Guinness Book of World Records—is a journey of at least 18,000 miles across four continents and Tom promised himself he’d begin by 25. The day before his 26th birthday, in 2015, he set off from his home in New Jersey.

“It was like cloud nine,” Tom says. “Even when I was carrying too much, getting blisters and losing toenails. I was cramping all the time and walking through cold rain. It was still such an adventure because I was out there and doing it. I was figuring it out.”

Every step was full of potential. Tom had no set route, only an idea of what he’d like to see. And as he walked, ordinary places—even those he’d known all his life—became more vivid and interesting. Small towns and villages contained universes. Substandard hotels and dicey restaurants—the kind most travelers would avoid—became beacons of opulence once he’d walked hundreds of kilometers to arrive at them.

As Tom writes in his memoir, “At the outset of your travels, the unfolding is noticeable. Everything is new and exciting and as you bumble your way across new cultures, the big lessons hit you first—you are dumb, naive and everything you have read amounts to nothing.”

The lessons came thick and fast. Tom had lugged a table, chair and a Spanish translation of Harry Potter down the eastern seaboard yet neglected to pack gloves. But his most valuable lesson—to trust his gut—came in Georgia [state], where a hair-raising interaction with an unsavory local got Tom thinking about adopting a dog.

Enter Savannah.

An Australian shepherd rescued from a shelter in Texas, Savannah’s training ground was the road to Mexico. Tom knew it would be tough training a puppy, but he figured she would take to nomadic life better than a grown dog with preconceived ideas of how far a long walk should be. He hoped the mange-ridden pup, who happily rested her head on his shoulder when he first picked her up, would grow to act as a deterrent for anyone looking to take advantage of him; in the end, she provided so much more.

“I can’t even imagine doing it without her,” Tom says. “I enjoy traveling alone because you have nothing to fall back on, but with Savannah, I got a certain kind of companionship. She wasn’t going to help me navigate Colombia, but having someone when you’re so far removed from everything is an incredible comfort.”

“I think the key is not having such high expectations of your life. And not expecting every day to fulfill your greatest desire or provide spiritual peace. The thing is to pay attention where you are. Be like Savannah, I guess. Take in the moment.”

- Tom Turcich

Savannah became a teacher. A role model. By watching her, Tom learned to separate his emotions from what he was doing. To be present and take in the moment.

“It was this revelation I had when we were walking in Peru’s desert,” he says. “I was having a shitty day and I remember looking down at her, thinking: ‘What am I doing out here? I hate this. I’m sore, I’m walking more than my body can handle’. But there’s Savannah, who doesn’t have entertainment, and I’m sure she gets muscle cramps and stomach aches and doesn’t want to walk sometimes. I tried to emulate her. To walk and know whatever’s going on inside is separate from the action. I got better at doing the thing regardless of how I felt.”

Together, Tom and Savannah clocked more than 40,000 kilometers through 38 countries. They made their way through Central and South America, (Tom popped into Antarctica without Savannah), then flew to Iceland and continued through Ireland and Scotland. A southerly trek through western Europe followed, before a ferry took them to Morocco and they continued west across Algeria and Tunisia. After crossing to Sicily, they headed north through Italy, turned right at Slovenia, and hugged the Mediterranean through Croatia—where Tom has family heritage with his great-grandfather born on the island of Krk—Montenegro, Albania and Greece.

They survived ticks (Savannah) and bacterial infections (Tom), but it was the pandemic that really upended their plans. The pair found themselves stuck, at various points, in both Turkey and Azerbaijan, and though they managed to walk through Georgia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, continuing into Mongolia and China proved to be impossible. Instead, they flew to Seattle to begin their final leg across the US.

Tom and Savannah made it home to New Jersey in 2022 with an unbreakable bond. And though Savannah passed away two years later, she leaves more than paw prints behind. In his book’s final dedication, Tom writes: “If my life contained nothing else but you, I would have lived most remarkably.”

Remarkable… An apt description of Tom and Savannah’s journey, though not something Tom necessarily aspires to. Yes, he set out with this youthful notion of moving beyond himself and becoming some sort of transcended being, but after years of walking and looking at himself from every angle, he realized he was, and always will be, human like everyone else.

“It sounds simple but it’s true. I went all that way and there I was—still walking 24 miles a day, wind still hitting my face, rain still pouring down, and still having to cross another mountain. But it takes doing it to really understand. You’ve got to go to the edge of yourself to realize where the edge is.”

For now, Tom has taken a step back from the edge. He lives in Cincinnati with his partner, whom he met while walking through Seattle, and enjoys a peaceful life of pickleball and libraries. He continues to work on a series of children’s books celebrating Savannah, travels the country sharing his story on stage, and though he initially struggled to adapt to a post-walk existence, he finds himself at peace.

“I think the key is not having such high expectations of your life,” Tom says. “And not expecting every day to fulfill your greatest desire or provide spiritual peace. The thing is to pay attention where you are. Be like Savannah, I guess. Take in the moment.”

‘Don’t have high expectations of your life.’ That might sound counter-intuitive coming from someone who has walked around the world, but perhaps Tom, a philosophy and psychology major, has earned the right to weigh in on the big questions. He sure as hell has had enough time to consider them.

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