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.

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.