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Zero To Travel Podcast

How to Transition to a “Normal Life” After Travel with Tom Turcich (10th Person to Walk Around the World)

Zero To Travel Podcast

Jason Moore

Society & Culture, Business, Entrepreneurship, Places & Travel

4.6866 Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2026

⏱️ 78 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What do you do when the adventure ends?  Tom Turcich is a motivational speaker, author, and the tenth person in history to walk around the world. Over seven years, he and his dog, Savannah, covered 28,000 miles across 38 countries and six continents, completing the journey in 2022. He is the author of the memoir The World Walk and the children's book Savannah's World of Adventure.  In this episode, Tom shares what returning home after long-term travel actually looks like, from the mental and emotional toll of losing the road, to the financial catch-up game, to the harder question of who you are once the adventure is over.  If you've ever come back from a trip and felt a strange kind of grief you couldn't quite name, this one is for you. Tom is remarkably open about the difficulty of that first year back, and the conversation gets into territory that doesn't often get talked about after a big journey ends. There's real honesty here about what it takes to find your footing again, how to rebuild adventure into a life that isn't handing it to you every day, and how to make peace with the constraints that come with settling down.  What's one thing you've held onto from a big trip that's hard to explain to people who weren't there? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I hope you'll share by sending me an audio message.  Tune In To Learn:  Why Tom describes his first year back as the only depression he's ever experienced  How the world "stops coming at you" when you settle down, and what it takes to rebuild that muscle  The unexpected mental and emotional challenge of no longer having a North Star  Why consistency beats passion when it comes to making progress, in travel and in life  What two years of walking in the Atacama Desert taught Tom about happiness  Why your traveler identity matters less than the values underneath it  How walking became a years-long meditation practice Tom didn't see coming  The one mindset Tom would give anyone coming off the road for the first time  Why building community after a big adventure takes longer than most people expect  What it means to choose your constraints rather than just accept them  And so much more  Resources:  Sign up for our FREE newsletter  Tom’s website  The World Walk book  Microadventures book  Want More?  Walking the World with Alexander Campbell and Tom Turcich  The World Walk (Trilogy): Lessons From A 7 Year Walk Around The World w/ Tom Turcich  Exploring A Single Map: A Travel Adventure For Everyone With Alastair Humphreys  Thanks To Our Sponsors  Become a Fora Advisor today at foratravel.com/zerototravel  Check out Morning Brew Daily for business news that's actually fun.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Attention all passengers. The Uber ride for Jeff's rugby team will depart in five minutes from Platform 15. Your ride comes with six toilets and a refreshment's carriage that you'll empty within five minutes. Thank you for booking your tickets on Uber.

0:20.3

Trains on Uber.

0:23.1

You're growing just by being in a new place.

0:26.4

And when you also lose that sense of growth, generally when you stop traveling.

0:31.8

And that is very depressing as well because it feels like when you're traveling, you're making progress.

0:36.3

And you are making progress.

0:41.9

You're exploring yourself. You're exploring the world. You're testing yourself. You're seeing yourself reflected against the world. And so you are growing constantly when you're traveling,

0:46.8

but then when you stop, you lose that growth. And so a way to get that back is...

0:53.3

You'll hear that advice today and loads more coming from none other than Tom

0:58.6

Tersich, someone I would call a living travel legend.

1:03.1

Tom is just the 10th person to walk around the world, a trip that spanned seven years,

1:07.9

28,000 miles, and 38 countries to give you an idea of how rare that is.

1:14.2

More people have walked on the moon than have walked around the world.

1:18.4

Twelve people have walked on the moon.

1:19.7

So I thought, who better to get advice from about transitioning back to a quote-unquote

1:25.8

normal life after you've been on a life-changing journey

1:29.9

somewhere in the world than Tom. In this episode, you're going to get practical advice

1:34.6

and critical mindsets for making that reverse leap from the unbelievable novelty of life on the road

1:41.2

to a stationary, maybe more stationary, let's say lifestyle, while still

1:46.5

maintaining that sense of adventure that we love as travelers. We're going to discuss some of the

1:51.8

difficulties of that first year back, how to adopt that traveler's mindset and proactively

1:56.7

get out into the world when the world stops coming at you, the struggles of playing catch-up

...

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