Community Corner
World Walking Man From South Jersey Completes 7 Year Trek
Tom Turcich has been traveling the world for the better part of the last 10 years, most of it with his best friend, a dog named Savannah.
HADDON TOWNSHIP, NJ — Tom Turcich of Haddon Township is to return home Saturday from his seven-year, one-month and 19-day journey walking around most of the world.
"The dream of walking around the world formed at seventeen after my friend Ann Marie passed," Turcich wrote on a website that he has used to document his trip. "Since her death, I've decided to make the most of each day."
Turcich will be coming from the west, having made recent stops in Pennsylvania, Kansas, Indiana, Washington state and Missouri. In that last state, he wrote he was "walking with an energy .... haven't felt in years."
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Immediately prior to that, he was in the Asian country of Kyrgyzstan, although his plans to visit Mongolia were aborted.
Along the way, and while on an early leg of the trip in Texas, Turcich wrote that he adopted Savannah, a dog who became the "ultimate traveling companion."
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He appeared to make good on a previous post, noting he wanted to learn more about places unfamiliar to him and "be forced into adventure day after day."
From Texas, he and Savannah headed south, visiting places such as Algeria and Spain and so many more — 19,500-plus miles worth — eating perhaps as he put it "too many peanut butter sandwiches" as he walked eight hours a day and slept in a tent.
When Turcich returns to Haddon Township, he will be the 10th person to walk around the world and Savannah will be the first dog.
The New Jersey he returns to is much different from the one he left nearly 1,900 days ago.
For instance, Phil Murphy has since been elected governor, recreational cannabis has been legalized and the COVID-19 pandemic — which was about five years away when he left — has claimed thousands of lives in the Garden State alone.
Turcich's homecoming celebration is at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Tap Room in Haddon Township, according to Turcich's Facebook page (and yes, every indication is that Savannah will be with him). The public is welcome.
Got a news tip? Story idea? Email me at janel.miller@patch.com.
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