A walk across America

What Hacker News says

1. macintuxDec 2025
   A Walk Across America was amazing reading when I was college aged. I've never forgotten the story about the accident when he and his (then-girlfriend?) were walking along a quiet highway, I think in Nevada, and they decided to walk on the wrong side of the road, against his usual rules, because it had a shoulder.

   And, she landed in the hospital after a car hit them.

   thread
2. selimthegrimMay 2022
   For a more close to home focus, I do have to point to A Walk Across America from the same time period (I think the author wrote a sequel about more international stuff)
   thread
3. vram22Nov 2020
   Cool. I read A Walk across America, in serial form (2 parts) in the National Geographic magazine, long ago. It was great, and the first time I heard of the concept of such a long journey on foot, although I knew about people driving across America. It was fairly common in those days when gas was much cheaper. Some of my older relatives settled in the US had done it too, and used to tell us kids about it. A couple of points I remember are him guzzling a liter or more of soft drinks at a stop after a long walk on a hot summer day, and his stay with and warm welcome by an African American family.

   https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Walk_Across_America

   https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jenkins_(travel_author...

   Show morethread
4. selimthegrimMay 2020
   Or for a slightly more positive take on the South than that book

   https://www.amazon.com/Walk-Across-America-Peter-Jenkins/dp/...

   thread
5. japhyrDec 2014
   One of the most significant books I ever read was A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins. He graduated college in the 70's, wasn't sure what to do, and decide to walk from New York to the Pacific ocean. This book covered the first half of the walk; he wrote it while taking a break in Louisiana along the way.

   That book was hugely influential to me. I graduated college and spent two years teaching. The summer after my second year of teaching, I had no obligations to anyone else for the first time in my life. I remembered Peter Jenkins' story, and decided to bicycle across the US. I knew I wanted to travel under my own power as he had done, but I wanted to go a little faster than he did. Bicycling was perfect for me. I ended up doing two cross-country trips over successive summers, and then I spent a year living on my bicycle, circumnavigating North America.

   I reread A Walk Across America some years after doing my own trips. I was amazed at how bad I thought the book was. pg observes that

   The same book would get compiled differently at different points in your life.

   This is absolutely true. Now that I'm in my 40's, I'm going to go back and reread the most influential books of my 20's. I might even have to change my HN username after doing so, but I hope not.

   Show morethread
6. japhyrDec 2013
   It's really outdated now, but "A Walk Across America" by Peter Jenkins. Reading that inspired me to spend 13+ months living on a bicycle in my twenties.

   So much of who I am is a direct result of the experiences I had living on the road for several years. (I spent several summers, and one full year living on a bike.)

   thread