Welcome to the Walking the States website!
STOP PRESS!!
The States have been walked. It’s over. No more walking obscene distances, blisters, sleeping in tents, stinking feet, loud snoring, packet pastas, ramen noodles, Clif bars and dodgy trail food, identical diner menus and giant breakfasts. No more early mornings and early nights, but plenty more time to reflect on what we’ve done (what have we done?!!) and relax in golden memories etc.

Anyway, this site will continue. When we return to Europe we’ll be adding more Journal and Project entries, and there will be more photos added too. We’re still taking Guestbook signatures too, and answering all emails to the walkingthestates.com addresses. Stay with us as we move towards the books (illustrated and otherwise) and presentations due during 2008 (hey – if your party needs spicing up, why not book a Walking The States presentation? we rocked a class of 12 year olds in Berkeley the other week…)

Normal Service

Only here can you follow the travels of Stuart Hamilton and Dave Toolan (us) as we attempt to cross the USA on foot. In 2006 we walked 2000 miles from Lewes in Delaware to Kansas City in Missouri. Now, starting in May 2007, we will rejoin the American Discovery Trail in Kansas City and trek west to Point Reyes in California – a distance of over 3000 miles.

You can find out more about why we are doing this in the Concept FAQ and Project sections of the website, and you will be able to follow all of our preparations (and eventually our journey itself) in the regularly updated Journal section. Once the walk starts you will be able to see exactly where we are with the help of the (now working!) Route page and you can bring the whole funky scene to life by checking out the Gallery. If you want to praise us or insult us you can leave a message in the Guestbook, or if you want to indulge in a longer dialogue you can email either of us through the details in the Contact section.

A Good Cause

At the end of the journey in 2006 Stuart was diagnosed with testicular cancer – which was a pain. Since then he’s recovered and been put on a surveillance program. This means that he has to get monthly blood tests and bi-monthly chest x-rays done during the next stage of the walk in the US. Extremely kind donors have generously provided funds to cover these tests and in response we are trying to raise a little money to put something back. During the first phase of the walk we raised money for the British Heart Foundation and now we have decided to raise money for the Association for International Cancer Research . This noble organisation raises money for cancer research on both sides of the Atlantic and, because cancer will affect one in three of us during our lifetimes, it is a great cause to support. For more information on helping us raise money by sponsoring us, please visit the Sponsors link on the left hand side. Go on, you know you want to…

So that’s about it for an introduction. Come on in, take a look around! Please sign the Guestbook – many important people have already done so and we hope you will follow in their (groundbreaking and fundraising) footsteps. Please revisit regularly, as there will inevitably be much foolishness to read about…

PS: None of this would have been possible without the very generous help of our equipment sponsors below – Many many thanks to you all!

E-mail: Dave: dave_toolan@hotmail.com and Stuart: stuham@hotmail.com