Bethel, Ohio
March 22,1983

Dear Folks,

In nearly every man and woman dwells a Sinbad, a spirit which forever longs to explore the unknown and to experience adventure in its rawest forms.

I am no different. In a few days I will take my first steps into an adventure which has dominated my imagination since early childhood--walking around the world.

This walk is something I can't deny myself, for I have an insatiable desire to know more about the world. I have made sacrifices to be able to follow this dream. But ahead of me are three to five years of joys, lessons, mysteries, and perils of the likes of which only a small percentage of men and women in history have experienced. I will cross 21 countries, 15,000+ miles of deserts, jungles, mountains, rivers, and farmlands.

My trek will take me across the USA, the British Isles, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. If I somehow survive the elements, bandits, dangerous animals, and loneliness awaiting me, I may become the only man to have ever circled the world alone on foot.

However, I'm not out to set a record. I just seek to appease the Sinbad in me. I hope that through these letters I write to you, your imagination will be rekindled, and together we will rediscover a world as filled with romance, beauty, kindness, and adventure as the one we have read existed in the days of Marco Polo or Sir Francis Drake.

Steven