Bucks adventurer writes book about his 11,200 mile walk around the world

Swanbourne author and teacher, Tom Fremantle, 59, tells us about his 11,200 mile world walk and his recently launched book, Travels with KOKO 

Not long ago I completed an 11,232 mile walk around the world. 

Most of the time, I travelled like an old school pilgrim, tramping 15 to 20 miles a day through cities, deserts and mountains, exposed to the snow, the rain and the sun, tackling everything from tornadoes to tarantulas.

Roosting at night, I often wild camped, but bunked down all over the place: police stations in Lebanon, hostels in Jerusalem, churches in Texas, pubs in Ireland, mosques in the Turkey and once in a mouse-infested but very comfy haystack in Serbia. 

Walking everywhere, time slows down. After crunching along on foot all day you are physically shot, unable to go any further, you can’t pedal an extra 20 miles, or drive an extra 50, you have to take whatever the road throws at you.

Yes, I had my scrapes, including three police cars, sirens blazing, pulling me over in Arkansas thinking I was an escaped criminal hauling a dead body in KOKO, my hiking buggy. To be fair, with a purple bandanna and hair that could have happily nested a family of owls, I probably looked a bit dodgy. 

I kicked off the walk at the Pacific Ocean near the USA-Mex border and back then looked like, according to one friend, a “podgy, nervous, tragically-dressed Gordon Ramsay.” After only a week of walking through California’s Mojave Desert, my dress sense didn’t improve but my confidence swelled and my belly shrunk. In my experience, walking always makes things better.

Walking has been part of my life since childhood, sparked on family holidays in Scotland, yomping in the soul-soaring Highlands. 

In fact, my journey was inspired by my lovely Mum, always a champion walker. Mum was a home bird, but every day walked for miles through the Buckinghamshire countryside with her posse of dogs. Mum lived with dementia for years and my world walk was partly in aid of the Alzheimer’s Society in her honour. My daughter, Eliza, a midwife in her late 20s, also joined me in places.

I’m not a natural adventurer. I’m a graceless athlete, have a poor sense of direction and few survival skills. My one talent is a mulish stamina, the ability to KOKO (Keep on Keeping on!) and to trust the road ahead. 

For all the the grimness of the daily news, the thing I will always cherish most about my 11,232 miles is the many strangers with generous hearts I met on the road. Perhaps it sounds naive but I still believe once unplugged from all the fury online, the lion’s share of people around the world, from Aylesbury to Australia, are decent and kind. My world walk only confirmed this.

To end on a light note, I’ll quote waggish playwright, Noel Coward.

 “I like long walks,” he wrote. “Especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.” 

I was sent this by fiancee, Ivy, before I struck off on the last part of my world walk. Was she trying to tell me something? Probably - but I’m happy to say she is now, post-world walk, my wife.

Thanks to everyone’s generosity the walk raised over £45,000 for a variety of charities including the Alzheimers Society, Autism Early Support, Medical Detection Dogs and Hopefull (delivering humanitarian aid in the parts of Ukraine most devastated by war).

Travels with KOKO - A 3000-Mile Walk Across America by Tom Fremantle is now available in paperback, Kindle and Audio. It is the first in a trilogy of World Walk books, the next, Small Steps, Big World, covering Europe and the Middle East, is out in 2027.

Tom will be talking about his world walk at Winslow Library (free tickets) on October 28 at 11am and at the Betsey Wynne pub in Swanbourne on November 4th at 7.30pm (tickets £10 in aid of Autism Early Support).