In 2013, Jedidiah Jenkins decided to leave everything behind and embark on a 16-month journey on his bicycle from Oregon to Patagonia.
He had just turned 30 and had become weary of his day-to-day routine, so he decided to follow in the footsteps of his father, who famously spent five years walking across the United States in 1970’s, eventually writing a cover story for National Geographic.
Along the way Jenkins was joined by his best friend, filmmaker Kenny Laubbacher, for a month and a half of the journey as Laubbacher tried to see what deeper insights on life Jenkins had gained from the experience.
The result is inspiring and a sure bet to awaken your inner wanderlust:
“Back in California, I had this fear of building this routine in my 30s and suddenly the decade is gone,” Jenkins told Laubbacher. “So I promised myself I would do something radically different, something that scares the crap out of me and see if that changes my brain chemistry.”
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For Jenkins, more than anything, the trip was about escaping routine and finding the sense of wonder that so many people lose after their childhood.
“The routine is the enemy of time,” Jenkins told Laubbacher. “It makes it fly by. When you’re a kid, everything is astonishing; everything is new. So your brain is awake and turned on so every passing second your brain is learning something new; learning how the world works. So the muscle of your brain is activated, and as you get older and your brain has figured out the patterns of the way the world works … the fascination with how the world works has gone away. I think that’s what travel in general does, it wakes up your brain.”
There may never be a better summary of the true benefits of traveling.
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