Jonathan exemplifies a XACTLYlife
Founder of @walk2connect
IG @jstallz
How would you describe yourself in one word?
Free - on the inside, it is all integrated and accepted. It is not complete freedom, I am still Human but I feel free in my own self and space and that is a wonderful feeling.
What gets you outdoors, moving and experiencing the world around you?
Most of my time is on foot, roughly 8-10 miles a day. Mostly walking meetings BUT what motivates me is awe and spontaneity, adventure and movement.
Beats that get you pumped to get on the road?
Listening to the world around [me]. Sometimes I bring some meditation music, but not always. When I was walking across [the coutnry], on those long days a little music was good to give me a little push at the end. My go-to's: into the wild soundtrack andGuaranteed by Eddie Vetter (highly recommended)
Never leave for a trip without...?
A first aid kit ---climbing lots of trees as a kid and never really growing out of that, I need to be able to clean myself up. I also never leave without a notebook, water, and light rain jacket; not much more is really needed.
Go-to drink of choice?
Hot drip coffee with a twist! I add turmeric and cayenne pepper to an Americano. Though when I was walking, especially in Utah, I would be asked if there was anything I needed or wanted. So, I would tell my personal good Samaritans to go buy a six-pack of cheap beer, gummies, water and then to go and burry it at XYZ mike marker and mark the spot. And every time, they would. It was like a little treasure hunt every time.
Shotgun or driver?
Urban passenger, open space driver.
Google Keep Notes:
- This life choice is motivated by his want to keep moving the way we are madeto -- and to fully embody this mantra every day and to encourage others to do the same.
- He spent 8.5 months walking across the country in 2010 (220 days exactly). With nothing but what he could carry and his new pooch as a constant companion. He adopted a Blue Healer Huskey on his route and named her Kanoa (which means, the free one)
- Why bring people into this journey and this lifestyle? It is about getting more grounded and connected to those beings that breathe the same air and leave the same imprints on this earth.
- 2009, what was going through your head? [He] was an artist that wanted to be free and didn't know another way of doing it. What really got him started on this journey in the first place was this deep hunger to dive into the unknown and to have this safe-shell that he’s always known to be blown wide open.
- saw WILD and read Walk Across America in 2 days after buying it for 20 cents at a garage sale -- after that, he was hooked. He needed to walk and he had no hiking or backpacking experience. He was literally going to learn on the road; he jokes that he received his Ph.D. on his feet, a true hands-on learning experience.
- He formed a love affair with moving by foot and radically connecting with the outside
- Nevada high deserts, highway 50 (the loneliest highway in America) was hard but he walked that bad boy naked, because why not?!
- hardest times on the walk were in the humidity of Missouri which was just hard which triggered loneliness because you realize you are going through "death" alone
- The most taxing thing on him mentally was seeing the devastation of nature that he would absorb over time, state after state, city after city.
