He spent 7 years walking around the world. But his biggest challenge was being back home

CNN
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As he walked back to his hometown alongside his beloved dog Savannah after seven years on the road, adventurer Tom Turcich, from New Jersey, couldn’t have been more hopeful about the future.

He and his four-legged companion were greeted by a huge homecoming celebration in Haddon Township on May 21, 2022, with Turcich officially becoming the 10th person on record to walk around the world, and Savannah claiming the title of the first dog to do so.

The journey had seen the pair walk across six continents and 38 countries, including Chile, Panama and Kazakhstan, together.

Constant companion
Adventurer Tom Turcich spent seven years walking around the world with his dog Savannah. But life changed forever after they returned.
Adventurer Tom Turcich spent seven years walking around the world with his dog Savannah. But life changed forever after they returned. Tom Turcich
“The ending was incredible,” Turcich tells CNN Travel, recounting how friends, family and well wishers all turned out for them.

“Because it was just basically half my life devoted to that idea of walking around the world and then finally realizing it… Crossing the finish line, it was like paradise.”

Turcich previously told how the deaths of his friends, Anne Marie, who died in a jet ski accident, and Shannon, who was killed in a car accident, had been a catalyst for his trip, and he was thrilled to see their parents among the well-wishers.

“Having Anne Marie and Shannon’s parents there was really special,” he adds.

Turcich remained on cloud nine for the next three months as he took in his incredible achievement.

“It was like I was in an afterglow,” he says. “And everything was perfect.”

But as that incredible high began to fade. The realization that such a huge part of his life was over began to sink in, and Turcich quickly found himself at his lowest point.

“I kind of had this realization when I was walking to the park with Savannah,” he says. “That it keeps going. Life.

“This thing that had been my life forever was over. But then life kept going on, and you can just live life without this greater purpose. And then it became really difficult.”

Turcich, who has been compared to Forrest Gump, the character played by Tom Hanks in the 1994 movie, understood that he would have to move on and continue doing “stuff that doesn’t mean as much as the world walk did to me.”

“It’s really challenging to go from having this one singular point to focus all your efforts on, and then being unmoored,” he adds.

According to Turcich, things came to a head when he moved to Seattle to be with his partner Bonnie Snyder, who he’d met towards the end of his trip, last November.

“I fell into probably the first depression I’ve ever fallen into,” he says, describing how lost he felt without having such a clear purpose.

Heartbreaking loss
Turcich and his fiancee Bonnie with their dogs Savannah and Cleo, who have both since passed away.
Turcich and his fiancee Bonnie with their dogs Savannah and Cleo, who have both since passed away. Courtesy Tom Turcich
And just as he’d worked his way out of the darkness, his beloved Savannah passed away.

Turcich recalls how he’d just returned from a vacation with Snyder, who was mourning the loss of her own dog, Cleo, when he learned that Savannah was seriously ill.

While she’d been having “bouts” of ill health for a few months, Turcich was completely unprepared for the news.

“Her kidneys were in failure,” he says. “There was nothing they could do about it… They had to put her down.”

Turcich is still coming to terms with the loss, which feels like the final closing of a chapter that he was already struggling to let go of.

“I still have a little bit of guilt,” he says. “I was really bad the first month afterward. She was my best friend, in a way.

“She’s the only other living thing that went through that. I think a lot of the pain is… We spent so much time together and went through so much.”

After being Savannah’s “protector” through bad weather and “strange places” while they were on the road, Turcich has found it difficult to accept that he wasn’t able to protect her this time.