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(CNN) He’s been yearning to go on a “crazy adventure” for years, and as Liam Garner’s high school graduation day approaches, the teenager is more determined than ever to escape.
A seasoned cyclist from Long Beach, California, Garner had ridden from Los Angeles to San Francisco before and realized he could cross the continent without much difficulty if he chose.
After reading a book by adventurer Jedidiah Jenkins, who cycled from Oregon to Argentina, Garner cycled from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, the northernmost road accessible point in the United States, to Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost point in South America. decided to .
And while many of his school friends were preparing for college, Garner began preparing for the adventure of his life.
epic adventure
Liam Garner was 17 when he left Alaska on his mountain bike in August 2021.
“After graduating, I spent a month just trying to get equipment and then quit,” Garner told CNN Travel. “It was really quick. It wasn’t that hard of a plan to begin with.”
When Garner was 17, he climbed into his KHS Zaca mountain bike with just a tent, sleeping bag, about a day’s worth of food and water, some portable batteries, a medical kit and extra bike parts.
On August 1, 2021, he began his journey across the Pan-American Highway, a network of roads that stretches across the Americas.
After a trip to San Francisco, the teenager, who had already amassed a sizeable following from his TikTok video series, I decided to record my triphas cycled through 14 countries including Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Argentina.
“There are official routes and informal routes,” he explains. “I basically made my own [route] like i did. As long as I was heading south every day, I knew I was on the right track. ”
Garner admits that his separated parents weren’t particularly thrilled about the prospect of their teenage son biking alone to South America.
He says his mother initially refused to believe him and went through “probably eight months of terror.”
“He called me while I was in Alaska, and I told him where I was,” explained Garner, both of whom are now his biggest supporters and have shared his progress. He added that he is following avidly.
Benefits of cycling
The teenager had reached Carretera Austral in Chile by late 2022.
Garner originally got into cycling because he didn’t have a car, but now considers it the best way to get around and wouldn’t have wanted to do this journey any other way.
“It’s the most intimate way to travel,” he says. “You go very slowly and you have to physically work to get to places, so you really get attached to the most random little towns and curves of the road.
“There’s something about being self-sufficient and knowing you’ve gotten somewhere on your feet. When you’re driving or flying, it’s like you’re teleporting somewhere You weren’t outside, you weren’t smelling, you weren’t touching things.
The teenager cycled across Mexico for about four and a half months, describing the experience as one of the most important of his life.
“My whole family is from Mexico,” he explains. “I grew up going [to Mexico] But I never learned the language. So it’s one thing to visit every year and to live there.
“So it was very important to me to cycle across the country, reconnect with my culture, stay with my family, and learn the language where my family came from.
unfortunate setback
Garner, who was seen on the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, says he was robbed five times during his travels.
Garner says he left California with little money and survives on a budget of about $430 a month.
He said he’s heard people comment that he can only do what he does “because he’s white and rich,” and wants to point out that this simply isn’t the case.
“I’m a first-generation Mexican immigrant, and I’m not rich,” he says. “This is something I did on my own, and it doesn’t cost a lot of money to do this.
“I don’t want people to think I have to be rich to do a bike tour. I’ve met people from all walks of life.
“People can do it and they can stay in a hotel every night. I’ve seen people literally just putting garbage bags in the back of their bikes.
“I’ve seen people of all ethnicities, solo, with partners, in every country I’ve been to. And I’ve met an incredible number of inspiring women. It really is available to everyone.” is.”
Garner had a riding companion named Logan for about eight months of the trip. However, he left when they reached Columbia, and Garner traveled the rest of his journey alone.
Of the many countries he has visited on his bike, El Salvador has been a particular surprise. El Salvador is “one of the most peaceful, nicest and quietest countries he has,” he says.
While the trip was filled with incredible highs, Garner also experienced some crushing lows during the trip.
He says he was robbed at least five times and had to be hospitalized for a month after falling off his bike and hitting his head in Colombia.
“The idea is in your mind that you might get hurt, that something really bad could happen,” he said, requiring about 40 stitches to repair and put the ear back together. I explained that I had to have plastic surgery.
“But it wasn’t real until I got hurt in Colombia. I lost consciousness for about 15 minutes and it took me a few hours before I could speak again.”
Garner decided to write a will after the incident and says having to sit still for weeks was a big strain on him.
He admits that after being robbed in southern Mexico and suffering from extreme heat, he considered giving up temporarily during a particularly difficult time.
“For about two and a half weeks, me and my partner, Logan, were disconnected from the outside world,” he explains.
“We didn’t have cell phones. The weather was difficult. It was over 40 degrees Celsius (104 F) every day. During that time, I got sick.”
According to Garner, the two could only ride their bikes for a few minutes before stopping due to the heat, and discussed the possibility of taking the bus home once they reached Central America.
“There’s no point in torturing yourself,” he recalls. “This is no fun.”
Thankfully, after a week or so of arriving in Guatemala, the weather cooled down considerably.
final push
On January 10, 2023, Garner finally arrived in Ushuaia, Argentina.
For the last month of the trip, Garner thought little more than “the wheels cross the last inch of the pavement.” not yet. “
He finally arrived in Ushuaia on January 10 after cycling 32,000 kilometers (about 20,000 miles) in 527 days.
But Garner, now 19, says the moment he spent so much time imagining felt somewhat adversity.
“that [Ushuaia] It’s a very touristy town and there were a lot of people,” he explains. And I was a little disappointed. ”
A little dejected, he decided to head to the national park for a few days and reflect on his journey.
“I realized that I don’t care what the last town was like,” he says. “It just got there. I know it’s very clichéd, but that was really what I came to.”
Garner was soon joined by his partner Chloe. He had first met and kept in touch during a trip to San Francisco.
He says the two were just friends at first, but their friendship developed into something more while Garner was on the road.
“For about a year, we were in a long-distance relationship while traveling,” he says.
The couple are now backpacking back to California, following much the same route Garner took on the way. increase.
“We were hoping to be home in July for the summer,” he adds. Enough time to go home.
“It’s really nice to see the place again before it transitions to normal life.”
inspire others
Garner’s video series documenting his journey has amassed hundreds of thousands of views.
Upon his return, Garner plans to write a book about his journey in hopes of inspiring other young people to undertake such journeys.
He says he regularly receives messages from people who saw his stories on Instagram and TikTok and felt compelled to do something similar.
“I actually got a lot more messages than I expected,” he says. “And people are actually doing it.
“I follow some people who have messaged me and they are actually biking from Alaska to Argentina.
“It’s a great feeling to know that I’m getting more people involved in it because there were people I was responsible for being in it for, and it feels great to do the same.”
While he’s very much looking forward to catching up with family and friends, some of whom have been busy studying while he was away, Garner has no regrets about going his separate ways. not.
“If I stayed home and went to community college or something, would I really be a better person than I am?” he asks.
“Am I really as open-minded as I am now? is what did.”
