A Month Out

In 2024, while backpacking the Camino de Santiago in Spain, an Audible recommendation pointed me to Walk, Ride, Paddle: A Life Outside by Senator Tim Kaine. I listened to it as I walked. The book lays out the Virginia Nature Triathlon—Kaine’s self-made challenge that ties together the Appalachian Trail, the James River, and Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

What caught me wasn’t just the idea, but the familiarity. I already knew those places. I’d walked Virginia’s portion of the Appalachian Trail three times. I’d journeyed down long stretches of the James River. The Parkway from Wintergreen to the Peaks of Otter was a familiar stretch of road.

The idea stuck with me.

So I’m going to try to do it all in one continuous push.

Next month, I’ll set out to complete the Virginia Nature Triathlon end to end. The full route of 1,228 miles includes:

• 559 miles hiking the Appalachian Trail across Virginia, from the Tennessee border near Damascus to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
• 321 miles cycling Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway, from Front Royal to the North Carolina border near Galax.
• 348 miles paddling the James River, from its headwaters at Iron Gate to Fort Monroe on the Chesapeake Bay

Kaine spread his effort across several years. I’m aiming for something tighter—about 75 days of movement, give or take, depending on weather, logistics, and how things go. I’m aiming to complete the trip in time to celebrate the Fourth of July in Washington D.C.

I grew up in Virginia between Lynchburg and Forest, where the Blue Ridge Mountains were basically my backyard. I was an outdoor junkie spending as much time outside as I could—hiking, climbing, biking, paddling, then doing it all over again the next day. In those teenage years, I’d spend two months each summer in the mountains, moving along ridgelines and dropping into valleys, camping wherever I could. Outside of summer, a month never went by where I wasn’t spending at least one weekend in the wilderness.

When I was 14, I pushed the limits of my latchkey youth by building a raft and spending two days alone floating down the James River.

After graduating high school in 2002, I joined the Marines and twice deployed to Iraq. Later, I worked as a defense contractor in Afghanistan for three years. When I returned to the States, I fell into a pattern of taking extended backcountry trips whenever I could—usually a few months at a time—heading for long trails or remote places.

In 2013, I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail. In 2014, I attempted to pedal the Southern Tier from Florida to California. Though I threw in the towel in Austin, I got my first real taste of long-distance cycling. I spent a summer wandering around Turkey and Egypt.

In 2015, I tapped my GI Bill to return to school and four years later earned a journalism degree from the University of Florida. In 2020, as the pandemic took hold, I abandoned my newspaper job in Tampa and escaped west to the border of Mexico and California to hike the Pacific Crest Trail to Canada. After finishing, I returned home and joined the faculty at my alma mater as a lecturer.

In 2023, after a cancer scare, I took a sabbatical and thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail for a second time. I’ve spent the past two summers in Europe hiking in Spain, Austria, Germany, England, and Sweden.

These days I live in the Tampa Bay area. I teach a few classes each semester, serve as the data editor for a state politics wire service, and manage a digital public records warehouse used by more than 1,200 journalists across Florida.

Despite 20 years removed from my childhood home, Virginia has never really faded from my mind. The mountains, the trail, the river—they’ve been a constant reference point in my life. I’m looking forward to revisiting the landscapes of my youth.

I’ll post updates here and on social media channels as I go—conditions on the trail, what the river is doing, notes from the road, and anything useful for someone thinking about doing the same. If you’ve spent time on any part of this route, especially the James and cycling sections, I’d be interested to hear about it.

If you want more background on the idea itself, order a copy of Kaine’s book. It’s good. He’s also given a multitude of hour-long interviews available through YouTube and podcast apps.