We are so happy to introduce our newest 2021 Trail Team member – who is doing something a little bit different: He’s navigating and travelling across the world mostly by foot! He has an incredible story and we are extremely excited to follow along as he makes his way (literally) across the globe:
Hello to the Thru-R community! I am honored to be part of Cheer’s Correspondent Team. Let me introduce myself: My name is Solal Hohn. Solal means the one that paves his way in Hebrew so maybe I am predestined to long hikes. Hohn means irony in German and it actually quite fits my sense of humor. I come from France and lived most of my teenage and adult life in Versailles and in Paris, with one year in London and 6 months in Istanbul during my business studies.
Now I am preparing a round the world tour on foot, starting in June from Paris. I will hike on all (non polar) continents, cross the Pacific and Atlantic oceans on boats where I will be a voluntary crewman. In some countries due to visa lengths I will have to bike.
Hiking was something major really soon in my childhood as my parents brought me and carried me on their backs when I was a baby on the Corsican paths. Then along with my siblings (Leon and Cassiopée my younger brother and sister), we both hiked and rested on donkeys during summer family hikes. Then it became a thing in my group of friends and we hiked large bits of the famous Camino de Santiago. Among those years I have hiked only once alone and I loved it: It was a fortnight on the Lycean roman way on the Mediterranean Turkish coast.
I just love the slowness of it, the tiredness after your daily 8 hours of walking (with the beautiful landscapes and encounters – it goes without saying). I am convinced that there is a form of meditation in long hikes.
I have had this big world tour project in my mind for a few years now, probably inspired by a grandfather who sailed around the world and great books by Nicolas Bouvier or adventurers like Jack London. My recent personal history convinced me even more to start this project. Indeed after being diagnosed of type 2 bipolarity in 2015 and having fought a couple of maniac episodes, I fell from a 5-meter high balcony in one of these episodes and got 7 fractures (I feel amazingly lucky as it could have been way worse). It took a year and half to fully recover from this and now I am in shape to start my trip, both physically and mentally and really cannot wait!
You can also follow along with Solal as he starts his world trek on ,Instagram and his ,YouTube Channel.