Vet walking across America stops in John Day

Published 5:00 am Thursday, May 19, 2022

JOHN DAY — Thirty-four-year-old Afghanistan veteran Jake Sansing has walked across America four times. Now taking his fifth trip across the country, Sansing said this will be his last.

“This time I will wind up collecting all the states except Hawaii,” Sansing told the Eagle on Thursday, May 12, during a stopover in John Day.

He got to town by walking along the shoulder of Highway 26, pushing a small cart with his personal belongings and a sign that reads “Jake walks America.”

The idea to walk across the country started in September 2013 following Sansing’s separation from the Army and subsequent homelessness.

“I started walking in between towns to look for work. I realized walking was helping my (post-traumatic stress disorder), so I decided to walk across America just to see what it would do for me.”

Sansing said he got addicted to walking during his first cross-country trek and started walking for various charities, with supporters donating a certain amount of money per mile. The first charity Sansing walked for was Shot at Life, a group that provides vaccines for children in developing countries.

After Shot at Life, Sansing walked for the Wounded Warrior Project and St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. Sansing estimates he raised around $20,000 for each of the charities he’s walked for over the years.

“That just kind of gave me a sense of purpose,” he said. “I woke up every day like it was my job. I wasn’t getting paid for it, but it was making a difference. I was just walking, that’s all I had to do.”

The routes Sansing takes on his travels are largely unplanned.

”I never had any long-term plans,” he said. “It seemed pretty useless to plan anything for too long because something would always come up. I usually tried to follow the best weather and shortest distance between water sources.”

Sansing doesn’t have a full account of how many miles he’s walked in his five trips across America.

“I calculated 10,000 miles the first three years I did it, which is why that’s in the title of my book,” he said.

These days Sansing promotes the book, titled “Walking America: A 10,000 Mile Guide to Self Healing,” during his travels across the country.

”I had the idea to sell my book and save the money and get some land somewhere, but I wasn’t able to reach enough people,” Sansing said. Since he started self-promoting, he’s sold around 400 copies.

That is ultimately the reason Sansing stopped in John Day. When Sansing travels, he ships his books around 100 miles ahead of him, which he describes as a four- or five-day walk. He then picks up the shipment of books and either sells them in town or signs them and ships them to anybody who has placed an order on his website during his travels from one city to the next.

The final stop for Sansing is going to be back in Oregon. Wanting to settle “somewhere between Newport and Sweet Home,” Sansing said he plans on opening a campground for homeless veterans with the money from his book sales.

“Oregon has been my favorite state,” he said. “That’s why I want to settle here and why I want the campground here.”

Sansing said he doesn’t think he’ll get the itch to walk across America again after his fifth trip concludes.

“I’m ready to settle down and move on to something else,” he said.

Still, he plans to keep his options open.

”I might find someone else to run the campground in a few years and maybe go walk another country,” he said.

”I’ve already walked across America. Maybe go over to Africa or something. “’Jake Walks with Lions’ or something like that.”