Hexatrek with a Dog - Fab, Fitch, and Billie (Part II)

In Part 2, the origin stories. Fitch has been traveling since 21, lives a leap-before-you-look life that has taken him on a borrowed bike from Paris to Italy at 18 (with a paper map bought the day before leaving, phone signal incompatible with France), a cruise from Spain to Brazil for €144 at a music festival, and a hitchhike across South America that ended in the back of a pickup truck full of sofas, bought them whiskey, and terrified them by pulling off the road under a bridge first. Fab's origin story is different. She burned out in Hamburg at 27, went to Australia for three years, came home, and her husband received a terminal diagnosis. He died when she was 32. She was a widow sitting in a Hamburg park when thousands of hikers walked past. She asked what they were doing. Three months later she walked 100 kilometers on Nick's birthday, with Billie, and hasn't stopped walking since. This half of the conversation also covers how their different relationships with the road fit together, the chicken-farm trespass on their Brittany training hike, and what they're doing next: a 200-year-old farmhouse next door to Fitch's parents, and a life built around adventure rather than a desk.

If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, start there — it dropped 10 minutes ago.