The spreadsheets came first.
Before I set foot on a trail in Argentina, I had a fully fledged gantt chart tracking visa windows, border crossing timelines, appointment availability by country, risks categorised by themes like health, natural hazards, crime rates. Not because I’m naturally organised (my high school teachers would have a thing or two to say about that), but because I’d learned early that the thing most likely to end this walk wasn’t a mountain or a river crossing. It was paper.
So I teamed up with a friend of mine who in my eyes, is Australia’s authority on project management. Single handedly designing a government stamped diploma on the topic and teaching it in a way that actually held my attention!
We built systems, dependencies, risk management strategies, found expertise from unsuspecting subject matter experts (a personal talent of mine, some might call this strategy coercive onboarding, or more simply: volunteering).
We planned years ahead and ultimately this planning meant Wombat and I have moved seamlessly through borders. We never overstayed a visa, never scrambled, never had to improvise or even break a sweat at immigration.
Except, of course, in the US.
When the gate finally opens
I secured my US visa in Ecuador. The processing time was short, the timing lined up perfectly, and when the approval came through, it genuinely felt like the last locked door had swung open. I’d been walking for years by that point. I knew what was ahead. And suddenly it felt possible in a way it hadn’t before.
Then the pandemic hit. I had a forced 2 year pause. My visa was ticking.
So I planned again. Eight countries out from when I’d need to reapply, two years still left on the clock. I did the maths: if I applied in six months, accounting for the advertised 18-month wait, I’d land a new visa just as I arrived in Canada. Neat. Solved. I kept walking.
When the renewal window opened, I applied immediately. Paid the fee. Got calendar access.
The next available appointment wasn’t 18 months away.
It was 30.
30 months
Thirty months. THREE ZERO. Longer than it takes to walk across the United States. Longer than my visa would remain valid. Longer, in fact, than the system technically allows you to apply in advance.
And here’s the part that really stings: once I paid, I couldn’t transfer my application to another office. Couldn’t get a refund. I was just… in. Locked to a calendar slot that doesn’t actually solve my problem.
I had walked myself directly into a deadline I couldn’t meet.
“Adventure is just bad planning.”
— Roald Amundsen
I used to find that quote funny. Now it keeps me up at night.
I held on anyway. Took the earliest slot. Checked obsessively for cancellations. There weren’t any. And the months kept going.
The path that opened
With only a few months left on my visa, a new pathway appeared: if I went home to Australia, I could reapply from there. Post my passport in for an internal review instead of waiting on an interview. No multi-year delay. No more watching the calendar like it owes me something.
It meant stepping off the trail. Extra costs, different risks, a disruption I hadn’t planned for and didn’t particularly want. But it was a solution. A real one.
– also, it meant I’d get to see my family so at this point I wasn’t sad about it.
Some of the hardest days I’ve had on this walk have been physical. The kind of hard that lives in your legs and your lungs and convinces you, somewhere around hour nine, that you made every wrong decision that led to this moment.
But there’s another kind of hard that doesn’t show up on an elevation profile. The kind that lives in inboxes and appointment systems and bureaucratic loops you can’t shortcut your way out of.
This was that kind.
I don’t have a tidy ending for this one. I’m not done yet. But I wanted to say it plainly: the most relentless pressure of this entire expedition hasn’t been the terrain. It’s been the administration. The invisible climbs. The ones no one asks you about at the finish line.
They’re real. They’re exhausting. And I’m still moving.
If you want to follow along properly, including the administrative disasters that don't make the trail maps, join Entangled. It's my inner circle and it's where a genuine community lives. Or if you just want to shout me a warm-up-coffee or a self-pity-hot-chocolate to keep me moving: same link.
Lucy + Wombat 👩🌾🐶
