Crossing 14 Countries, This Young Man's Cost of Living While Cycling is Obtained from TikTok

Dream - How far can you cycle? If the furthest distance is only 100 kilometers, you shouldn't be too proud. You will immediately feel inferior when you hear the story of a teenager from Los Angeles sharing his cycling experience.

The teenager named Liam Garner claimed to have completed a journey of 20,000 miles or about 33,000 km to enjoy his hobby. The distance was covered by passing through 14 countries.

Liam Garner started his adventure in August 2021 to cycle from the northernmost point of Alaska to the southernmost point of Argentina.

At that time, Liam, who was 17 years old and had just graduated from high school, began preparing for his mega-adventure. Before embarking on the tens of thousands of kilometers journey, Liam had cycled back and forth from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

To complete the 33,000 km journey, Liam spent 527 days or almost 1.5 years. He decided to challenge himself with the "most ridiculous goal" of simply testing how far he could go.

“I didn't ride a bike for more than six months, and I didn't even have a bike until the month I left," Garner said to Insider.

His mother did not approve of his journey, his father also did not know about it until he was already in Alaska. But Liam said that they both are now his "biggest supporters."

He flew to Alaska and started his journey with his bike from Prudhoe Bay, the northernmost point in North America that can be accessed by road.

However, his journey was not without difficulties, at times, he felt like giving up. One of them was when he was robbed while cycling in southern Mexico on his way to Guatemala. 

Liam lost his phone and wallet. He had to cycle without internet connection or GPS, in temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Liam also had an accident in Colombia, he was thrown off his bike and hit his head. The accident landed him in the hospital for a month.

For Liam, what he has done has proven to himself that traveling around the world without being rich is possible.

Liam managed to raise a total of around US$8,000 or Rp119 million from TikTok and Patreon to keep going, while traveling on a tight budget. He also gathered more than 350,000 followers on TikTok.

On January 10, 2023, Liam finally arrived in the city of Ushuaia in southern Argentina, his destination.

This teenager is now on his way back to Los Angeles, after which he plans to write a book about his journey. He is already thinking about his next cycling adventure from Europe to Asia.

"I feel like people just need to know that they are capable of doing extraordinary things," he said.