Daniel Alvarez is your typical adventure and exploration junkie. The 32 year-old from Tallahassee, Florida, began his career of long-distance travels when he was 11 years-old, when his mother dragged him along on a four day hike from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon to the South Rim. While reluctant at first, Alvarez soon grew to love long-distance trails.
“I tried to quit before I started”, he remembers, “I didn’t want to leave the parking lot. My mom handed me the keys to the car and $100. She told me I could sleep in the car and she would be back in a few days, so I followed her.”
Ten years after that first foray into hiking, Alvarez began to knock off some of the North America’s longest hikes: The Pacific Crest Trail (2,650 miles), The Appalachian Trail (2,180 miles), the Continental Divide (3,000 miles), and the Hayduke Trail (800 miles). Alvarez even managed to put 300 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail under his belt while he was still in law school.
“I walked out of law school halfway through the my last semester intending to carve out the first three hundred miles before coming back to take exams and graduate,” he says, “I printed out a few class outlines to study with and got on a plane to San Diego.”
Not long after finishing school and starting work at a law firm, he began to grow restless again. In 2009, he was laid off from the company, at which point he couldn’t keep the smile from his as he packed up his desk and thought, “I’m free to go do this thing that’s been burning in my heart.”
During his time at the law firm, he had been daydreaming about planning his next big trip – a long-distance solo kayaking expedition. Even though he had virtually no kayaking experience to speak of, he began e-mailing kayak manufacturers across the country, as well as applying for a $10,000 adventure grant from Outside Magazine. In the end, he got a 17-foot Necky Looksha given to him by the company (he may, or may not have bent the truth about his paddling experience to get it) and readers on OutsideOnline.com voted heavily in his favor to win the adventure grant.
On June 11th, 2012, with his boat in tow and money in the bank, Alvarez began his long-awaited journey – to paddle from Northwest Angle, Minnesota along the Mississippi River to Key West, Florida. The 4,000 mile journey wasn’t easy – long-lost portages, cold weather, and constant strain on his body from paddling and portaging, but he arrived in Key West on March 11th, 2013, nine months after he first began his journey.
While some people may have been happy to be back on dry land after such a long stint in a kayak, it wasn’t enough for Alvarez. Less than a month after completing the monster trip, he once again packed up his Looksha and hit the water, heading north for a second time. This time he began along the Eastern Seaboard, turned into the St. Lawrence Seaway, and eventually found the Ottawa River. Once off of the Ottawa, Alvrez isn’t certain how to get to the Northwest Angle, but that doesn’t have him concerned.
“Treat it as an adventure, it’s all about how you’re viewing it. If you see it as a horrible thing, it will be a horrible thing,” he says, “be like a kid in the park—jump over trees, splash in the water, enjoy it! Relish it—this is a crazy adventure.”
To keep up with Daniel’s travels, check out his blog: www.predictablylost.com
