French Couple Crosses Highlands On 14,000-Mile Journey

If the longest journey begins with a single step, a couple of French visitors passing through Highlands County on Wednesday will need to regularly buy more sneakers.

William Guimaraes and Laetitia Casareto started walking 10 days ago in Miami and during the next two to three years are headed to Patagonia in Argentina.

Seven days a week, the couple expects to hike 20 miles a day, seven days per week.

On Wednesday, the French citizens took a break at the Citgo Station, at U.S. 27 and U.S. 98, to examine a wrinkled Florida state map more closely.

A black line scratched onto the map showed the pair's progress since Miami.

A second map showed North, Central and South America. A more ambitious, and much longer line, marked the couple's proposed route stretching to the tip South America.

The two recently hitchhiked across Africa, Asia and Europe. Guimaraes proposed the current adventure.

"Why not America?" he had asked his girlfriend.

The Bordeaux residents carry small back packs weighing about 10 pounds each. They set out with little more than an extra pair of shorts and shirts, a tent, sleeping gear, a camp stove and a camera to document the journey.

Casareto's shoulders are raw and peeling from the Florida sun, but undaunted the couple hopes to better understand humanity while crossing five U.S. states and 20 countries, on a 14,000-mile-long trek.

Guimaraes especially wants to visit Texas and spend some of $2,000 budgeted yearly for all travel expenses on a big cowboy hat like John Wayne wore.

"I like to meet people and see the world," said Guimaraes. "Life is too short and the world is too big. It's a good school."

Casareto talked ruefully about a long, hot stretch of open roadway south of Lake Okeechobee, where the couple ran out of drinking water. Several passing motorists mistakenly thought the walkers wanted to sell water, rather than simply take a sip.

"But when you meet good people, and when everything is good, you want the travel to continue," said Casareto. "You don't want this to finish. It's a good experience."

The couple expected to take only weekly showers and will continue to knock on doors and ask residents if they can set up a tent in their backyard.

About half the time they asked strangers, Americans were willing to allow the couple to spend the night, said Casareto.

"We never ask for any money and we never ask for food," she said. "We only ask at the door if it's possible to put a tent in the garden."

Casareto said, with a smile, that the U.S. is "big" and Florida is not what Guimaraes expected.

"America is amazing," he said. "It's a crazy, crazy country. It's a jungle with lots of birds and natural."

Guimaraes compared Miami to Highlands County.

"These are real people, very friendly, more villages and more families," he said.