All roads lead to Nicolo Guarrera, the Italian who travels the world on foot

When Nicolas Guerrera (30) was 24, he started questioning various things in his own life. At the time, he was completing his university studies in economics and marketing, but he did not feel entirely comfortable with the stories he had experienced in the past. From what he saw, what he experienced is not likened to entering a museum or a tale.

Along with this feeling, the question that will mark him forever has also arisen.

— At one point, I asked myself: “If my life was a work of art, would I go see it? There I said “well, I’m going to see a work of art if it tells me a story and if it’s beautiful”. And I decided to collect stories, walking around the world seemed like a good excuse”, says Nicolo The third .

Walking was not at all a foreign activity in its history. He had always loved doing it and it was customary for him to try to take this activity to another level, beyond the usual steps that are usually taken in the day. He enjoyed hiking in the mountains and had also done a few routes, such as the Camino de Santiago in Spain and the Vía Francigena in his native country.

Although he is determined to embark on the mission of accumulating stories to tell in his life, he could not be impulsive and jump at any moment without sufficient preparation. For the same reason he worked for a few years in a chocolate factory in Milan, in this way he could leave with a sufficient budget to be serene in the new adventure.

This is how time passed, until the day of departure arrived. It was a time of insecurity as the pandemic was going through one of the most critical times, but Nicolo told himself that the farewell should happen at some point and he should be careful while moving forward on the road. .

In August 2020, Nicolo went out and locked his front door behind his back. He started walking towards sunset from his hometown of Malo, near Venice, not to return for a few years. Since then, his only business has been a car he named Ezio that holds his most essentials: pants, shirts, socks, shoes, food, and camping gear, like sleeping bag and tent.

—It’s one of the few things about travel that doesn’t make sense, I just liked the name, I wanted a travel buddy so I gave it that name. If I was going to go crazy, at least I had someone to talk to,” Nicolo laughs.

The first few months of walking were like a trial and error test for what was to come. A medida que cruzó por Italia, Francia y España, el viajero fue dándose cuenta de lo que podía aguantar su cuerpo y la distancia que tenía que caminar a diario para no cansarse demasiado, pero al mismo tiempo, poder disfrutar de lo que iba viendo en the road.

In addition to having to be aware of not demanding too much in these first moments of the course, Nicolo also had to pay attention to the border closures that were established in each territory where he arrived.

“I was afraid that the trip would end or that I would be long late. I often looked at the newspapers to see what was going on but I was always lucky because they closed the city or the country I had just passed through,” he recalls.

Arrived at the end of Spain, Nicolo did not want to take the plane as one might think. His new wish in the plan was to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. In the first days of January 2021, he managed to get himself taken on a sailboat from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean, to begin the second stage of his journey: Latin America.

Since organizing his world tour on foot, the Italian has always been very clear that crossing the Atacama Desert in Chile was something to consider, after crossing other countries like Ecuador and Peru. However, his original plan was to cross the desert on foot and then to Santiago, where he would catch a flight to continue the route to Australia.

—The visa not having arrived in time, I decided to wait until the following year to have the best weather conditions to cross Australia. And as I had one more year left, I decided to extend the trip to Chile, this part was not envisaged”, he specifies.

What Nicolo may not have known at the time was that this unexpected stretch would help him fall in love with our country. In June 2022 he left Santiago to join Ushuaia, and since it was the middle of the winter months, this period was not so easy for Nicolo to walk. He had to pursue his objective, but also fight against the heavy rains.

“They told me it was going to rain a lot but I didn’t think it would be that much, so the truth is that it was very difficult. The problem is not just getting wet, it’s cold and then dry,” explains Nicolo. Added to this was that if I was camping and it was raining at night, the next day I had to dry the tent, which was very complex to do if the water continued to fall.

In the midst of these difficulties, he meets people who offer him shelter in their homes until the rains or the cold pass. On his Instagram account, the Italian left traces of all the people who received him with a big smile, a plate of food and a warm warmth. And despite the fact that he is now in Australia, those who knew him or hosted him at one time in Chile continue to write to him to keep in touch.

—They tell me “if you go through Cochamó, here you have a house”.

For the Italian, one of the biggest surprises of the trip was the Carretera Austral. He thinks he was lucky, because it didn’t rain too much when he went by this road and the mountains were completely covered in snow, so the sight dazzled him. After going through the Patagonia says he acquired an essential custom and maintains it to this day: drinking mate.

“It’s a good space for conversation and slowing down is a great excuse,” he says.

Nicolo thinks that several things have changed in his way of being since he left his home in a small town in Italy almost three years ago. Now he is slower in every way, he feels more relaxed and he even says he takes his time to prepare a mate in complete serenity.

—That means stopping for half an hour to gaze into space or simply reflect and reminisce about the beautiful moments of the trip. It’s something that I really see the difference – When I worked in Milan it was a very fast city, it’s like saying Santiago and then you move to Villa O’Higgins, there you realize that the times are different.

In March, he arrives in Australia, where he will also walk around with his Ezio car. Although he hopes his experiences there can match the stories he has learned in Chile, Nicolo admits he feels like he ate a lot and now he is happy with what he experienced.

—I also wonder how to continue and why to continue like this, if there are deviations that I can make to cut or modify the route, always being very clear that it is something that I want to do on foot. Of that I have no doubt.

And it is that in view of Nicolo, the period he spent in Latin America was very intense. As he speaks good Spanish, he could communicate on any subject with the people he met, but this will not happen so much in Australia and especially in Asia, the last leg of his journey.

On the other hand, there is the total time of the trip: it has been three and a half years and he has not rested at any time. He may spend time resting in shelters or houses, but he still thinks he has to keep going. And there is still quite a long way to go, for example, for Asia alone it takes at least two more years of walking.

Despite this feeling of satiety from exploring new places, he assures that returning to Italy has not yet crossed his mind. What he is very sure of is that when he fully realizes this dream, the first thing he will do will be to return to his hometown to visit his grandmother.