Thank you so much

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for your support. About 36 hours ago the Kickstarter campaign cleared the 100% mark, which means the project will get funded.

You have no idea how much it means to me to be out here walking across Turkey, nearing the 20% complete mark, experiencing some of the highest highs and the lowest lows of my life so far, all the while knowing that some of the best people in the world are behind me. Each morning when I wake up I think of you and know that I have a job to do, not just because I want to do it, but because others want me to do it too.

When the funding window closes a couple days from now, I’ll be able to send out emails to all the backers to collect the information I’ll need to fulfill your rewards. For example, if your reward includes a picture postcard (and most of them do), where do you want me to take your postcard’s photo, and where do you want me to mail it? Stuff like that.

I’m on the road now, and will be on the road when the funding window closes. In fact, when the funding window closes I hope to be sleeping peacefully somewhere in or around the city of Isparta. I won’t have much downtime until I arrive at Lake Egirdir, a few days’ walk from Isparta, where I’m planning to take a week off. So you’ll probably hear from me about those reward-fulfillment details sometime during the week after the funding window closes.

One more thing I wanted to mention: I am amazed and humbled to see that some of the biggest backers of this Kickstarter campaign are people I haven’t seen much in over 10 years. Some of them I haven’t seen much in 20 years. To know that people I haven’t seen in over 10 years are still out there remembering me well, remembering me as someone worth backing, well, that humbles me big time and just about brings tears to my eyes. I must be doing something right in life.

Thanks again so much,

Matt