Francis Tapon (born March 10, 1970) is an author, global nomad, and public speaker. He has walked across the United States four times via its three major mountain ranges. He also walked across Spain twice. He was the first person to do a round-trip backpacking the Continental Divide Trail. In addition, he thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and Appalachian Trail southbound. He has traveled to over 100 countries of the world.Krasny, Michael. (December 28, 2011). "National radio interview". KQED, San Francisco Public Radio, NPR affiliate. Retrieved November 1, 2013. He is the author of the self-help travelogue Hike Your Own Hike and the travel narrative The Hidden Europe: What Eastern Europeans Can Teach Us. He climbed the highest peaks in all 54 African countries from 2013 to 2018.Frank Mallicoat "KPIX CBS affiliate TV interview" Dec 18, 2012. Retrieved January 24, 2019.Tom Stinstra "After Five Years and 10,000 miles in Africa" July 29, 2018. Retrieved January 24, 2019. In 2019, he was inducted into the California Outdoors Hall of Fame.
Early life and career Tapon's mother is from Chile and his father was from France."Huffington Post bio" Retrieved November 1, 2013 Tapon was born in San Francisco,"Francis Tapon's biography". Goodreads. Retrieved November 1, 2013."Interview on French American TV" skip to 0:50 where he went to the French American International School until 10th grade, and then graduated from Lick-Wilmerding High School.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts cum laude in Religion from Amherst College in 1992.Lieber, Ben. "Amherst College Alumni Interview" retrieved November 2, 2013. He worked in Latin America for Hitachi Data Systems. In 1997, he received his MBA from Harvard Business School.Tapon, Francis (December 1, 2012) "The Billion Dollar Question". Harvard Business School Bulletin. Retrieved November 1, 2013.
After Harvard, he co-founded a Silicon Valley robotic vision company that was covered by The New York Times.Lewis, Michael (March 1, 1998). "The Little Creepy Crawlers Who Will Eat You In The Night". The New York Times. Retrieved November 1, 2013.Stern, Rachel J. (April 23, 2012) "'The Hidden Europe' Comes to Los Gatos"] Patch.com. Retrieved November 2, 2013. Later, he consulted for Microsoft for 18 months. In 2006, he became a full-time travel writer.Stienstra, Tom. (February 24, 2008). "His life is a long, gratifying hike". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved November 1, 2013.
Travels
Below is a chronology of Tapon's most notable travel experiences, which inspired his two books.
In 2001, he hiked the Appalachian Trail.Lanza, Michael. (November 2008) "American Classic: Hiking the Appalachian Trail". Backpacker Magazine. Retrieved November 1, 2013. In 2004, he visited all the countries in Eastern Europe.Tapon, Francis. (October 5, 2012) "Francis Tapon's TEDx Talk". TEDx Fillmore speech, San Francisco. Retrieved November 2, 2013. In 2006, he backpacked the Pacific Crest Trail.Fulton, Kathryn. (2012) Hikers' Stories from the Appalachian Trail, Stackpole Books, page 159. Retrieved November 2, 2013.
In 2007, he became the first person to walk from Mexico to Canada and back to Mexico along the Continental Divide Trail.Tilin, Andrew. (June 2008) "The Onion vs. Mr. Magoo – On your mark, get set ... hike. Inside a 5,600-mile footrace on the country's hardest trail.". Backpacker Magazine. Retrieved November 2, 2013.M. Biggers, Ashley. (March 2008) "There & Back Again", New Mexico MagazineBastone, Kelly (August 2008) "Taking the High Way: Thru-hiking the Continental Divide Trail," 5280, pp. 70–73. Denver magazine reports on Francis Tapon's first-ever yo-yo of the CDT.Wilt, Bernie. "PBP Episode 31 – CDT Yo-Yo". PracticalBackpacking.com. Retrieved November 2, 2013.Reese, Janet. (19 June 2007). "5 questions for long-distance hiker Francis Tapon". Rocky Mountain News. Retrieved November 2, 2013. This seven-month journey spanned over 5,600 miles.Stienstra, Tom. (March 9, 2008). . San Francisco Chronicle. . Retrieved November 2, 2013. Francis took the most circuitous, scenic, high, difficult route north and while returning south took the more expedient route on the way down.Manning, John. (April 8, 2008) "Francis Tapon: The first person to yo-yo America’s wildest trail talks heating, eating and the philosophy of lightweight". TGO Magazine. Retrieved November 2, 2013. He hiked ultralight since his pack, without food and water, weighed under 6 lbs (less than 3 kg).Crooker, Carol. (September 12, 2007) . Backpackinglight.com. Retrieved November 2, 2013.Stienstra, Tom. (March 9, 2008) . San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved November 2, 2013. National Geographic listed Francis Tapon's round trip on the Continental Divide Trail among the most notable feats of 2007."Best of Adventure, Trends: New Leaf" National Geographic. Retrieved November 2, 2012.Lineback, Neal. (October 1, 2013) "America's Hiking Trails" National Geographic: Geography in the News. Retrieved November 2, 2013
In 2009, he walked across Spain twice: once by traversing the Pyrenees from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, and then by hiking El Camino de Santiago.Bassets, Marc. (August 17, 2012) "El Disidente" La Vanguardia in Spanish. Retrieved November 2, 2013
In 2008–2011, he visited over 40 European countries, including all the Eastern European ones.Delevett, Peter. (May 19, 2012) "Social travel' start-ups help travelers gather friends" Page 2 of Los Angeles Times article. Retrieved November 2, 2013Steves, Rick. (August 17, 2013) "Bumpy Balkans" National Radio Show. Retrieved November 2, 2013Riddell, Joel. (August 2013)"Dining Around Interview" The interview starts at minute 17. NewsTalk 910, KKSF, San Francisco. He focused on finding Eastern European innovations.Tapon, Francis. (January 1, 2012) "Eastern Europe: Innovation's hidden hub" Washington Post, page G4. Retrieved November 2. 2013.Kolawole, Emi. (January 1, 2012) "Europe, the credit downgrade and what it means for innovation" WashingtonPost.com. Retrieved November 2, 2013.
In 2012, he summed up his travels to date and shared his lessons in his TEDx talk entitled, "How and Why Travel Transforms You." It has over 100,000 views.18-min TEDx video Retrieved June 3, 2017.
In March 2013, he entered Morocco and began a five-year trip to all 54 African countries. He never left the African continent. Half way through his trip, he met and married a Cameroonian, Rejoice Tapon, who traveled 31 of African countries with him.How Francis Tapon proposed to Rejoice. Retrieved April 22, 2019.Francis and Rejoice Tapon marriage Retrieved April 22, 2019.
In October 2018, Tapon returned to a TEDx stage. He had just returned from 5.5 years of nonstop overland travel through all 54 African countries. Tapon shared a story about an African girl who was a "black sheep" in her society and what we can learn from it.18-min TEDx video "Bring Out Your Inner Black Sheep" Retrieved May 3, 2019.
He returned to the United States in 2018. He plans to write his third book based on the experience. He filmed extensively and has raised over $24,000 to produce a pilot TV episode by November 2014.Kickstarter Project: The Unseen Africa Retrieved May 26, 2014 Amazon.com and Lincoln Mercury selected him as the best example of someone who is fulfilling the dream of traveling the world.Amazon.com & Lincoln Mercury did a video profile of people who doing were doing 25 classic dreams Video excerpt of the 'My Dream' campaign Vimeo.com. Retrieved November 2, 2013.
In January 2019, he was inducted in the California Outdoors Hall of Fame, which includes John Muir and Ansel Adams."California Outdoors Hall of Fame inductees changed landscape" by Tom Steinstra, Jan. 17, 2019. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
Books
Tapon is the author of the WanderLearn Series, which is a series of books about his adventures.Brotman, Barbara. (September 24, 2012) "Getting to know the world around us" Chicago Tribune. Retrieved November 2, 2013. He has written two books so far:
Tapon, Francis (2006), Hike Your Own Hike: 7 Life Lessons from Backpacking Across America, 351 pages, . Tapon, Francis (2012), The Hidden Europe: What Eastern Europeans Can Teach Us, 736 pages, .
He also wrote two chapters in Hikers' Stories From the Appalachian Trail, edited by Kathryn Fulton, (2012) Stackpole Books. The chapters are entitled "The Final Stretch" and "A Thru-hiker's Motivation: Not Enlightenment, Just Ice Cream."
References
External links WanderLearn with Francis Tapon