When it came time to settle down, Peter listed the positives and negatives of each region of the U.S. The South won.

Peter and I sit on the steps of my mother's house, a place he walked past in 1974.

Peter remembers being drawn to the beauty of the rolling hills, to the warmth of the people. He admired the Southern work ethic, the artistic heritage, the food, the attitude. Indeed, he felt a kindred spirit with those who loved the land as much as he.

He captured those qualities in A Walk Across America. Thousands of schools across the country require that their students read it. More than 25 years after the book was published, he still receives fan mail.

Return to America
Still, Peter sometimes grows tired of being known as the man who walked across America. "It's just that I've done so much more than that," he says. Indeed, he was a member of the first team of U.S. climbers to reach Mount Everest from Tibet. He chronicled that journey in his book, Across China. In 2000, he moved to Alaska for a year and a half while he researched Looking for Alaska, a book he feels contains his best writing yet.

Peter has begun the journey he'll chronicle in a new book. The original route from New York to New Orleans will form the backbone, but he'll detour through states and regions he's not previously explored. The biggest difference: He will ride a motorcycle.

Peter shows me the tattered backpack he toted from New Orleans to Oregon on his walk west. He hasn't worn it since 1979, but he reluctantly shrugs it on. It feels odd, he says, after all this time. He grows quiet as the ghosts of the past stroll through his mind.

When Peter and I part, I still have a thousand unanswered questions, but I know enough. I'm proud to call this man a Tennessean, a Southerner, and a friend.

If you want to invite Peter to your part of America or order one of his books for a great weekend read, visit www.peterjenkins.com, or e-mail him at peter@peterjenkins.com.

"Southerner By Choice" is from the September 2006 issue of Southern Living.