This website illuminates my life and adventures, focusing on five areas, Adventure, Love, Art & Music, Economy and Philosophy. To these five areas, I have purposefully dedicated my life. This notion emanated from my belief that the human experience is driven by five innate momentums: physical, sexual, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. So, I desired to study, experience and understand these subjects, with the objective to understand not only the world around me, but to understand myself as well. Thus, these five areas of study match my innate momentums: adventure-physical, love-sexual , art & music-emotional, economy-intellectual, and philosophy-spiritual. This quest has led me to over 2450 of the world’s 3978 provinces, to every country on earth and to the summit of the highest peak on each continent (thank heaven for good weather!). In my travels, I learned to respect the intelligence and ingenuity of people of all races and callings both past and present. Come with me to see the world as I see it, if you will be so kind. Join me in re-examining our world and our selves, to contemplate how we can move to make our world a virtual Garden of Eden.
DISTINCTIONS: BBC 2017 Travel Pioneer • Journal Articles • Explorer’s Club Flag Expeditions • World Parks Project • Walk Across South America
UK, Sheffield Prov, Night Street Scene
Slovenia, Bled Prov, Lake
Slovenia, Piran Prov, Falling Leaf
Azerbaijan, Qax Prov, Hay House
Slovenia, Tabor Prov, Vineyard
Philippines, Ifugao Prov, Banaue Man
Argentina, Jujuy Province, 2010 – Jeff Shea walks across South American Altiplano –
I decided in 2010 to begin doing yearly expeditions to push myself to my maximum potential, to see what I could do and what I could not do, even though I knew that there was serious risk, especially in solo walks across desolate territories. One of the impetuses I had was my deep conviction that humankind – although few are paying attention in this regard – desperately and quickly need to set aside vast, contiguous areas of the world, each with an epicenter far from its edges. I call these World Parks. (Two years later, I incorporated World Parks, Inc., a non-profit, public benefit corporation whose purpose is to further this idea.) I could accomplish many things at once: walk in candidate areas, to really know them, photograph unusual landscapes, test my metal, learn, discover, and possibly inspire people to consider my idea of World Parks, eight vast areas to be permanently preserved for our descendants.
My first walk was across the South American Altiplano. It is a dry area bordering the world’s driest desert, the Atacama. (In 2012, I walked across the Atacama. Writer John H. Richardson accompanied me for the first nine days of that journey.) The first week of this journey, I almost ran out of water. Here, I am shown crossing the Salinas Grandes, a large, dry “salar” near Morros village in Jujuy Province in northwestern Argentina. I set the camera up on a tripod to take this self-portrait.
Ireland, Wexford Prov, The Fowler
Turkey, Kocaeli Prov, Containers
Turkey, Bolu Province, Dolls