This website illuminates my life and adventures. My longing for freedom 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 see the world as I see it: as a peaceful place, full of nature and beauty. With the right spirit and intent, we can 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 • Jeff Shea Travel Map
China, Guangdong Province, Yangshuo Ox and Man, 1992CU1 - I was traveling with my Chinese girlfriend at the time. As a girlfriend she was fine, but as a wife, well, it turned out poorly and ended soon. Every cloud has a silver lining. From her, I learned to type, and I learned an appreciation of China's great past.
Slovenia, Ravne Na Koroskem Prov, Rushing In
Slovenia, Vodice Prov, Village
DK, Greenland, On Way From Station Nord To Bliss Bugt, 2007, IMG_3275R - This photograph shows (within 20 kilometers) the far northernmost coast in the world and beyond it the sea ice, taken from out Twin Otter aircraft.
UK, Halton Prov, Bird In Forest
Cambodia, Krong Pailin Prov, Girl And Brother
Slovenia, Obcina Piran, Snail On Grass Stalk, 2006 - As we drove across Slovenia, I became fascinated by the Little World. I realized that everywhere beauty surrounded me, even amidst the seemingly non-descript and uninteresting. This miniature snail was an example, clinging to a slender stalk of grass off the side of a busy road to the coast.
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.
Slovenia, Hoce Slivnica Prov, Clock Tower
Vietnam, Lam Dong Prov, Coffee Sacks