Francis Tapon

Francis Tapon’s mother is from Chile and his father is from France, but Francis was born in San Francisco. He is fluent in English, French, and Spanish. He struggles with Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, and Russian. If you point a gun to his head, he’ll start speaking other languages too. He earned a Religion Degree with honors from Amherst College. He also has an MBA from Harvard Business School. After Harvard, he co-founded a robotic vision company in Silicon Valley. Then he decided to change his life forever. In 2001, he sold the little he had to hike the 3,000 km Appalachian Trail. Then, after consulting for Hitachi, he visited all 25 countries in Eastern Europe in 2004. He consulted at Microsoft before hiking the 4,200 km Pacific Crest Trail in 2006. In 2007, he became the first person to do a round-trip on the Continental Divide Trail—a seven-month journey spanning 9,000 km. In 2008-2011, he visited over 40 European countries but focused on revisiting all the Eastern European ones. In 2009, he climbed up Mont Blanc and walked across Spain twice. He’s backpacked over 20,000 kilometers (12,500 miles) and traveled to over 100 countries. He is the author of "Hike Your Own Hike" and "The Hidden Europe." From 2013 to 2018 he is visiting all 54 African countries. He is producing a TV series, documentary, and book called "The Unseen Africa." His goal is to wander to all 193 countries of the world, see what we can learn from them, and share it with everyone. He is a TEDx speaker. His website is http://FrancisTapon.com