Veteran and Black explorer J.R. Harris spent the last half-century trekking across the world, visiting more than 50 countries, and is still hungry for more.
Harris, 78, has visited every continent except Antarctica, including the Australian outback and Patagonia. The Louisiana-born explorer grew up in Queens, N.Y., and got his first taste of the wilderness as a child when his parents sent him to a Boy Scout camp in the Catskill Mountains.
Initially, Harris wasn’t a fan of the idea, telling CNN Travel that he went to the camp kicking and screaming, but said the experience changed his life.
“I basically learned how to live outdoors,” Harris said.
“And the idea that I could just live with whatever I was carrying in my pack was such a different concept from the life I had back in New York City. It fascinated me.”
The explorer spent his youth traveling the country in the 1950s. His dad was a long-distance train waiter, allowing his family to travel at reduced rates. Harris’ first adventure alone didn’t come until after he graduated in 1966 when he discovered the furthest north he could drive was Circle, Alaska. That led the explorer to pack up his car and set off on the journey, which took about two weeks.
The scenic views made him realize that he wanted to be an explorer. Harris vowed to return home, get some trekking equipment, and spend as much time as possible exploring remote locations.
Harris has traveled all over planet Earth in the years since, including France, Spain, New Zealand, the Rocky Mountains of Canada, The Andes, and the European Alps. Harris found the people living in remote areas fascinating. He said he learns as much as he can about their history, traditions, and way of life to figure out how to reach them, and in his words, “just show up.”
“People can’t believe that somebody would come all the way from New York City alone, for no other reason than because they were curious about their culture and wanted to see it firsthand,” the explorer told CNN Travel.
Harris, who has documented his travels on social media and wrote a book, makes it a point to take one long trip each year. He has traveled to all types of climates, including Greenland, Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, the Glacier National Park in Montana, California’s Death Valley, and the Sahara Desert in Africa.
The explorer says it’s much easier to travel today than it was in past years due to technology, adding that in the past, he’s traveled for weeks at a time by himself.
“Nowadays we have GPS and devices where you can contact people,” Harris told CNN.
“But for most of my life in my career, I was going out before there was an internet, before there were satellite phones, and I’d be gone for weeks at a time with absolutely no way of contacting anybody.”