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Francis Tapon (born March 10, 1970) is an author, global nomad, and public speaker. He was the first person to do a round-trip backpacking the Continental Divide Trail. He has also thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and Appalachian Trail southbound. He has traveled to over 80 countries and plans to travel to all the countries of the world. He is the author of the self-help travelogue Hike Your Own Hike and the travel narrative The Hidden Europe: What Eastern Europeans Can Teach Us. He is currently traveling to all 54 African countries from 2013 to 2017.

Early life and career
Francis Tapon's mother is from Chile and his father was from France. Francis Tapon was born in San Francisco. He went to the French American International School until 10th grade. He graduated from Lick-Wilmerding High School.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts cum laude in Religion from Amherst College in 1992. He worked in Latin America for Hitachi Data Systems. In 1997, he received his MBA from Harvard Business School.

After Harvard, he co-founded a Silicon Valley robotic vision company that was covered by The New York Times. Later, he consulted for Microsoft for 18 months. In 2006, he became a full-time travel writer.

Travels


Amazon.com and Lincoln Mercury selected him as the best example of someone who is fulfilling the dream of traveling the world.

In 2001, he hiked the Appalachian Trail. In 2004, he visited all the countries in Eastern Europe. In 2006, he backpacked the Pacific Crest Trail.

In 2007, he became the first person to walk from Mexico to Canada and back to Mexico along the Continental Divide Trail. This seven-month journey spanned over 5,600 miles. Francis took the most circuitous, scenic, high, difficult route north and while returning south took the more expedient route on the way down. He hiked ultralight since his pack, without food and water, weighed under 6 lbs (less then 3kg). National Geographic listed Francis Tapon's round trip on the Continental Divide Trail among one of the most notable feats of 2007.

In 2008, Francis was nominated as one of the seven finalists to the California Outdoors Hall of Fame, which "features nominees who are world-renowned for their skills and who have helped inspire thousands of others to take part in the great outdoors."

In 2009, he walked across Spain twice: once by traversing the Pyrenees from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, and then by hiking El Camino Santiago.

In 2008-2011, he visited over 40 European countries, including all the Eastern European ones. He focused on finding Eastern European innovations.

In March 2013, he entered Morocco and began a four-year trip to all 54 African countries. He plans to write his third book based on the experience. He is filming extensively.

Books
Francis Tapon is a travel writer who is the author of the WanderLearn Series, which is a series of books about his adventures. He has written two books so far:

Tapon, Francis (2006), Hike Your Own Hike: 7 Life Lessons from Backpacking Across America, 351 pages, ISBN 978-0-9765812-0-8.

Tapon, Francis (2012), The Hidden Europe: What Eastern Europeans Can Teach Us, 736 pages, ISBN 978-0976581222.

He also wrote the first chapter ("The Final Stretch, Blood Mountain, GA") in Hikers' Stories From the Appalachian Trail, edited by Kathryn Fulton, ISBN 978-0811712835 (2012) Stackpole Books.