Former US marine completes Asia charity trek using Google Maps
Staff Reporter 2012-11-28 08:50
Winston Fiore poses for a photo in China. (Photo courtesy of The Smile Trek)
Winston Fiore used Google Maps to plot his trip through Southeast Asia. (Courtesy of Google Maps)
A former US marine has completed a 5,000-mile charity walk through Southeast Asia using only Google Maps to navigate, Hong Kong's Oriental Daily reports.
Winston Fiore, a 27-year-old former marine who served in Afghanistan, began the trek last September in Singapore and completed his journey through eight countries and regions including Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and the Philippines, all in just 408 days.
The walk aims to raise US$75,000 for the International Children's Surgical Foundation, a charity providing facial reconstructive surgery for children living with cleft lips or palates in the developing world. It was founded in 2005 by Dr W Geoff Williams, a surgeon who left his lucrative practice in the United States to volunteer full-time providing free surgery and recruiting other doctors and specialists to assist third-world children with correctable deformities. At the time of writing, Firoe had reached 90% of his fundraising target.
Shortly after returning from an eye-opening tour with his battalion in Senegal in 2007, Fiore decided to dedicate himself to the cause when his father showed him a newspaper article about Williams. He then went on several training walks through Europe and South America over the next couple of years and completed a motorcycle fundraising tour with a friend through 20 American cities between July and September last year.
Fiore completed his Asian trek armed with a 20-pound load-bearing vest carrying the bare essentials and a phone and laptop. He said he planned his daily 40km walking route only on rising each morning using Google Maps, and recorded his experiences on his blog, Smile Trek, which he promotes using Twitter.
The Indiana native admits Google Maps was key to his successful journey as it often allowed him to take advantage of short cuts through smaller alleys, which regularly led to unexpected and surprising discoveries.
The popular web map was not infallible, however. While in China, the service once took Fiore to a river without a bridge to cross it. Fortunately, an old boatman suddenly appeared and offered him a free ride across, he said.
Other Google products also proved invaluable. When Fiore was attacked by a dog in Bangkok, he used the company's translation service to communicate with a taxi driver to take him to hospital.
Fiore told the Oriental Daily that he had a favorable impression of Hong Kong overall, calling it clean and easy to get around in English. But he said it was hard to picture himself living there because it is one of the most difficult cities for pedestrians to navigate. He also said it is obvious that Hong Kongers do not welcome visitors from mainland China, which he could understand to some extent after his visit to Nanning in southern China's Guangxi in May where he noticed the locals had an unpleasant spitting habit and occasionally even discard used diapers on the street or in restaurants.
The biggest problem with China, Fiore said, was its censorship and heavily controlled internet, which frequently caused connection problems when trying to access Google Maps.
