Francis Tapon

Origin: Francis Tapon's mom is from Chile and his dad is from France. He was born and raised in San Francisco,California. He's been to nearly 70 countries, but I keep coming back to this magical city because he loves earthquakes.

Languages: He spoke Spanish at home, French at school, and English everywhere else. He can get by in Portuguese and Italian, barely survive in Russian, and speak a few other languages like a two-year-old.

Education: He has a degree in Religion from Amherst College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. So he is well prepared to start a church and make lots of money off of it.

Work: He co-founded SIGHTech, a successful Silicon Valley company. He also worked at Hitachi Data Systems and Microsoft. See his resume for the details.

Backpacking: He thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, and in 2007, became the first to yo-yo the CDT. In 2009, he was nominated a 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." Although he "barely missed induction," he was quite honored to be nominated. Some think that they nominated him because he's evangelized about the glories of backpacking 10,000 miles, but we know the real reason: they're impressed that he backpacked for 45 days without a shower.

Author: He wrote Hike Your Own Hike: 7 Life Lessons from Backpacking Across America, which is based on my AT experience. He also produced a 77-minute DVD on his CDT Yo-Yo.

Current activity: He's writing The Hidden Europe: What Eastern Europeans Can Teach Us. It's a book about his year long adventure in Eastern Europe! It's due August 19, 2011.

Things Francis has never owned: A television, couch, bed, chair, or spaceship. (He's disappointed about the last one.)

Goal in life: Visit every country on the planet and share the experience with others.