CORY MORTENSEN rode his bike from Chaska, Minnesota, to California. The experience ultimately changed his perspective on how life could be lived. So, rather than returning home after his adventure-back to the life unwanted-and equipped with absolutely no plan and nothing tying him down, he makes a simple phone call to quit his career and decides to hitchhike south along the Pacific Coast Highway. Destination unknown. Sounds like a pretty good idea.

Where does a guy go when he has no place to be? Passport, tent, sleeping bag, and a favorite pair of Chaco sandals-enough gear for meandering from the Mexican border to the southern tip of South America, right?

Forty-hour bus rides, Mayan Ruins, five-dollar tattoos, mountain biking down the Road of Death, para-gliding the mountains of Mérida, trekking the Patagonian Andes. Spectacular sights, strange foods, unfamiliar smells, interesting people-and what would a trip like this be without a little dynamite?