Instead of going to college, Brooklyn teenagers Charlie Perry, Nicky Meara-Bainbridge, and Sam Tocci decided to take a year to see the country.
The boys, who play together in a jug band called The Easy Rollers, packed a travel-sized acoustic guitar, a cigar box fiddle, a harmonica, a camera, and other basic equipment and set off on a back road bike trip down the east coast and then out west to San Diego.
"Every day, we were seeing something amazing," Perry said. "We didn't even have to go off-route. With fewer people around, it felt like it was ours."
The boys were tested early on when Meara-Bainbridge broke his arm in Kentucky, forcing them to return home before hitting the road again in the spring. They had plenty of hard days too, biking through torrential rainstorms and scorching southwestern temperatures, but it was nothing they couldn't handle.
"No one should think they're not qualified to do this," Perry said. "You don't need to be a star athlete, you just need the motivation and determination."
Their trip was chronicled on a Tumblr named "Nicky Sam and Charlie Visit America."
The trio started in Brooklyn in September 2012, carrying camping stoves, headlamps, waterproof clothes, and other necessities.
The boys stayed with friends along the East Coast, traveling from New York to Virginia ...
... down to Tennessee.
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