Walking Across the U.S. in 100 Days with Kianna Torres

Kianna Torres will be talking about why she’s choosing to build her first company as an entrepreneur in the public rather than in isolation by walking across the U.S. in 100 days, with the Adventurers’ Club among her first stops. From California to New York, Kianna will be stopping at colleges to include students in the building of foundational aspects of a new company. After graduating into the pandemic, all of life’s expected opportunities for any young adult did not only disappear but also compounded into lasting repercussions. Developing a normalization and preference for isolation led to an unexpected breaking point for her, seemingly out of nowhere. That’s when she realized humans are animals with primal needs that include socialization, physical activity, and new experiences. She had neglected these basic needs for so long that her body began to erupt in panic to signal to her conscious mind that these standards were not being met.

Though well-traveled growing up, visiting popular destinations on vacation like Spain, Italy, Germany, and more. Her desire to travel had completely gone dormant after this newfound state of being developed during the pandemic. Going on such a large journey across the U.S. is an active choice by her to reignite this desire through willful exercise. Domestic travel is a new experience not completely checked off of Kianna’s list, and she believes it’s only necessary to fulfill if the rest of the world is on her future docket. This trip was influenced by Kianna’s brief stint of excitement during the pandemic, when she witnessed on the news that life for young adults was blossoming in New York. Mask regulations were lightening, cafes were opening, and people were in the parks. Serendipitously, her friend had called the night before she was going to leave in secret to start a new life in New York to ask if she would consider moving there together. Two weeks later, they had found an apartment in Manhattan.

Luckily for the fruitful train system on the East Coast, Kianna was exposed to Amtrak and began dipping into domestic travel, training through big cities, small towns, and rural land all over the U.S. It had become her favorite mode of travel—unlike planes, trains had big bathrooms, plentiful snack cars, and allowed passengers to freely move around. However, she believes the states she passed through must be walked on to be considered ‘visited.’ Over her 100-day summer journey from California to New York, she’ll be walking through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. A camera crew will be filming her to capture the makings of an American entrepreneur. While the physical activity might seem like the highlight of the trip, Kianna and her team are determined to search for the American spirit in all of the land they touch, communities they visit, and people they meet. They are not only excited to find it but also to rely on their fellow Americans to guide them in doing so.

Kianna is a Californian native, a graduate of the University of San Francisco, and has lived in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Phoenix, and New York. She has a formal education in advertising and professional experience in advertising, tech, and law. Kianna is now an entrepreneur with the help of the Founder Institute in pursuit of building a company to make employment readiness simpler for college students, based on her own experience of being unguided in a growingly difficult process.

This program was organized by Reymundo Perez #1219.