Almost four years ago, I made what turned out to be a life-changing decision. I downloaded Wandrer, saw Greenville County was my default area, and casually said, “I’m going to run every road.” It wasn’t something I worked up to over time, it was the decision from day one. I just had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into.
I usually ran a few familiar routes from home or work, and I had started adding in some variety to spice things up a bit. Adding a new road here and there. It was fun to explore and tell stories about the new things I saw on the road less traveled. One day I was scrolling through Strava and I saw someone’s activity had “X new miles -From Wandrer”. I was hooked.
Some context for anyone who hasn’t been here: Greenville County currently sits at 4,451.18 miles (7,164.5 km) of roads and trails. There were over 4,700 mi (7,563 km) before I got a hold of it. Greenville is tall and narrow, and the center of the county consists of several cities and towns. The top is rural, and then it becomes mountains. The tallest peak in the state is just west of the Greenville County border. The bottom is rural farmland.
My Motivations
My Why. I think there are several aspects about myself that lend themselves to being a Wandrer. First there’s the exploring: Ever since I was a kid just riding bikes around the neighborhood with friends, I’ve had that curiosity about “what’s down that road” or “I wonder where that goes.” Then there’s the collecting: I collected comics, cards, and action figures. Now, I collect roads. Finally, there’s my desire to do hard things. The sense of accomplishment when you achieve them. This was a challenge that could set me apart from the crowd. I’ve never been a particularly fast runner, and I’ll most likely never find myself standing on the podium. This gave me that chance.
Stats
Now, sitting at 99%, it has taken me 6,787 miles / 10,922 km across 924 activities. 1,412 hours on my feet. That’s a total of 59 days nonstop. 549,879 feet / 167,575 m of climbing, or about 19 Everests from sea level. I ran on 647 separate days out of the 1,439 between signing up and now. 153 of those days I went out more than once.
All of that to cover 4,406 miles / 7091 km, which is 99% of the county. The extra 2,300 miles / 3,701 km are the costs of dead-ends and backtracking.
Competition and Leaderboards
For the first two years of this journey, I had virtually no competition on the Wandrer leaderboards. In November 2024, a guy saw what I was doing and he said he was trying to do the same thing in his town of Mauldin. I pointed him to Wandrer and he’s since been my first bit of competition. I have enjoyed keeping up with him on Strava and reminiscing about when I ran the routes that he posts.
I’ve been the leader of my state and county for practically every month since I started. While it’s been a bit challenging letting go and passing the baton in that aspect, I don’t plan on giving up on the State leaderboard.
My Process
I started near home, which happened to be in the suburbs of east Greenville. I worked on the familiar areas, filling out the center of the county before working my way north and south. One of my biggest struggles during this journey was finding safe and reliable parking. I had to be sure my car would still be where I left it when I got back, preferably unscathed.
I would run every other day, trying to run at least 10 miles / 16 km on each route. Because of this, I had to establish certain “bases” where I could leave my car safely while I completed an area. These bases would generally be a school, church, grocery store, shopping center, park, etc. Then I would do several runs from there to cover everything I could with 10ish mile runs, before finding a new base. I would often have several bases to choose from throughout the week, depending on how much time I had for the run that day.
Sometimes I planned routes in advance with Strava’s route planner. Sometimes I just winged it and made up the route as I ran. With the latter, I often got into trouble where I would run a lot further than I had planned to go. I like to think I was pretty flexible with altering a route based on what I discovered while on the run. I got pretty good at seeing future routes and saying “I’ll save that road for another run”.
I’m also a big researcher, so I would have often checked areas I was planning to run for potential private roads and viewed the satellite and street view for potential “sketchiness”. During the run I would use my phone with the Wandrer website open to view unfinished roads as well as to track which roads I covered that day. Eventually I signed up for the Wandrer native app beta for iOS and that was a game changer. Regardless I had my phone in my hand for the entire journey.
On a route, my priority was to run every road in that area as efficiently as possible, leaving no orphaned roads, so I didn’t have to return to that area later and re-run stuff I had already completed. There were occasions when I was running low on time or fitness, and I had to leave orphaned roads, but I tried to do that as little as possible.
With the number of roads with no sidewalks and fast moving traffic, the vast majority of my runs were early morning, often starting before 5:00am. Weekend runs turned into my favorites, where I could get in some daylight and take some photos. My pace was never much of a concern for me unless I was running low on time. The exploration and capturing photos was very much a higher priority.
Advice for co-completionists
- Establish bases, not routes. Find a safe parking spot (school, church, grocery store, park) and wring everything you can out of it before moving on.
- Keep a few bases live at once. Pick the one that fits the time you have that day.
- Do your recon. Satellite and street view will tell you about private roads and sketchy stretches before you’re standing on them.
- Avoid orphan roads whenever possible. Re-running covered ground to pick up one road you skipped is the most demoralizing mileage there is.
- Do your trails in the cool months. More on this below.
- Start close and work outward. It builds the tolerance you’ll need for the hard stuff.
- Load up Wandrer while you have cell reception. A few times, I opened it in a remote area only to find I had no signal, and therefore no map.
How I Evolved
An interesting part of this journey was how I evolved as a “Wandrer”. When I first started it was familiar areas close to home, suburban neighborhoods, etc. After the miles started building, so did my tolerance for risk. I went from areas I perceived as safe, to traversing those “sketchy” areas. I went from affluent sidewalked neighborhoods to remote rural roads with 55mph speed limits, loose dogs, and residents that aren’t too keen on strangers.
At one point I told myself if I were to do it over, I would split it up so that I was doing areas far away mixed in with the close so that I wasn’t driving long distances all the time at the end. However, the way Greenville County is laid out, the majority of the towns are grouped close together near the center of the county. The mountains are at the top and the bottom is very rural. I think my method of starting at the center and then spreading out to the top and bottom towards the end prepared me to tackle the unique challenges of those areas. Had I started in those areas first, perhaps I would not have had the tolerance to keep going.
The Sketchy Ones
I think the sketchiest road I ran was a dead-end in a rural part of the county. I had scoped it out several times on street view before finally attempting it. It was a large property, the yard littered with junk cars, trailers, and trash. Even loose dogs captured on the street view. When I actually ran it, it lived up to my dread. It was definitely creepy. When I made it to the end of the road, I was blocked in by a couple of pit bulls that came running out. Thankfully I had my pepper spray. I gave them a warning and was able to make it out unscathed.
Not every route went to plan. Construction, weather, a road that turned out to be somebody’s driveway. Plenty of reasons to cut one short. I never kept count of how many I bailed on. It didn’t bother me much. If I had to abandon something, I’d just fold the leftovers into a future route and move on.
The one that stuck with me was the morning I got bit by a dog. I was running through a public cul-de-sac when the owner’s dog came at me. She insisted the cul-de-sac was private property and that the whole thing was my fault. She was wrong on both accounts, but I still had to cut the run short and go get the bite checked out. She still gives me grief about it on my social media to this day.
Hurricane Helene hit our area pretty badly and closed several bridges. Those made for some interesting routes. Running each side of the road up to the bridge, then backtracking all the way around to get to the other side. The hurricane also left a lot of downed trees on the trails, which led to some fun bushwhacking trying to get around them.
Family and Community
When I first told my wife I was going to run every road in Greenville County, she just kinda smiled and said “okay”. I don’t think either one of us knew at the time what kind of investment that would turn into or just how big the county really was. It was really just me against me. I started a social media page a few months in to share photos as I went. No one else in my family is into running, but they tolerate me doing it and don’t complain too much when I never shut up about it. I did most of my runs in the early morning, often before 5:00am. This helped me to not only avoid traffic, but also limit friction with family time.
Our schedules changed a bit as my drives started getting longer. When it was an hour drive to get to new roads, it no longer made sense for me to come back home before heading to work. My wife got in tune with my running schedule, and would just not expect to see me that morning before work. She would just check on Life360 to make sure that I wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere.
Not every time, but quite often when I’m on a drive with my family, I’ll casually say “I’ve run this road”. I think they’re getting tired of hearing it. I don’t think they truly understand just how big our county is. I don’t blame them, because I had no idea until I explored it all. You just don’t get the scale of things until you traverse it all on foot.
About 3 years into the journey, I was contacted out of the blue from a local news reporter. She had just moved to the area and I think she was looking for an interesting story. I was at 72% of the county at that time, and my story aired on the local news the same day I met up with them to do the recording. Before then, there were just a handful of people that actually knew what I was doing. Shortly after the news report, I was contacted by another journalist for the state newspaper. That article came out in January 2026 at 84% completion.
The majority of this journey has been done solo. I think there have only been two occasions where I had someone join me for a route since I started the project. Which makes what’s about to happen a little strange. On July 10, 2026 I hit 99% of Greenville County. On July 25th, there is a “celebration run” planned for some folks that have asked about doing the “final” run with me. I have a 5 mile / 8 km loop set aside for the occasion. I’ve gathered a decent following on Strava and I’m looking forward to meeting some of the folks that have been cheering on my progress.
Lessons Learned
Some valuable lessons learned came when it was time to tackle the trails. Since unpaved is part of the total percentage of the county, I couldn’t skip those. There are approximately 240 unpaved miles / 386 km in Greenville. Greenville county is home to the most difficult trails in the state. For some reason, I saved the majority of the trails for the end, and it just so happened to be during the summer where it’s hot, humid, and overgrown. Going back I would definitely do those in the cooler months.
Also, trail miles are not equal to road miles. A few times I would plan trail routes that were the same distance as my usual road routes. Sometimes 15+ miles. That distance coupled with the technical terrain and elevation gain (often 3000+ feet / 914+ m of climbing), and I was cursing myself and doing everything I could just to make it back to my car. Note to self, make trail routes shorter.
Things I Found
I became a bit of a local history buff during this process. Previously I didn’t pay much attention, but I eventually got to a point where I would seek out historical markers so I could learn more about the area and then share my findings on Strava and my social media. The majority of these were in the southern end of the county. Sites of Revolutionary War battles, churches established in the late 1700s, and even the history of a bridge that evolved over 100s of years. I would find myself seeing names on headstones that were the same names of streets, later researching that those family names went back a few hundred years and the families are still living in those areas.
Have I gone insane? I think several people might think so as they drove by me as I ran up a busy 4 lane highway (that eventually becomes interstate) to the state line. Or they see me running back and forth at an intersection so I make sure to get every path out of the 6 lanes of traffic. Am I out at the local Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving? No, I’m out running one of the busiest intersections in town while the traffic is so light. Holidays are some of the best times to get those busy streets.
One run, I had to make a “pit stop”. At the time I was carrying my car key in my glove. This was about a 15 mile (24 km) loop. When I got back to my car, I realized my key was gone. It had fallen out during my stop. Needless to say I had to run another 3 miles / 5 km to get back to where I stopped, luckily found my key laying there, and then went on with my day. It was a nice heart attack.
There have been a plethora of wildlife sightings–bears, dogs, cats, skunks, foxes, numerous turtles rescued from the road, emu, donkeys, horses, and highland cattle. Surprisingly not many snakes. Also many interesting sights, including several road signs pocked with bullet holes, used hypodermic needles, and spent ammunition casings. I also found out that I’m not too fond of bats. Running at 4:00 in the morning in the mountains, the only light coming from your headlamp, and these furry dive bombers come swooping out of nowhere. It definitely gets the heart rate up. I’m not 100% sure it was a bat, but something ran into me out there, and that something eventually led to a full rabies vaccine series.
A Note on OSM
All that scouting for private roads had a side effect. I think I have successfully identified and updated every private road in my county on OSM (over 200 miles / 321 km of them). That’s about the extent of my OSM prowess. The most I do is update private roads, or add a trail path that hasn’t been added yet. I let the more experienced users do the complicated stuff like adding new construction, etc.
What I Listened To
Do I listen to anything while I run? Yep. Probably 90% of my runs I was listening to something. Music, Podcasts, Audiobooks. I even listened to the entire Bible. Podcasts are usually ones featuring Greenville or have a local runner as a guest. Music is wildly varied. Rock, rap, dubstep, movie scores, and even the rare country song. I couldn’t give you a top ten if I tried. I did things cyclically. I would be on audiobooks for a long time before I got tired of them and then switch to music, then switch over to a podcast and listen to every episode before switching to something else. Feel free to check out my Spotify. I may only be slightly embarrassed.
Final Thoughts
Overall it’s been an amazing journey and it’s definitely bittersweet to see it come to an end. For the longest time I always had a new route and new sights to see. I plan to visit the bordering counties next. I don’t currently have plans to complete them, but I’ve got to fill my itch to explore somehow.
A fellow Wandrer, sparky_mcfly, shared the following that resonates deeply. I couldn’t have said it better myself so I’ll quote him here:
“I treasure the memories of historic battlefields, hidden parks, old cemeteries, incredible mountain views, farmlands that look the same as they would have 200 years ago, sunrises and sunsets, a regular old tree that the light hits just the right way that compels me to stop and take a picture, and countless places I’d never have experienced without the game. And like you, that includes being chased by my fair share of onery dogs, a run in with a mamma bear with cubs, and an encounter with a bat that ended with a full rabies vaccine series.”
Oddly enough, I share every one of these experiences with him. Even the rabies vaccines. Looking back, I don’t think this project was ever really about completing a map. Somewhere along the way it became about understanding the place I’ve called home for years. I discovered roads I’d driven a hundred times but never really seen, learned local history I’d never paid attention to, and realized just how much there is to appreciate when you’re moving at a running pace instead of driving 45 mph. If I achieve anything through this journey, I hope it’s that someone decides to explore somewhere they’ve never been. You don’t have to run every road in a county. Just pick a road you’ve never been down before and see where it leads.
