Hold My Fosters: Dave Kunst Walk Around The World

A wild idea in a Minnesota movie theater turns into a four-year odyssey across continents, palaces, deserts, and a war-torn frontier—only to be shattered and reshaped by a midnight ambush in the Afghan mountains. We follow Dave and his brothers from a rainy hometown send-off to a photo-op in Manhattan, a meeting with Princess Grace in Monaco, and the hard reality of Cold War borders that forced detours and difficult choices. Along the way: a mule named “Willy Make It,” letters from Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, wintering in Turkey, and a charitable tie-in with UNICEF that promised meaning beyond the miles.

The journey’s heart is complicated. After John’s death, Pete steps in so two brothers can finish what two began. Bureaucracy blocks the ideal route, so the path bends through India’s crowded roads and into Australia’s vast Outback, where solitude tests resolve and a schoolteacher named Jenny quietly becomes essential support. By the time Dave crosses the Pacific and trudges home through the Rockies and the Plains, the story is no longer a simple tale of grit. A blunt interview strips away the hero varnish and exposes the raw motive: a man who walked out of a life he didn’t want, and the fallout that followed.

Expect adventure and its cost: endurance under a brutal sun, embassy fixes, political no’s, and a Guinness record won at great personal price. We talk ethics and ambition, why “firsts” are rarely clean, and how a cause can coexist with contradiction. If you’re drawn to hard roads, human contradictions, and the thin line between courage and selfishness, this story will stick with you long after the credits roll.

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