Originally published July 25, 2022

Renata is a legendary Czech-born adventurer and mountaineer. She was the first Swedish and Czech woman to climb Mount Everest and was listed in Outside Magazine as one of the world’s “25 adventure goddesses." 

In 2005, after the death of her partner, Göran Kropp (also a well-known adventurer), she embarked on what she calls the "Around America Adventure". She would circumnavigate the lower 48 US states by bike and kayak. When biking, she would pull her kayak behind her with a set of two wheels and while kayaking, she would ship her bike ahead of her at the next portion of the trip.  

She started in Seattle and paddled to San Diego, bicycled San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, continued kayaking around Florida to Eastport, Maine, and then bicycled back to Seattle across the northern portion of the US. Through this experience she became the first person to circumnavigate the US this way. This is a wild, unique, and beautiful story of what a true adventure really means.