[This post contains a description of a sexual assault. The national sexual assault hotline is听1-800-656-4673.]

On May 2, 2014, with $12,000 saved, Angela Maxwell left听her best friend鈥檚 home in Bend, Oregon, to start a five-year walk around the world. There鈥檚 no pre-approved path for the small ranks of pedestrian circumnavigators, the dozen or so people who鈥檝e claimed they鈥檝e walked around the world鈥攕o Maxwell devised her own route.听She traveled听the 175 miles to Portland, and then across western Australia. She next headed to Vietnam, where she hiked 60 miles from Da Nang to Hue and then spent three weeks recovering from dengue fever. A year into her circumnavigation,听she arrived in Mongolia.听One night,听a two weeks鈥� hike from 惭辞苍驳辞濒颈补鈥檚 capital city of Ulaanbaatar, in a valley surrounded by mountains, a听stranger entered her tent and听raped her.听鈥淚t was the moment that every woman is afraid of before they go out into the world,鈥� the 37-year-old former business consultant says.

After the attack鈥斺�渋t was over in minutes,鈥� Maxwell says鈥攈er assailant left. Maxwell packed her gear, hiked a few miles to put distance between herself and her attacker, and sat down next to the cart that she used to carry her supplies; she worried that if she set up her tent again, she might be spotted. The next morning, she walked a day and a half to a nearby village, paid for a room in a family鈥檚 home, and sought out local authorities. She also called her best friend in Oregon, whose front door Maxwell had walked out to begin her trip. 鈥淚 needed to actually say to someone I trusted that I had been raped,鈥� Maxwell says. 鈥淲e wept together, she wept for me, and after we felt that pain听and that horror, she said, 鈥業 need to give you a pep talk. You knew this was a possibility. To walk alone in the world, as a woman, is to become a vulnerable target鈥攏ot to most people听but to those who wish to do harm. And now that this has happened, you have faced your worst fear. So now is your time to be the woman you set out to be. To be brave.鈥欌�澨�

Maxwell says she never considered abandoning her trip. Instead, she took the Trans-Siberian Railway听to Moscow听and then flew to the country of Georgia and walked from its capital, Tbilisi, to Turkey. Over the next three years, she pushed ahead. She traveled back and forth to Australia, where she had developed a relationship with a rancher. She ping-ponged from Sardinia and Sicily to Scotland, to New Zealand, to England, and then back to Italy to avoid overstaying her Schengen visa.听But she struggled to keep her emotions in check: 鈥淚 blamed myself,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 had disdain for anyone around me for the first month. I had images of Kill Bill鈥搒tyle cutting the guy鈥檚 head off.鈥澨�

As time passed听and Maxwell began to tell her story鈥攆irst on social-media posts, and then in at the University of Edinburgh in February 2018鈥攚omen who had experienced abuse reached out to her. Maxwell still remembers the first email she received after beginning to publicly share the outlines of her attack. 鈥淚t was from a woman in her twenties, who had grown up being abused by the men in her life,鈥� Maxwell says. 鈥淪he found herself staying in her comfort zone, even though she wanted to go on an adventure.鈥� Maxwell encouraged her to travel. 鈥淪he sent me pictures from the Camino de Santiago,鈥� Maxwell says. 鈥淎nd I realized it was my responsibility to answer all of those emails听and help these women through it.鈥澨�

This听summer听she made听her听way from Virginia to New York City to Ohio, and after a one-month break in Georgia, she has returned to the road听to finish her circumnavigation, with a final push from Columbus, Ohio, to Denver and then up and over the Rockies and back to Bend. When Maxwell arrives back in Oregon, likely sometime in early 2020, she will have walked nearly 24,000 miles. Most people change over the course of five years, and those changes are especially pronounced throughout an expedition across a dozen-plus countries. The attack in Mongolia, though, shaped and channeled those changes in Maxwell: if she left Bend an adventurer, she will return to it as an advocate. Maxwell has dedicated this U.S. portion of her journey to , an organization devoted to creating a safe haven for survivors of gender violence and human trafficking. (She鈥檚 raised $8,600 so far.)听She is pitching a television show about women at work鈥攚hether as firefighters or farmers鈥攊n communities around the world. And she has become a digital pen pal and supporter of women who鈥檝e suffered abuse but dream of traveling the world as she has.

Before she left, Maxwell鈥檚 parents had beseeched her to stay home. Her father and stepfather warned her against the perils of her trip.听Both men died during her walk, her biological father from a heart attack in August 2016 and听her stepfather from lung disease earlier this year.听Now听Maxwell meets parents whose daughters want to travel the world, and she strives, she says, to balance candor with encouragement. 鈥淭hat was the challenge.听How can I talk about this so I don鈥檛 make people more afraid?鈥� she says. 鈥淚 say to them what I said to my own fathers:听鈥業鈥檓 less afraid of being attacked than I am of being resentful of you for holding me back.鈥欌��听In this,听Maxwell has created a high-wire act of delicacy鈥攖o be an example of a woman who has encountered violence in the world听and to also be an example of going forth anyway. 鈥淚t is a tricky place to walk, and I鈥檓 still navigating it,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 won鈥檛 diminish what happened听but neither will I let that be the memory I take away from this time in my life.鈥�

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