Aug 5, 2018 4 min read

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A world traveler, Stefan Wisinski visited northern Europe before arriving in Portugal. This “selfie” is from Storhaug, Norway.

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On the road with Pedro Pablo García Ortiz at Zambujeira do Mar, July 30

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Say the Pirates are playing the Cardinals, and you decide you want to walk to the game. Only it’s on the road, and the hike is more than 600 miles from Pittsburgh to St. Louis.

That’s approximately how far Peters Township native Stefan Wisinski plans to walk, but his journey is covering the length of a nation.

“One of his former roommates committed suicide last year, and it really affected him,” Kate Winter Cole, his fellow Peters Township High School graduate, explained. “His way of taking this tragedy and trying to turn it into something positive is by walking across Portugal.”

She is spreading the word locally about Wisinski’s efforts to raise $10,000 through the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe, with the money earmarked for two nonprofits: the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.

“He’s allowing people to choose which direction the funds are put into, or he will choose at the end,” Cole said.

Wisinski started his walk on July 25 in Faro, a town on the southern coast of Portugal. His destination is across the border to Santiago de Compostela, the burial place of St. James, and then to the coastal town of Fisterra, the westernmost point of Spain.

“He wants to stay near the coastline as much as possible,” Cole said. “It’s not always walkable, it seems like, from what he’s come across.”

As he makes his way north, Wisniski is providing social media update, including this July 28 report, edited for punctuation and grammar considerations:

“Today I walked 39 kilometers” – that’s more than 24 miles – “but got lost and had to backtrack 4 kilometers, which sucked, but we continue to walk. After eight hours waking we were 13 kilometers away, so we hitched a ride from two German girls to our town. But they have only one bed, so I’m going to camp for the night.

“There was no shade or cities or anything for 28 kilometers. We had nothing, only water (which ran out) and some fruit for the walk, which was over mountains. Never again.”

For the first several days, his friend Pedro Pablo García Ortiz accompanied him through picturesque coastal destinations including Quarteira, Lagos, Aljezur and Zambujeira do Mar. As Wisniski continued on his own as of Aug. 1, the trek wasn’t getting any easier.

“No marks, no signs and no place to stay makes this quite the adventure, as if it wasn’t already to begin with. Oh, well, I’ll keep walking.”

The situation should improve once he reaches Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, and the start of the Portuguese Way (Caminho Português) pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela.

On his GoFundMe page, Wisinski states the objectives of his fundraising as helping to:

• ”Understand and prevent suicide by supporting research looking at the causes of suicide, helping those who have suicidal thoughts or those who have lost someone to suicide, and working with federal and state government on policies to prevent suicide and care for those at risk.”

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• ”Make discoveries in understanding the causes and improving the treatments of mental disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, autism, bipolar, attention-deficit hyperactivity, post-traumatic stress and obsessive-compulsive disorders.”

He lists $10,000 as the amount he wants to raise.

“I know my goal is lofty, but I like to set my goals high so when I achieve them, they are that much more rewarding.”

For more information, visit www.gofundme.com/suicidal-prevention-fundraiser.