With over 9 million views in the last month alone, the Walking America Couple has become a social media sensation and captured the attention of LaSalle Parish last week when they finally arrived in Olla.

Torin and Paige Rouse of Missouri, who will be married for two years next month, started their journey of walking through all 50 states on May 16, 2022. They made their way to Louisiana from Arkansas, traveling south on US 165 for the majority of the route, spreading a message of love and hope through the changing of the mind.

As explained by Torin, the message of their walk is to help people use their minds in new ways to change their entire life.

“The logo on our shirt (Change the Inside – Change the Outside) represents neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to form new neural connections), in this case, training your old connections to a more loving perspective,” the 31-year-old Torin said while eating breakfast at an Olla home last Tuesday morning (Jan. 14). “We’re really talking to people about all the ways our mind changes and adapts and we’re trying to deliver the kinds of tools through our content that people can use to not only retrain a healthy perspective but a more resilient perspective.”

His wife simplified their message, which they say they have learned while walking across America.

“It’s to show people how malleable we are and how we can train our minds to think in a different way, whether it’s being more content, more resilient or more loving towards our fellow man,” said 24-year-old Paige Rouse.

The intrigue of the couple, who are all smiles and purposefully wave at every vehicle that passes, has captivated many and their walks are constantly interrupted as people stop to visit and take photos. Their aged dog, Jack, is also a crowd favorite.

The Story Behind the Walk

From all accounts, Torin Rouse was a typical young adult several years ago. He was working a conventional job, a loan counselor, and wearing a tie to work every day. But from his own admission, it was the most miserable time in his entire life.

“I had the money, I mean, I wasn’t wealthy by any means, but I had access to all the things that make you happy – but I wasn’t happy,” he said. “I was cynical, very neurotic and I just decided I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life that way.”

So, he sold most of his belongings and left his home in Missouri to live a life of backpacking through the mountains.

“I started traveling the states, floated on my corporate savings a couple of years and then I went home to make some more money with a buddy who owns a commercial roofing company,” he said. “We went on the road to Jefferson City (MO) and that’s where I met Paige. She was my waitress. We bonded over a conversation over dietary ethics. I told her the third time that we hung out that she should get rid of all her stuff and run away with me with a back pack…and she laughed.”

“And after I laughed for a second, he said, ‘well, you didn’t say no’,” Paige interjected into memory. “Shortly after that, I decided to use his converted van (to live on the road in the van) as a stepping stone to a more adventurous life. At that time, I hadn’t even left my hometown. We moved to Denver to save up money and for a month and a half we lived in the van. It didn’t take long that I realized the van wasn’t as fulfilling for adventure or as challenging as I expected so I told him I wanted to do something on foot. Over the course of an hour, we conjured up an idea of how we would use carts so Jack could come because he’s older and can’t walk. The next day, we drove back to Missouri and started preparing to go walking.”

Torin said his journey of finding happiness in something other than what society says brings happiness has been a long trek for him personally, and it took his walk with Paige to finally discover what he says is the secret to true happiness.

“I had already been doing what might be considered a counterintuitive path to contentment,” he said. “Normally, we chase after the object of our desire in order to obtain happiness but if we pay close attention, we’ll realize that this is cyclical and that object, once its satisfied, just continues to get replaced by the next thing.”

He continued, “So, when we started the walk, we started it to subject ourselves to the kind of hardship and uncertainty that would allow us to acclimate to difficulty and uncertainty. To become comfortable with discomfort. If you acclimate to all of the pleasures and comforts of the world you have that height to fall from. But, if you acclimate to discomfort and very little, everything appears as a surplus and an abundance. That was what really started the walk. It was a reset for yourself so you can stop taking for granted so many of the things we often take for granted and it gives you new eyes to see the world through. It has everything to do with the mind.”

The first six months of their walk back in 2022 was not a public event. They had no website, no Facebook page and little social media interaction. It was a private walk for them as they focused on themselves.

“One of the things that I didn’t have in my own foresight was how much this was going to change me and allow me to become a stronger person,” he said. “I was very, very cynical of people in general and society – all of it.”

“Yes, he was very negative,” Paige interjected. “Very negative and very hard to be around,” Torin continued. “Yet, there were all these people from different demographics (along our walk) that kept coming out of the woodwork to help us that I never expected to. People whom I had demonized because I was plugged into the wrong filter bubble when I was concerned with the wrong things, not realizing the good that can be found in everything.”

Through the walk, Torin said his entire life changed as he was subjected to the good in the world and the impact so many people had upon him. He says he learned much about how people’s perspectives are shaped by their environments and the kinds of information they are consuming. This revelation of the power of the mind is what prompted the couple to take their walk and their message public.

Going Public

Armed with this new revelation, the couple started a Facebook and Instagram page, along with a website.

“The quality of our thoughts determines the quality of our life and of those around us,” the website proclaims. “Our mission is to deliver the kinds of content and tools which help retrain healthier thought patterns. If together we can change the inside, together we will change the outside.”

With Facebook and Instagram reaching thousands of people, they soon discovered the abundance of love and generosity that was extended by so many along their routes.

“I expected that we would be mostly fending for ourselves but every day people were stopping to help,” he said. “It’s an incredible amount of faith and trust that people put in us. They have no way to vet us or to actually verify that we are doing what we say we’re doing. And yet, we’ve slept in tons of strangers’ homes, people let us borrow their vehicles and they assist us along the way. In the beginning, they assisted us with no publicity.”

Their goal is to walk in all 50 states culminating with 12,000 actual walking miles through the states. They pick and choose their routes through each state carefully and walk a percentage of each state based upon population and size.

For their trek through Louisiana, they started at the Arkansas/Louisiana border and will end in Lake Charles. Family will pick them up in Lake Charles and carry them home, hopefully in time to celebrate their wedding anniversary in Missouri. When Louisiana is finished, they will have officially hit their halfway mark as Louisiana is their 25th state to walk through.

During the past nearly three years, they have stayed in over 400 homes and shaken multi-thousands of hands and taken as nearly as many pictures with those that stop and visit. Although Paige admits her parents are concerned for her safety regarding strangers and the potential of “bad” people in the world, she said she constantly assures them that people are largely good. But the traffic is another story. Her parents are most concerned about the couple getting hit.

According to the Rouses, they have good reason for concern. “We’ve had countless close calls,” Paige admits. “Distracted driving in general is the most dangerous. There are some that specifically don’t look distracted but refuse to give you more than a couple of inches of road.”

The couple walks against traffic, staying on the shoulder and in many instances, off the shoulder, depending on the congestion of traffic and the location.

“Because we drive everywhere, people are desensitized to the lethality of the vehicles that they’re wielding and it really is incredibly dangerous. Once you get over 50 MPH, the chances of you dying from getting hit by that vehicle as a pedestrian are almost assured.”

“And people don’t pay attention,” he added. “They’re talking on their phones, texting on their phones, eating, drinking, playing with the radio, etc. You see the tops of so many people’s heads. We wave at everybody and around 30% of the people who wave back at us have their phones in their hands.”

Making a Difference

The couple acknowledged that originally, they set out to make a difference in their own lives but over the course of time, they have realized a greater mission of making a difference in the lives of others.

“We have people reach out to us every day to talk to us about the way that we’ve changed their perspective and the improvements that we’ve had in their lives,” Torin said. “Emails, messages, there’s a lot of stuff that goes unseen because it’s not the kind of conversations that you want in a section of Facebook.”

“Some people just stop us on the side of the road and tell us what it means to them and how we’ve inspired them,” said Paige. “There was once a man who came out with an amputated leg who told us we inspired him.”

One of their most inspirational stories deals with an aged police officer who met them while he and his wife were eating at a restaurant.

“He told us he’d seen the worst of it all and he started to cry, saying he was happy that someone was out there showing the good that also exists in the world,” Torin said.

For Paige, that chance encounter at that diner was lifechanging. “That was one of the first moments that got super emotional and personable,” she said. “It was super impactful because it’s hard to see how you impact someone’s life when you’re just walking. You don’t see it most of the time but more and more we are reassured that it means something to a lot of people.”

For more information about the Walking America Couple, visit their website at walkingamericacouple.com or visit their Facebook page under the same name.