His Next Global Journey Will Be Easier on His Feet

David Kunst, 49, figures there’s only one great adventure left for him, since he has already walked around the world.

“Now I’d like to sail around the world,” said the Costa Mesa apartment manager, who took 4 years, 3 months and 16 days to complete his 14,500-mile walk, which started from his home in Waseca, Minn. He doesn’t plan to take that long to complete his voyage.

“To be honest, the voyage may be years away. But if Dave Kunst can walk around the world, he can do anything,” he said. “If you have good health, you can do anything. And I have good health.”

Kunst is listed in the latest edition of the Guiness World Book of Records, which also printed a picture of him and his Portuguese mule, Willie-Make-It II, the animal that carried his equipment during much of the trip.

Kunst started the global walk with his younger brother, John Kunst, who was shot and killed by bandits in Afghanistan. David was also shot, but after recuperating in the United States, he went back to the scene of the shooting to continue his walk.

Ever since he finished the walk in 1974, Kunst has been talking about the trip to anyone who will pay him or listen to him. His biggest audiences are usually at school assemblies. He charges $190 for a two-part talk.

“I deliver an upbeat, motivational, goal-setting talk to stimulate all those things in kids,” said Kunst, who now wakes up at 3:30 a.m. to deliver newspapers. “That’s how I stay in shape.”

Kunst said he could talk for hours about why he took the walk and how he set goals to do it. “I wanted to do something different,” he said. “I wanted to be adventurous, just like a lot of people.”

In virtually every town he passed through, Kunst was interviewed, partly because of his authorization to use the walk to raise money pledges for UNICEF, the U.N. emergency fund for children. At one point, a Newsweek correspondent walked along.

Kunst said his talk has “adventure, tragedy, romance and intrigue.” The romance comes in the story of his marriage to Jenni Samuel, whom he met at a party in Australia. “She helped me with the walk by driving a car 1,000 miles in low gear while I walked beside it,” he recalled.

Samuel is now a teacher at El Camino Real Elementary School in Irvine.

To reach his new goal, Kunst and another brother, Peter Kunst, 45, of Newport Beach, bought a sailboat and are taking sailing lessons.

“After we get some sailing experience and raise some money, we’re going to take off,” he said. “We even have the route picked out.”

When David Kunst delivers his talk to more mature groups, such as senior citizens or fraternal organizations, he tells them: “I never want to go back to an 8-to-5 job, and I’ve never been one to go out and bust my butt for money.”

And getting older shouldn’t be an obstacle, Kunst said. “I tell senior citizens we both may have to go slower, but we can do it. When my time is up, I would rather it happen while I was sailing than when I was sitting in a rocking chair.”

It’s a good thing Jennifer Toth, 37, has a degree in psychology, because she spends her days listening to complaints.

“The first thing I had to understand was that the complaints were not directed at me,” said Toth, who heads the new consumer affairs department for the Irvine Chamber of Commerce. “I had to get beyond the point where I felt people were picking on me.”

Toth, the mother of two children, said the chamber’s pilot program “was meant for me,” noting that she has worked as a store manager and has a consumer background.

She said her office got 71 complaints the first 2 weeks after it was established recently on a 16-month trial basis. “But most of them were about one company. Most businesses are legitimate, but every so often, we get some fly-by-nighters that move into town and create a problem.”

Toth, who lives in Irvine, said other consumer people advised her to “get a thick skin.” Still, there are rewards, she said.

“Every so often someone will call or write a letter and say thank you.”

Acknowledgment--Huntington Beach resident Heather Church has won the R. Dudley Royce Outstanding Student Award, which is given annually by the Associated Students at Golden West College to the student who most exemplifies the qualities of scholarship and leadership. The award is named after the college’s founding president and includes a $1,000 scholarship.