Across America, at ten miles an hour.
“I am traveling all 50 states by bicycle, a month in each state.” Marissa Schmarsow has been on the road since November 2021, filming the people she meets. Twenty-one states so far.
My Story, in her own words: from the first 16.75 miles to her twentieth state. Ten minutes, recorded on the road in Missouri, July 2026.
I was taught I don’t have the right to complain unless I’m gonna do something about it.
Marissa Schmarsow
Send her down the road.
She paid for the bike, the camera and the gear herself, about $6,000, before she asked anyone for anything. She lives on about $20 a day. What the money changes is how far she gets and how much of it makes it onto camera.
Help Marissa document the ride
Her own GoFundMe, with no set target. It is separate from We Them Media’s fiscal sponsorship, so it is not tax-deductible.
In their own words.
Jim, Atkins, Arkansas. Asked what it is like to live at his RV park: “It’s peaceful. Most of the time.” And: “It’s just kind of what you make of it.”
Tom, on the road in Missouri. Cycling all 50 states too, which Marissa says is very rare to run into. He started because he “noticed other people online doing it,” and his children told him to go.
Hunter, the Illinois State Fair. Working the fair at night. Asked what he would ask the world: “Why are humans the way they are?”
Everywhere she has been.
Each state gets its own page, in the order she rode it. Start anywhere.
Pages on the way: Arkansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.
Slow enough to be let in.
She did not want to be a hypocrite. A trip about people building something better, run on a tank of gas, would undercut itself. She looked into horses first.
It is a pedal-assist bicycle, a Tern Vectron S10. She pedals, and the motor adds about half again to what she puts in. She rides at 8 to 10 miles an hour, and the bike and trailer weigh about 200 pounds.
At that speed she sees the bugs and the plants. And people treat you differently when you arrive tired, on a bicycle. That changes the conversations she gets.
Where the footage lives.
Marissa reports for We Them Media from the road. She decided to go, she paid for the trip, and she owns her footage and her direction. We help her make her content, and she pays us for that help. She is on our team page.