This week, one conversation kept finding its way into the next. It began at a lunch counter in Virginia, where a man told us how years of working alone had made it hard to feel at ease around other people. It carried through West Virginia, where communities are working to give people more places to gather, and onto the Appalachian Trail, where we found ourselves asking why our culture prizes doing everything ourselves.
By Friday, those questions carried a much heavier meaning. We sat with a mother who lost her son to alcohol addiction and a therapist who works with parents grieving substance-related deaths. Across Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., Week Seven brought us closer to the human toll of chronic loneliness, a public health crisis that touches four in 10 U.S. adults. We also met people working to change those conditions, many of them because they know firsthand what it feels like to be alone.
Day 39: Wytheville, Virginia
Our week began at Skeeter's, which E.N. Umberger opened as a grocery store on Main Street in 1925. The hot dogs he sold on the side eventually became the main event, and today it's one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants in Virginia, with more than 9 million Skeeter-Dogs served from the same red spinning stools.
We met Johnny, one of the cooks, and the conversation quickly turned to his own life. He spent years on the road, delivering home oxygen to patients, many of them veterans living with PTSD, and also driving a truck while his wife and three children were at home. The road was lonely, and coming home brought something he never expected. He struggled to be around people again. "It would feel like the house wasn't big enough for me," he said. The longer he spent alone, the more uncomfortable reconnecting became, until part of him wanted to retreat back into isolation.
His story showed us how loneliness can reinforce itself, as long stretches alone make being with people feel unfamiliar and pulling away starts to feel like the path of least resistance.
Today Johnny lives alone, and he'll tell you he isn't lonely. He and his ex-wife are best friends. He meets friends for breakfast almost every morning, and although he stopped drinking years ago, he still stops by the bar to see his buddies. When he had a heart attack, his siblings and friends rallied around him. "I have a great army around me," he said. "There truly are wonderful people in this world, but you don't hear about it anymore."
Johnny showed us that rebuilding routines after years of isolation takes real effort, and that the effort is worth it.
Day 40: Bluefield, Virginia, to Bluefield, West Virginia
The next day, we walked between two towns that share a name and a long history, with a state line running between them. Many streets were quieter than in other towns we've visited. One afternoon can only show us so much, and it still sparked a bigger conversation. When a community loses residents, businesses and gathering places, it loses the everyday encounters that help relationships form, and those losses weigh most on people with limited transportation or few existing ties.
We also talked about the hard choices local governments face. Roads, public safety and economic development all need investment. Loneliness is increasingly recognized as a public health concern, and social connection still rarely shows up in how we plan, fund and measure our communities. That evening, we had dinner at The RailYard, which opened in 2014 to help bring life back to downtown Bluefield, West Virginia, and give people a reason to gather there again.
Day 41: Bluefield and Princeton, West Virginia
At Bluefield City Hall in West Virginia, we met Curtis French, Anthony Heltzel and Regina Huff from the City of Bluefield. The city once had over 35,000 people and is home to just under 10,000 today, and its team is working hard to give residents more reasons and more ways to come together.
Curtis described a new downtown gathering space and a federally funded Safe Streets project that will add sidewalks where there are none, including a route college students walk every day. Anthony, who uses a wheelchair, knows firsthand how much sidewalks matter, and he believes steady improvements can go a long way toward helping people feel included. He also shared plans to restore the Travelers Hotel and Hotel Thelma, which welcomed Black travelers during segregation and appeared in the Green Book, as affordable housing with a museum telling their history.
Bluefield puts real effort into getting people out of the house. Its free Holiday of Lights draws about 65,000 visitors each year, and the city has hosted a sensory-friendly night, slowing the flashing lights and quieting loud sounds so children and adults with special needs can enjoy it too.
Regina, who moved to West Virginia after working as a park ranger in South Carolina, found people eager to welcome her. "You live here, you belong," she told us. She sees that care in the kids she works with. When she puts one child in timeout, the others often go sit with them. Regina knows suicide rates have risen in some mountain towns, and she sees real hope in a community where people of every age check on one another.
We heard that spirit all over the region. JP Marinus, owner of Sourdough Cafe Co., told us neighbors "will constantly show up at your house at all times of day and night just to make sure you're OK."
At Hatters Book Store in Princeton, owners Rebecca and Cody told us Appalachian culture means togetherness. "We've made friends who have become family," they said.
In Princeton, we also met Lori McKinney, cofounder of RiffRaff Arts Collective and Dream Bean Coffee House. In 2006, she remembers Mercer Street sitting about 80% vacant. Today it is close to full, and through music, festivals and years of relationship building, it has become a gathering place for people who never had one. Lori was candid about what that work has cost her. Doing something different in a small town can draw hurtful talk. "Who do you think you are? This is Princeton, West Virginia, this isn't New York City," she remembers hearing.
Her program We Need to Talk uses short films and songs about community issues to open honest conversations, because her goal is a culture of listening.
She also told us about the everyday connections that make a neighborhood feel like home, like Charles, who sweeps the Mercer Street sidewalk every day without pay. And she has felt the loneliness of being too busy to be present. She once learned that a man named Bobby, whom she had meant to visit, had died a year earlier without her knowing. When a woman named Betty asked her to lead a vigil for Larry, an open mic regular who had passed away, Lori watched the room fill with tears and memories and realized that being present for moments like that is the heart of her work.
Day 42: The Appalachian Trail
On Thursday, we spent several miles on the Appalachian Trail near Harpers Ferry. Many people set out to hike the whole trail alone. Along the way, they meet others heading in the same direction, and some walk together for a few miles while others share long stretches, encouraging one another through the hardest sections.
Our conversation turned to independence. From an early age, many of us learn to solve our own problems and take pride in getting through hard things without help. Independence has real value, and when needing support starts to feel like weakness, it becomes a barrier to connection. People hide their struggles. They feel embarrassed about loneliness and convince themselves they should handle it alone, and that reluctance deepens isolation.
Interdependence asks us to accept the same kind of help we gladly give others, and to trust people enough to let them into our journey.
We've been thinking about how much loneliness may be shaped by a culture that teaches people to hide their need for one another. The next day showed us the cost of that lesson.
Day 43: Frederick, Maryland
Friday brought two of the most emotional conversations of our entire journey. We met Jamie Eaton, founder of Living Through Loss, and Kelly Curtis, a mother who lost her son, Tommy, to alcohol addiction.
Kelly shared her family's story with remarkable openness. Alcoholism runs through generations of her family, and she became a caregiver for her own mother as early as kindergarten. She didn't drink until her 40s, when she began drinking to cope with a traumatic experience involving her daughter, and she has now been sober for 15 years.
"I didn't aspire to be an alcoholic," she told us. "And a lot of people don't understand that."
Tommy chose the Marines over college. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was quarantined in the barracks surrounded by heavy drinking and teased for not joining in. He wanted to fit in. Later, he was left behind during a deployment to look after empty barracks, and the loneliness deepened. Eventually, he called his mother and told her he thought he was an alcoholic.
Tommy's addiction progressed, and with it came shame. He was too embarrassed to come home. After leaving the military, he entered treatment and worked hard to recover. At 24, so much of a young man's social life revolves around drinking, and he struggled to picture fitting in without it.
"I would just pray for a stranger to say the right thing to him," Kelly told us. "And that person just never came."
Tommy died from the effects of his alcohol use. "My son died knowing he was loved," Kelly said.
Tommy had people who loved him deeply, and shame and the weight of his addiction made it hard for him to feel connected and supported. Kelly also told us about the loneliness that followed his death. People often assume parents failed their children or that the person struggling simply made bad choices.
"Someone smoking cigarettes and getting lung cancer isn't shunned the way someone drinking and dying of alcoholism is," she said.
Those judgments keep grieving families quiet. Kelly wants people to remember who Tommy was and how hard he tried. "He was so much more than his disease, but no one wants to talk about those things."
When we asked her what loneliness means to her, she gave us one of the most moving answers we've heard on this journey. "Loneliness is not being able to express myself to others who will understand."
Jamie sees that experience every day. A therapist for more than 20 years, she founded Living Through Loss after she couldn't find a support group for a client whose child had died of an overdose. More than 200 parents have since found their way to the community. Jamie believes loneliness plays a large role in addiction itself, and that stigma compounds the grief that follows. Parents love their children fiercely, and they can't bear the thought of others thinking poorly of them, so many stop talking about how their children died.
"Shame is a wasted emotion," she told us. "Shame keeps us in the darkness and healing happens in the light."
At Living Through Loss, parents can talk about anything, including grief, fear and even relief. On International Overdose Awareness Day, they gather for a "favorites brunch," bringing their children's favorite foods and playing their favorite songs while they share stories. "If love could keep your child alive," Jamie tells parents, "they'd still be here."
Kelly has found a new kind of family there, and among the people Tommy saved through organ donation. The man who received his heart planned to name his son after Tommy, and the family of the 13-year-old girl who received his lungs has welcomed Kelly as one of their own. She now paints rocks with QR codes that lead to Living Through Loss and leaves them around Frederick for anyone who might need them. Each Halloween, she dresses the skeletons in her yard in Tommy's clothes, the way he once did, and neighbors stop by to say,
"Tommy looks happy today." Kelly believes people die twice, once when they leave us and again when no one says their name. "If you want to do anything for me, talk to me about Tommy."
Jamie told us that sometimes the most meaningful support we can give is our presence, without trying to fix anything. "We heal in community. We cannot heal in isolation," she said.
Kelly and Jamie brought home why chronic loneliness is a public health crisis. Shame keeps people from seeking help, and stigma can leave whole families unable to talk about what they've lived through. Stigma begins to break down when it becomes personal, when people see the human beings behind the story. "We're not reaching out to each other like we should," Kelly said.
(If you or someone you love is struggling, you can call or text 988 any time to talk with a trained counselor.)
Later that day, at the end of the C&O Canal Trail, we met Cherie Turlington, who grew up in a family where every visitor had to stay for tea or lemonade. After a painful loss left her lonely, she started a welcome club in Mount Airy, Maryland, and for about three years it brought neighbors together over wine and cheese.
Day 44: Great Falls, Virginia
On Halloween, we continued along the C&O Canal Trail to the rushing water at Great Falls, then stopped by the Great Halloween Spooktacular, where hundreds of children, and quite a few dogs, showed up in creative costumes.
It also had us thinking about the other side of the holiday. Halloween, like so many celebrations, comes with expectations of company, of parties to attend and people to share traditions with. For someone without those relationships nearby, watching others celebrate can make the absence ache, and loneliness can feel heaviest when it seems like everyone else has somewhere to belong. Joy and loneliness can live side by side on the same afternoon.
It had us asking who might be standing just outside our celebrations, and how we can notice them and make room. A community grows stronger every time someone who feels on the outside finds a warm welcome in.
Day 45: Washington, D.C.
Sunday brought us to the end of the C&O Canal Trail and into Georgetown, and later to a Día de los Muertos celebration at The Wharf, where thousands of people gathered to honor loved ones who have died. At its heart is the belief that our bonds with the people we've lost live on through remembrance, stories and celebration.
After our time with Kelly and Jamie, it carried special meaning. Jamie believes our society has lost many of the rituals that once gave people steady chances to gather and mark important moments together, and that those shared rituals help people feel they matter.
At The Wharf, we watched remembrance practiced together, and we thought again about Kelly's request: talk to me about Tommy.
What we’ve experienced
For over seven weeks, we’ve seen how many different paths can lead to chronic loneliness.
For Johnny, years alone made coming home hard, and an army of friends helped him find his way back. In Bluefield and Princeton, we saw how population loss can thin out the places where people meet, along with people working hard to build them back. On the Appalachian Trail, we questioned the expectation that we should handle everything alone. And in Frederick, Kelly and Jamie showed us what happens when shame and stigma keep people from sharing what they're carrying.
Chronic loneliness can affect people whose pain is hard to see from the outside. Someone may have a family that loves them and still feel unable to talk about their struggles, or be surrounded by friends and feel profoundly alone in grief. Every one of us will face moments that call for support from other people, and the ability to ask for help, and to trust someone enough to share what we're carrying, can make an enormous difference.
We hope this journey encourages more people to become someone others can turn to, especially when what they're carrying is hard to talk about. Addressing chronic loneliness will take all of us, changing how we respond to one another's pain and recognizing how deeply our lives depend on the relationships we share.
Next, we head through Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey on our way to New York City, where we arrive on Nov. 7. We'll keep walking, and we'll keep listening.
If there's someone we should meet along the way, or a place in your community where people already come together, tell us.
And on Nov. 12, join us for the first National Day of Connection. At noon, take 12 minutes with someone you want to know better.
