Wheels of Peace Project ~Iran
About Rick
Writer, photographer, public speaker—and cyclist, has spent more than 25 years as a journalist while cycling more than 40,000 miles through 40 countries around the globe.
Initiating his career as a photojournalist, Rick worked 15 years as a daily newspaper photographer before setting out on his bicycle around the globe.
Self-propelled for nearly 3 years, Rick cycled across America, France, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany, Holland, Scotland, Britain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tibet, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Borneo, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand.
Ultimately transformed by scenes of war, disease and poverty, Gunn began dedicating his journey’s to the greater good, photographing, writing, volunteering, and shining the light on those making a difference in the world.
His list of humanitarian projects are long, and varied.
He has volunteered or reported on orphans in Nepal. The impoverished in India and Bangladesh. He has volunteered at an AIDS hospice in Thailand, and taught English to impoverished students in Cambodia. He has spent time with bomb-extraction units in Laos and mine victim rehabilitation in Vietnam, as well as reforestation groups in Borneo, Tuberculosis victims in East Timor as well as aboriginal artists in the Australian outback.
Over the last three decades his writing and photography have appeared online and in a variety of books, magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, The LA Times, The Reno Gazette Journal, the Las Vegas Review Journal, USA Today, People Magazine, Bike Magazine, Nevada Magazine. Adventure Sports Journal Magazine, Adventure Cycling Magazine. Wend Magazine & Cerca Magazine.
Of late, Gunn has spent his time cycling in Iran, developing a peace-based letter exchange between the students of America and the U.S., as well as feeding more than 25,000 meals to the inhabitants of Europe’s largest Syrian refugee camp in Idomeni Greece.
During the course his travels Rick has been robbed at gunpoint in Ecuador, interrogated by officials in Uzbekistan, detained in Iran, had his underwear stolen in Kenya, been bitten by a poodle in Thailand, infested by leeches in Malaysia - and accosted by wild pigs in Laos.