By her tally, she has come 11,569 miles of the 15,000-mile adventure. Letofsky has raised $100,000 along the way. Donations received in the United States go to The Breast Cancer Fund. When in other countries, she directs donations to similar organizations in that country. Sometimes the money can go a long way. In Thailand, $2,500US allowed the establishment of a breast cancer department in a hospital and funded it for two years of operation. 

She estimates that 70% of the time she's been alone on the road, only occasionally being joined by a friend or kindred spirit or needing a male escort like in rural India. In that culture it¹s almost unheard of for a woman to travel alone, much less slog through tribal areas far from major cities. Some nights she just camps along whatever road she's on, but more often arrangements have been made for lodging. 

Sometimes she's in a room donated by a hotel or she's the guest of somebody from a Lions Club, the service group that has helped her all along the route with places to stay, media contacts and other needs. In Wausau, she slept in an RV provided by some friends who are accompanying her for a while, but spent her days either at the library researching the rest of her trip or at a downtown coffee shop catching up on journal entries and writing e-mails. 

Methods of raising money have varied as she went from the West Coast to New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia, India, Turkey, Europe, the U.K., Ireland and then with relief, back to the United States in mid-April. 

In Australia, "We'd go into this pub and they'd have this raffle. They'd raffle off a big slab of meat and we'd walk away with $200 and that would be the end of it."

 Letofsky has been intrigued with travel since she grew up in Minnesota, but never had a reason to take a trip of this magnitude. When she started noticing more and more people around her with breast cancer, she suddenly had a reason. She set off after four years of planning. 

"The timing was right," she says. "Breast cancer is all over the world and I'm a woman. No big sob story at all, just a woman walking for women."

 She has experienced no major health problems, a fact she credits to vitamins and not having to put up with worn shoes because one of her sponsors is New Balance Australia. She doesn't have to wait for holes in the soles. They provide a new pair every two months. "I'm on my 24th pair of shoes right now and No. 25 is waiting for me in Eau Claire."

She scrimped in order to have enough money to make the trip, but expenses were more than expected during one part of her travels. "Europe wiped me out," she says. 'People don't help in Europe, not like in Wisconsin where people are buying you lunch all the time." 

Her memories of Europe are sour for another reason, too. That¹s where she was during America's build-up to the invasion of Iraq and the worst facet of her trip so far was how she got trashed by people there who held her responsible for United States foreign policy. The best part was flying into New York City and "...finally being able to say you're an American without being chastised because of it." 

As she talks to people along the way, she tries to dispel some commonly held misconceptions about breast cancer. One misconception is that a woman with no family history of breast cancer doesn't have to worry. Not true, she says. Family history only boosts risk by 10%. All women are at risk for breast cancer, she says. All women should do self-exams and insist that all lumps be tested. "You can be your own advocate. If the doctor doesn't want to test it, then go to another doctor." Letofsky has a Web site at www.globalwalk.org. Her e-mail address is pollyswalking@yahoo.com. 

For people who want more information about breast cancer, she suggests contacting the American Cancer Society.