I Backpack Across America. These Are My SCARIEST Stories.

My name’s Noah Matthews, and for the last six years, I’ve been backpacking across America. I’m not talking about the vacation version of it—no luxury cabins, no curated Instagram photos at national parks, and certainly no relaxing sunsets. I’m talking about the raw, grueling reality of the road. I’ve lived out of a forty-pound pack, sleeping in cheap, run-down motels when my budget allowed, and huddled in campgrounds or roadside ditches when it didn’t.

To keep moving, I’ve done every job imaginable. I’ve cleaned up construction sites in Oklahoma, unloaded freight trucks in the middle of the night outside Dallas, and scrubbed dishes in an Idaho diner for three weeks just to afford a new pair of boots. One year, I spent four months cleaning campsites at a state park in Oregon, trading my labor for a cot in a freezing, spider-infested maintenance shed.

People think this lifestyle is about freedom. It is, but it’s a heavy, uncomfortable kind of freedom. You are constantly hot, perpetually tired, and perpetually covered in grime. You develop a survival instinct that normal travelers never need. You learn which gas stations are safe, which small towns turn hostile after dark, and which stretches of highway are “unfenced” because they are effectively lawless.

Most importantly, you learn that America is not just big; it is hauntingly, terrifyingly empty. When you walk, you realize how much space there actually is—miles upon miles of dirt, forgotten mountains, and broken telephone poles with no human presence for hours. In places like Nevada, the horizon feels like a physical barrier you can never cross. In the dense forests of Washington, the sunlight is choked out by ancient trees, and the air stays thick with a permanent, wet fog.

Most people assume the danger of the road is criminals—serial killers or gangs. Honestly, those were rare. Most people I met were just tired folks trying to get from A to B. But every once in a while, you cross paths with something that defies logic.

The Woman in the Buick (Flagstaff, Arizona)

The cold hit me hardest in Northern Arizona. People associate the state with blistering heat, but the high desert near Flagstaff drops to bone-chilling temperatures once the sun sets. I was stranded outside a derelict gas station, the kind with flickering, dead lights and a clerk who hadn’t uttered a word to me. My pack was heavy, my heels were blistering, and I was desperate.

Then, I saw the white Buick. It was unnervingly clean, reflecting the moonlight like silver. When it pulled over, an elderly woman in a light blue sweater leaned toward the passenger window. She looked fragile, her skin pale and thin.

“Need a ride?” she asked, her voice calm and soothing.

I hopped in, smelling lavender and stale dust. She told me her grandson, Barry, used to backpack. As we drove into the pitch-black highway, she started asking strange questions—was I married? Did I have a girlfriend? She stared at me with an intensity that made my stomach churn. “You have the same eyes,” she whispered.

I grew quiet, watching the road ahead. There were no other cars. The air in the car turned freezing, even though the vents were closed. When she reached over and touched my arm, her hand felt like ice—the kind of unnatural, biting cold that leaves a mark. “Barry used to do that too,” she said.

As we neared a red light at an intersection, the panic finally overwhelmed me. I turned to look at her, and my heart stopped. Her eyes were gone. Not hollowed out or bleeding, just gone—smooth, empty black pits of nothingness staring right at me while she continued to smile. I threw the door open and scrambled onto the asphalt. As the car rolled away, I watched the taillights. They didn’t turn or fade into the distance; they simply dimmed and vanished into the solid darkness. Later, I found a record of a student named Barry Collins who went missing in 1987. I looked just like his photo.

The Man with the Radios (Tonopah, Nevada)

A few months later, I met Dennis Warren outside Tonopah. He picked me up in a red truck cluttered with batteries, maps, and three handheld radios. Dennis was different—he didn’t talk about his family; he talked about “things” that moved in the desert.

“You ever seen lights out here?” he asked, staring at the empty expanse. “People disappear in Nevada all the time. They think it’s heat stroke or dehydration. But that’s not always it.”

His truck felt like a cage. He kept asking me if I’d ever woken up somewhere and not remembered getting there. He had a rifle under a blanket, and his eyes were constantly scanning the sky. When he finally pulled a giant flashlight and shone it directly into my face to “study my eyes,” I didn’t hesitate. I jumped from the moving truck, hitting the dirt and rolling as my gear skidded behind me.

I survived. Months later, I saw a missing person’s flyer for Dennis Warren. His truck had been found abandoned near the exact spot he picked me up. He was never seen again.

The Eyes in the Fog (Olympic National Park, Washington)

In Washington, the forest felt prehistoric. The fog was so thick I could barely see my own feet. I was hiking a remote trail when I saw a snake crossing the path—it was as thick as a car tire and seemed to go on forever. I didn’t want to know what kind of creature could be that size.

That night, camping on a ridge, I heard footsteps. They weren’t bear steps; they were rhythmic, heavy, and purposeful. I lay in my tent, paralyzed, as something breathed—deep, wet, guttural breaths—right outside the nylon wall.

The next evening, I saw them. Two orange points of light glowing deep in the valley below. They were spaced too wide to be any animal I knew. They blinked, vanished, and reappeared a hundred yards closer within seconds. I ran. I ran until my lungs burned, with the sound of breaking branches keeping pace with me through the trees. When I reached the ranger station, gasping for air, the ranger simply asked, “Orange or yellow?” When I said orange, he just muttered, “You were lucky,” and refused to say another word.

The Foster Family (Missoula, Montana)

The final straw occurred near Missoula. I found a campsite at twilight, occupied by the Fosters—Adam, Kelly, and their daughter. They were polite, offering me coffee and acting like the perfect family. Their gear looked a bit vintage, but I was just happy to have company.

I slept well, but when I woke at 1:00 AM, I found a ranger standing at the site with his flashlight. He was confused to see me there. When he approached the tents, they were empty. Not just “the family left” empty—the tents were untouched, filled with personal items, a child’s stuffed animal, and a leather wallet.

The ranger opened the wallet and went pale. He pulled out a driver’s license. The picture was Adam Foster, but the issue date was 1951. He looked at me, trembling. “A family disappeared from this campsite in 1952. They were never found.”

Final Thoughts

I still backpack, but the world feels different now. I don’t trust the silence of the woods anymore, and I certainly don’t get into cars with strangers. I’ve learned that there are pockets of this country where the rules of reality don’t quite apply. There are places where people go missing and leave no trace behind, and places that seem to exist in a different time entirely.

Most people tell me I’m being paranoid. They want to believe in logic, in science, in explanations. I used to be like them. But when you spend years walking the backroads of America, you learn that your instincts are the only thing keeping you alive. Sometimes, you encounter something you were never meant to see—and the only way to survive it is to walk away, keep moving, and never, ever look back.

I Backpack Across America. These Are My SCARIEST S...