7,200 Miles and Counting: Daniel Storey's Audacious World Cup Road Trip Across America

Daniel Storey has done some mad things in his time, but his latest venture might just take the biscuit. The former Football365 writer is embarking on a seven-week, 7,200-mile odyssey across America to cover the World Cup – and he's doing it entirely by car. No flights, no shortcuts. Just him, a hire car, and the open road stretching from the Washington coast all the way to Maine, stopping at nine different stadiums before finishing at the final.

When news of this lunatic scheme filtered through, the natural reaction was to question his sanity. But there's method to the madness, or so he insists.

"I can't believe I'm getting to do this," Storey explains, though he readily acknowledges the growing chorus of people asking exactly what he's thinking. The appeal, he reckons, lies in the project itself. "I love a project, projects work to show off our content and the best projects contain an element of 'what the f***, really?'. I hope that takes readers on the journey with you."

The daily grind will be punishing. Four hours of driving per day on average is the plan – checkout at 11, arrive at 3, then crack on with the work. Match coverage, bar conversations, filing pieces. It's relentless, but finite. Five weeks of absolute chaos followed by a slightly gentler pace on the east coast.

The concerns, though? Those are legion. Storey doesn't do relaxation, and his worry list reads like a comedy sketch written by someone with severe anxiety. The car breaking down in the middle of nowhere. Theft or break-ins. Parking nightmares at accredited matches with no clue how to reach stadiums. Two bad hotels in a row would sting. And then there are those long motel nights, when every mistake ever made comes back to haunt you on an endless loop.

Yet he remains bullish about the football itself. Yes, there's a sense that this tournament lacks the usual buzz – Trump, the sheer size of it, the interminable group stage – but Storey reckons that's par for the course two weeks out. Once club football finishes, excitement will build. And this is the World Cup, after all.

The bigger picture matters too. This is a heavyweight tournament in terms of issues. More teams than ever before means rediscovering players on the biggest stage. It's the final hurrah for Messi and Ronaldo. It's the first major tournament of the post-Southgate era. Around eight countries could realistically win it. The football, frankly, will be relentless.

Storey's coverage will reflect the complexity. Between 12 and 14 major feature ideas are already gestating, shaped by conversations he'll have on the road. The extreme heat. Public transport chaos. FIFA's dynamic pricing model. Watching Messi one last time. Whether America even knows a World Cup is happening. Iranian fans attending their first match in the US. Security and surveillance concerns. Whether LGBTQ+ pride has been sidelined. The list goes on.

He's not arrogant enough to think he'll be the only one tackling these angles – this is the biggest tournament in history, after all – but the road trip element offers a different lens. Regular travelogue newsletters, Instagram diary videos charting his descent into madness, weaving the journey into the features themselves. The aim is authenticity, genuine love for the sport, and taking readers along for the ride.

It's ambitious, exhausting, and yes, more than a touch mad. But then again, that's rather the point.