[5][6] His journey linked 22 rivers and waterways in 22 states over 22 months, from Astoria, Oregon, to New York City, with a circuit of the Statue of Liberty as the grand finale.

[7] Moore was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, where he attended Highland Hall Waldorf School and was neighbors with the actor and comedian Richard Pryor.

By 19, he moved to South Africa to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an experience he later wrote about as a non-practicing Mormon, published by Der Spiegel[9] and expanded into a memoir, Homelands.

His trip took place in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic[16] and the year leading into and following the contentious 2020 United States presidential election as he explored the threads that tie Americans together – even during a time of extreme polarization by race, class and political ideology.

The book describes his time as a naïve, 19-year-old drug-addled sixth-generation Mormon missionary in South Africa as the Group Areas Act of Apartheid was beginning to unravel.

The coming-of-age story is set against the backdrop of the Bantustans of the tribal Ciskei and Transkei between the volatile years of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison and ascension to power.