By Lenny Strauss
Hometown Weekly Correspondent
Over the summer, Needham resident Michael “Mike” Miles completed a four-day solo journey that followed the Charles River from its source in Hopkinton MA, all the way to Boston by kayaking and hiking. On top of the rigors that came with this journey, Mike also filmed the entire trip, uploading his experience to YouTube in a four-part video series, giving his audience a first-hand look at what it takes to undergo and complete a trek of this magnitude.
We at the Hometown Weekly had a chance to speak with Mike, as he reflected upon his completed journey along the Charles, to talk about his experience both traveling and documenting his endeavor.
LS: “What inspired you to take on the entire length of the Charles River, and how long did the planning process take?”
MM: “I had a lot of fun with the planning! I did this trip in mid-July, but I'd started planning it in November 2025. I had thought about it a few times before, I think everyone has these ideas of ‘wouldn’t it be cool to do this?’ and I watched a lot of videos, grew up watching people like Bear Grylls do things; I have some people on YouTube I watch that do similar adventures. Theres somebody named Ed Pratt who’s done the whole river Thames, which took him weeks to do. I actually had a chance to talk with him about how to record stuff, which was great.”
“So, I got to a point where I was just watching all these videos, reading a couple Boston magazine articles from 2024 of other people doing it, and decided that I really wanted to do something similar, and it was something I would be able to do. So, I started planning. On Google Maps, you can create custom maps. I marked out every single dam I could find on the river, every road crossing, I started doing street view to figure out how far I could travel in a day? How long will it take me? What other logistics should I be considering? I would work during the day, and at night slowly build up a plan. I made a flow chart and spreadsheet, just considering back up plans and what to do as I meet my goals. I picked the week to do it, which turned out to be the right one, and that was that!”
LS: “When watching your videos, I am taken by how well you documented your journey while actively traversing it and dealing with the challenges you face. How did you balance the physical demands of kayaking and hiking with the creative demands of framing shots, managing battery life, and keeping equipment dry?”
MM: “You'll see this a lot in the first video, especially when I get to the kayak. I was using three different GoPro cameras. Every day after that, all the footage is only from one camera and this is one of the pieces of advice I got from a EdPratt; Before I had the GoPro, a 360 camera and an older one I was trying to use at once, he suggested to just stick with one. Because it's so hard to coordinate the videos between three things, and the first day was so challenging after the first day I realized, Ed was right. I'm just going to carry one camera for the rest of the time. I used AI to help me come up with a story plan of what I needed shot.”
“At the beginning every day, you know, I have a self-interview at the beginning and end of every video. They were questions I came up with preparing for the day. Those questions helped to craft the story of the video and gave me direction of what I wanted to shoot.”
“So, I knew day one, here's the things I want to make sure I get video of me walking past, or me getting the kayak, or any sort of challenges I would discuss on video. Each day I would focus on something slightly different. I knew I was going to make these videos and that because I would be laying out the storytelling, that I didn't have to think about too much, because I kind of knew the plan for the day, and I could just turn the camera on and off when I needed to and always record more than I would expect to use, which gave me a lot of footage to work with and cut out.”
LS: “You do a very good job of demonstrating the challenges of the upper Charles River in your videos, shallow waters, downed trees, tight and winding streams. How much of the early stages would you say required hiking and dragging your kayak versus actually paddling? Were there any moments where a situation became so challenging or risky that you had to stop filming entirely to focus on safety?”
MM: “For that first day, half of the day is when I’m in the kayak, but even with that, there was just so much getting out and pulling the kayak along. There are some parts I wasn’t able to record, because I was watching the time and making sure I could get to where I needed to be. I would be so tired at some parts I couldn’t even record. If I came across an obstacle like an unknown dam I couldn’t row around, I would have to get out and drag the kayak through the woods until I found a trail. Many times, it was figuring out how I can get through this and find my way through? My goal was always to record, but safety is the number one concern, so there were times I decided not to record because I know it wouldn’t be safe to do. I talked about this in my Day 1 video.”
“I thought I was clear of all the river weeds, and I get to this one part, and I'm going through it, and they're getting thicker and thicker. There were a bunch of them below me, and also growing six feet above me, and I couldn’t see behind, or around me either. I wasn’t even sure I was still in the river or heading off to the bank. It got so thick that it stopped my kayak. I thought to myself, I can't get out because I don't know how deep it is and how muddy it is, and I feel like if I get out, my boots will get tangled. At that point I said, all right, I just got to kind of muscle through, and that was one of the things where I would say, out of the whole trip, that was the scariest part, just worried that If I was stuck here in the middle of all these weeds, no one would see me. That first day was mainly me getting out and pulling the kayak through, or dragging it over rocks, so a lot less paddling than I would have expected.”
LS: “What would you say was the most bizarre interaction you had with an animal that crossed your path?”
MM: “It happened when I was on my kayak going down the river. I ran into this beaver dam. As I was debating on whether to go up and around it I noticed this huge stone, that when I got closer to it I noticed was this giant snapping turtle! I decided not to risk it stepping out there and having it snap my ankles, so I just got out and walked along the train tracks for a little while.”
LS: “How did it feel when you crossed those final bridges and entered Boston Harbor? Now having completed the journey, is there something you would have done differently?”
MM: “I don't think I would have changed much about how I planned the journey, my Day 3 video which I uploaded this past week highlighted some of the bigger choices I was faced with, which determined if I did this in 4 or 5 days. But once I got into the Boston, past the Watertown dams, I was so excited because I've done that part of the river many times in my life. Once you paddle into that area by the Esplanade, with all those sailboats, it’s cool to think how different it is compared to those first couple of days. At the same time its also the part of the river that people know about the most. I was so excited when I finally made it through, like, wow, I actually did this. I couldn't believe I actually did it, so it went as well as I could have expected.”
LS: “Do you have another adventure in mind for the future?”
MM: “That is the first question my wife asked! I feel like I’m good for now, but I know I’ll want to do something else down the line. One of the reasons for my taping the whole thing was to show my kids that you can do something hard, run into unexpected challenges and overcome them, and putting it on YouTube let me show that to everybody. I don't know what the next thing is; I know there's a 91-mile trail you can walk around Boston, which sounds fun, but I’m waiting for that spark to come along that will get me to plan my next journey.”
Readers! For those interested in learning more about the wonderful natural habitat that surrounds us, as well as exploring such a well-known body of water so close to home, feel free to follow Mike’s journey on his YouTube channel! His four-part video series breaks down his gauntlet and puts all his viewers right into the action.
