Richard Smith, 23, will risk being arrested for falling asleep in a cheese factory in South Dakota and going whale-hunting in landlocked Utah. He intends to break about 40 strange state and town laws as he crosses America, starting from the notorious former prison island of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay.

His 18,000-mile journey across the continent will end in Hartford, Connecticut, where it is illegal to cross the road while walking on your hands.

Mr Smith, from Portreath, Cornwall, said: “I am not really one of those people who likes going away and sitting by a pool. I want a purpose, and this seemed perfect.”

The inspiration for his criminal crusade came while he was playing a board game which included details of a law forbidding widows in Florida from going parachuting on Sundays.

He then researched America’s odd legislation on the internet and came up with his 40 favourites.

He said he was disappointed that the senate in Virginia this month dropped a Bill making it illegal to wear low-slung trousers exposing your underwear.

Mr Smith, a journalism student at Cornwall College, Camborne, plans to write a book about his exploits and is hoping to interest a television company in the story.

Asked if he was worried about running foul of the law, he said: “I think there’s more chance I will get arrested for the way I break the laws than for breaking the laws themselves.

“Who knows, there might actually be a good reason for their existence — I am quite willing to find out.”

He plans to set off in late July with his partner in crime, Luke Bateman, 20, from Redruth, Cornwall, and estimates that the challenge will take him eight weeks.

Mr Smith is not the first Briton to pursue an eccentric quest. In 2000 comedian Dave Gorman travelled around the world in search of 54 of his namesakes.

TOWNS WHERE LAW IS AN ASS

Laws that Richard Smith intends to break include:

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Over and out: former para on why he quit
• What links a cheesy musical and a pickled cow?
• EU rediscovers taste for bendy cucumbers