For long hikes, especially when climbing in the mountains, consider Nordic walking, a practice that revolutionized my walks some 20 years ago. I learned it from my Austrian sister-in-law who learned it from the Finns where it originated as off-season training for snow skiers in the 1970s. Put simply, Nordic walking employs special poles to […]
“Walking gives us back our senses,” wrote Sussman and Goode (The Magic of Walking). “We see, hear, smell the world as we never can when we ride.” That’s because our vehicles trap us, they explained. The doors and windows isolate us from things we would see, hear or smell if we were walking. Long before […]
In 1955 at the age of 67 Grandma Emma Gatewood became the first solo female to complete the 2,168-mile Appalachian Trail. She would do it three more times before her death nearly 20 years later. Emma’s story, as chronicled by Ben Montgomery in Grandma Gatewood’s Walk, is one of the most inspiring things I’ve read. […]
“Humans are slow animals,” wrote Rebecca Solnit. “What we excel at is distance, sustaining a pace for hours or days.” The theory would be put to a test in 2016 at what was billed as the “Man Against Horse Race” in Prescott, Arizona. Conceived in a Prescott bar when an avid runner bet his equestrian […]
“One of the agreeable surprises of becoming a walker is that you can walk faster and farther than you think, and with complete comfort,” wrote Aaron Sussman and Ruth Goode (The Magic of Walking, 1980). According to the authors, most people do not know how fast they walk. Evidently, until one becomes a walker he […]
“Walk to get lost,” wrote Annabel Streets. “I like getting lost. I like the way it jolts me awake as if a double espresso has been poured directly into my head and given a good stir.” Evidently, there are benefits to being lost. Says Streets, “When we’re lost, we’re exposed to new landscapes and landmarks—forcing […]
“Doing nothing is hard to do,” wrote Rebecca Solnit in Wanderlust. “It’s best done by disguising it as doing something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking.” Solnit’s point is that our modern culture is consumed with productivity. For your activity to be valuable, it must produce—more money, more friends, more health—and so […]
“I can only meditate when I walk,” wrote Jean-Jaques Rousseau. “”When I stop, I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.” In his Confessions (completed in 1770), the famous French philosopher went on to explain in more detail. “There is something about walking which stimulates and enlivens my thoughts. When I stay […]
“I am a confirmed saunterer,” wrote Christopher Morley. “I love to set down haphazard among unknown byways; to saunter with open eyes, watching the moods and humors of men, the shapes of their dwellings, the criss-crosses of their streets.” Morley’s essay (found in Travels in Philadelphia, 1937) is the citified version of Thoreau’s Walden Pond. […]
It’s called the “Lassie effect.” Dog owners “typically walk more frequently—and for longer—than those without dogs” (Annabel Streets, 52 Ways to Walk). Streets goes on to say “studies suggest that the stronger the bond between dog and owner, the more they walk together.” I did some research. Sixty-five million households in the U.S. have at […]