“He walks best who walks alone, wrote the British author H. F. Ellis.

Many other writers concurr. “One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey,” wrote William Hazlitt, “but I like to do it [by] myself.” Similarly, Genevan philosopher Jacques Rousseau, Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson and American naturalist Henry David Thoreau all extolled the virtues of walking alone.

Stevenson said it gives you freedom to choose your own direction and pace (not too slow nor too fast). Thoreau wrote that solitary walks allow you to be “buried in nature,” by which he meant focusing one’s attention on things like flowers, trees, the sound of wind and the touch of a gentle rain. Predictably, Rousseau took a more philosophic view: “I have never thought so much, existed so much, lived so much . . . as in the journeys which I have made alone and on foot” (emphasis is mine).

I see the subject pragmatically. Frankly, it’s hard to find hiking/walking partners. Because . . .

1. They need to travel at the same pace. Too slow will leave you frustrated; too fast will leave you, well, behind!
2. They need to be able to talk or not talk, depending on the occasion (I’m pretty sure I’ve lost partners because I talk too much).
3. And this is the most important, they need to be available. I’m pretty sure that if you must have a partner to walk, you will not walk regularly. People have other obligations in life than you, and they travel or get sick.

So my take is that there are advantages and pleasure to both walking alone and with companions. The writers I’ve mentioned in this blog give the plusses of going it alone. A later entry will extol the joys of walking with others.

For the record, most of my long hikes are with a companion or two; most of my daily walks are taken alone.