Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CLASSIC JOURNEYS & COUNTRY WALKERS
stop to smell the roses on a walking vacation
HIKING TRAILS ACROSS THE COUNTRY & BEYOND
For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in
us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land.
—Henry David Thoreau
84 |
Thoreau is most remembered for his books
Walden,
about simple living amid nature, and
Civil Disobedience,
on resistance to government. But among his published works is a small
treatise on walking, about which he once wrote, “I regard this as a sort of introduction to all
that I may write hereafter.” In “Walking,” first published in the
Atlantic Monthly
after his death
is 1862, he extolled the virtues of traveling by foot, saying we should walk “in the spirit of
undying adventure, never to return.”
While we don't recommend never returning, a walking vacation can be great because it
offers an intimacy with a place that you don't get when you're zooming through in a car. And
for those of you who are thinking, “But I won't get to see much,” consider this. If you drive
by a field of purple flowers, you see a swatch of purple, but if you walk by the same field, you
get to examine the petals, notice the bee flitting in and out, maybe even figure out what type
of flower it is. It's a matter of what you want to see. Lapping a bunch of time zones doesn't
mean you've seen more.
ARE YOUR BOOTS MADE FOR WALKING?
“After a day's walk, everything has twice its usual value.”
—George Macauley Trevelyan, British author
According to Mark Fenton, a member of the U.S. National Racewalking Team, walk-
ing shoes should have good arch support, fairly low but well-cushioned heels, and
good flexibility at the ball of the foot. A few other tips:
