Taking a walk

Planning a walk is hard. Planning a walk for a group is even harder. For months Chris sent research updates. During one reconnaissance trip he got lost and spent the night on the mountain curled up, waiting for dawn. On another he took a spill off his mountain bike while double-checking some of the road walking. His blood was on this path and soon,... See more

I highly recommend this activity and format. You can start one yourself. It goes like this:

1. Choose where to walk — somewhere with lodging for 8 people every 15 km — where someone else can drive everyone’s bags from place to place.


2. Someone (local person or business) walks it all in advance to make sure it’s actually good. This person is the

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Anyone can organize a walk-n-talk, and walk-n-talks can happen anywhere. We’ve done a couple in Japan, one in Spain, and one in China. We’ve found it most useful to do them where luggage forwarding is possible since it’s much nicer to walk with a simple day-pack than 10kg of gear. This also increases the breadth of folks able to participate. Kevin... See more

This is not a place I ever expected to be. True for so much of my life.

12km a day is a good pace. You may think, 12km? That is nothing! But it is very much something. It allows for exploring small towns and villages along the way, for taking breaks as needed, brewing coffee in the home of a farmer who spontaneously invites you in out of the rain, tasting a few varieties of local wine at a pop-up Chinese winery, for... See more

A walk-n-talk works like this: gather 5-10 curious, kind, generous, patient, inspiring people and set a walking course through the countryside for a week, plus or minus a day or two. A week works well because it may take a day or two or three for people to open up, for the so-called “situational extroverts” to fully emerge from their shells, for... See more

Very little of the richness of a walk like this can be explicitly planned. You must give yourself up to the walk.

It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. Very healthy for your brain, body, and friendships. I highly recommend it for anyone.