In praise of Japanese small, Hokkaido as Wisconsin, and pachinko memories

“Where is this?,” implying another question: How can I get there, too? A certain ambivalence has always been a part of travel, knowing you’re a tourist but also craving direct contact with a different place. Yet algorithmic recommendations have automated that process of word of mouth and turned tourism into a conveyor belt that intrudes much deeper

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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 le... See more

I soon realized the way people want to experience the world has changed forever, but the infrastructure to explore it hasn’t caught up with this new reality. It was early 2021, and I went to a cabin in Colorado to decompress after stepping down as CEO from my previous company. The place was disappointing.

Walking lets you read the world — and much like the slow, contemplative mental processes involved in reading a book, the pace with which one moves through the world while walking allows for a different, deliberative kind of seeing . You notice more. You think more.

The question is: When the gears of society start moving again, will we carry the wisdom of this stillness forward? I hope so. Out the other side, back onto those transatlantic and transpacific flights, pressed against one another on our daily subway commutes, schedules full of dinner parties, brunch dates, weddings, funerals, brit milahs, concerts,... See more