Few of the canonical essayists can resist telling us that we should walk because it is good for us, nor from providing directions on how to walk. In 1913 the historian G. M. Trevelyan begins his “Walking” with “I have two doctors, my left leg and my right. When body and mind are out of gear (and those twin parts of me live at such close quarters th

French poet Arthur Rimbaud, a restless soul who set off on many long pilgrimages on foot, often short of money but rich in passion, or Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who once wrote: “I never do anything but when walking, the countryside is my study.”44,45 About Rousseau, Gros adds: “The mere sight of a desk and a chair was enough to make him feel sick.”46

Walking, for me, is not about exercise. It's about wandering. It's about observing and reflecting. It's about having a call option on communication with the rest of the world. But the call option is mine not yours. The French, not surprisingly, uniquely have a verb for this-le flaneur.

the tradition of writer as walker