From "Why Japan Is Best Experienced By Foot/In Japan, the simple act of walking has long been connected to working toward enlightenment" (NYT).
Every place worth living in or traveling to is best experienced by foot. That's what I say. If you want to feel that you are on a path toward enlightenment through walking, it's a bit insane to begin by flying half way around the word — racking up a massive regression — and needing to extricate yourself from or into complicated buildings.
I remember something about walking meditation from "Dharma Bums," the Jack Kerouac book I listened to — while walking — recently. I was searching the text for "walking," thinking I'd find the exactly right text, but I found this: "Standing on my head before bedtime on that rock roof of the moonlight I could indeed see that the earth was truly upsidedown and man a weird vain beetle full of strange ideas walking around upsidedown and boasting, and I could realize that man remembered why this dream of planets and plants and Plantagenets was built out of the primordial essence."
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"Every place worth living in or traveling to is best experienced by foot. That's what I say...."
Agree 100%
When walking you see the small intricate details of humanity. The small sewing shop, other vendors. Random pieces of art and architectures. During my work traveling days I would often schedule extra time just to walk around the city. My way to busy fellow workers thought I wa a nut. Maybe but they only gripe about their travels, while I took in a lot of pleasure on the company dime.
Japanese feet carry a huge historical load against wheels.
The Japanese are very considerate and polite. Unlike many selfish Americans.
It's a theme!
Just don't try to experience this new place with stupid headphones or earbuds blocking one of your five precious senses.
Agree. I lived in the walkable major US city and loved it. 3k on the family car a year and only because I had to drive to the golf course, where I also like to walk…
Sometimes one does not have the luxury of living where walking is practical. For them I approve of shitty travel to get to the walkable places…
From Wendell Berry's An Entrance to the Woods:
And now here, at my camping place, I have stopped altogether. But my mind is still keyed to 70 mph. And having come here so fast, it is still busy with the work I am usually doing.
Having come by the freeway, my mind is not so fully here as it would have been if I had come by the crookeder, slower state roads. It Is incalculably farther away than it would have been if I had come all the way on foot, as my earliest predecessors came . . . our senses, after all, were developed to function at foot speeds and the transition from foot travel to motor travel, in terms of evolutionary time, has been abrupt.
The faster one goes, the more strain on the senses, the more they fail to take in, the more confusion they must tolerate or gloss over – and the longer it takes to bring the mind to a stop in the presence of anything.
Though the freeway passes through the very heart of this forest, the motorist remains several hours’ journey by foot from what is living at the edge of the right-of-way.
Wow. A French word for an idle loafer who recalls the German philosopher's words to describe the Japanese urban walkways. Surely even that sentence in the article alone, was born of true enlightenment.
Not walking, but there's a great NHK English-language show called Cycling Through Japan. Each episode is hosted by a gaijin bike nerd who pedals through mostly the small forgotten villages of the country, interacting with the people who are left, learning about traditional agriculture, crafts, festivals, etc. It's pretty cool. You should be able to get it on a PBS side-channel.
JSM
Yesterday, the way to cultivate attentiveness was having sex. Today, it is walking. I miss the old days.
…then I’m gonna walk the Earth. Wachu mean walk the Earth? You know- like Kane in Kung Fu, walk from place to place, meet people, get in to adventures…
We drive to little towns and Big cities to walk in. Our latest finds? Washington, Georgia in April when the dogwoods and azaleas bloom among the beautiful up country ante-bellum mansions that escaped Gen Sherman's torches, and also the little town of Fernandina on Amelia island In the month of February when the azaleas are in bloom. St Augustine is America's oldest city and though touristy, very walkable. There's about a 5 hour drive between the three. Fly into Jacksonville rent a car and go walking.
"Yesterday, the way to cultivate attentiveness was having sex. Today, it is walking. I miss the old days."
2 minutes before you published that, I posted the notorious frog post. Hope you like it!
"Every place worth living in or traveling to is best experienced by foot."
It depends. In Germany, the train is the best way to experience the country. You walk through the Hauptbahnhof and you walk at your destination, but the train ride itself is a joy, especially a route along the Rhein.
My first visit to Tokyo was in the company of a colleague whose family had been in the international oil biz. His habit was to wander around each new city, mapless, on foot.
So we spent a jetlagged three hours wandering Tokyo, mapless and language-less, around 2AM. Marvelous. We even found a Burger King, his traditional search target.
(Caution: Suggestions may not be suitable for all locations.)
In the Edo Period the daimyo were required to maintain two residences, one in their home domains, the other in the capital, occupied in alternate years -- a year at home followed by a year in Edo, et cetera. While moving their households from one residence to the other, the lords were forbidden to use wheels, everything was to be carried by hired porters.Ostensibly the shogun's ordinance against wheeled traffic was a measure to protect the roads from undue wear. The real purpose was to keep the feudal lords constantly in debt and financially incapable of organizing rebellion.
Not everyone can be a flâneur, despite all the efforts of the NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/19/travel/walking-travel-cities.html
I don't know about "walkable US cities." The distances may be small, but once you've smelled enough pee and seen enough poop, walking isn't so charming anymore.
And the old hippies (and knockabout writers?) among us will quote Tolkien, "Not all who wander are lost." Which, I believe, is also the first principle of the internet.
"Every place worth living in or traveling to is best experienced by foot."
Checks out with my low opinion of going on cruises.
Walk around Tokyo
In Germany, the train is the best way to experience the country. You walk through the Hauptbahnhof and you walk at your destination, but the train ride itself is a joy, especially a route along the Rhein.
This is also true in Switzerland, except the scenery is even better and the trains actually run on time.
German railroads earned a good reputation for punctuality in the last century but have pissed it away in recent years. I found the Italian trains to be more reliable than Deutsche Bahn on my last visit.
I always walk when traveling, never pre-mediate by consulting guidebooks, and never schedule my experiences. I move through urban spaces making moment-by-moment decisions on what looks most interesting and promising. I like the experience of stumbling upon famous places and love love love the experience of discovering some fascinating thing I never knew existed. Years later I can recall the exact route I took and what I felt at each serendipitous turn.
I don't know about "walkable US cities." The distances may be small, but once you've smelled enough pee and seen enough poop, walking isn't so charming anymore.
Boston is still OK for walkers. Especially in the North End/Little Italy, where the local mob keeps a tight lid on petty crime and unruly vagrants.
Charleston and Savannah too. Those old Southern colonial streets and buildings are a delight, and the poop-and-hypodermic-needles factor seen in New York or San Francisco is altogether absent in all but the worst neighborhoods.
The Riverwalk in San Antonio is great for walkers too, although it is a tourist trap, and you may prefer some of the barrios nearby. South to La Villita and the Mission Trail is a very good long walk suitable for a day trip, but I wouldn't go there at night. West to the Mercado is OK too, but probably the safest is north to the Buckhorn Saloon, Pearl District, and Brackenridge Park. Don't go too far east of the Alamo.
Other places I've enjoyed my walks, even in recent years, are Nashville, Santa Fe, Boulder, and believe it or not, Duluth.
Used to love walking in Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco, but doubt I will ever return there.
Walking everywhere (winter permitting) has been the single greatest daily improvement to my life since retiring. My quibble with Althouse's post is with her aspersion against air travel to a place where walking and meditation have been joined for thousands of years. I haven't been to Japan, and I am getting to an age where the brutal air time to get there probably means I never will, but I could definitely see a Buddhist undertaking it as a pilgrimage. Pilgrimages are an acknowledgment that we occasionally need to overcome the daily routine in our spiritual path. "When that Aprille with his shouers soot..."
I don't think Japan is particularly known for people withdrawing to a "simpler" life, unless one means hikikomori or something. Japan doesn't really seem to have the same sweaty car salesman "hustle" culture we have now in the US or, say, China or Korea (probably one reason their economy is slowing, in relative terms), but life is filled with a lot more complicated procedure instead. Simple things made extremely complicated by societal expectations.
That said, Japan is great for walking for two reasons -- one, that its largest cities are oriented around public transit so everyone gets about by walking, and two, that it's a lot easier to get to places where you can enjoy scenic walks without having to drive. From my condo in Tokyo, it's about one hour by train to Kamakura. A short walk from the station -- ten minutes or so -- and I can climb up into the hills along one of the hiking trails accessible from the Kenchouji temple. Or an hour and a half to Mt. Takao, with several routes up to the summit (and rest stops at the midpoint and the top). Or two hours to Nikko, with waterfalls and ornate shrines up in the hills. Or around two and a half hours to Okutama, with scenic river views where the Tama river cuts through deep gorges in the mountains. In the US, you usually have to drive to get anywhere scenic, so it feels less casual and accessible than hopping on the train, watching a movie or reading a novel for an hour or two, and then popping out at your destination.
two hours to Nikko, with waterfalls and ornate shrines up in the hills.
I saw Nikko in the summer, and it was one of the most scenic places I've ever been. I've seen pictures of it during the change of colors in the fall, and it looks perfectly sublime. One of these days I intend to return to gaze upon the autumn leaves and enjoy the matsutake mushroom dishes on the seasonal menus.
House of Ingeler. A rare reference.
Walking is best? No, true enlightenment is found by standing and looking at something for a long time. But it’s better to stand there with a microscope and look at only a small piece of it for a long time. And again, it’s better to stand there with your eyes closed and dream the dream of what you are not seeing. But then it’s better to stand there with your eyes closed and dream no dream at all but become empty. But then you are better off not even thinking about emptiness but just be empty and dry out and die. Screw this walking shit.
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