A Walking Life

“This is a completely delightful, literally transportive book. The writing is beautiful. Much like your walks, I found that the richness, variety and depth of each essay necessitated my slowing down to absorb each turn of phrase, anecdote, and story. I love the gentle way you invited me (and all your readers) to travel along with you for each journey. Your writing style and pace kept it fresh from start to finish. It reads like a fresh stream…it refreshingly flows along, twisting and turning, swirling into captivating eddies before cascading ‘round the bend to the next lively section. Your storytelling just floats the reader along with you.”

Gary Hirshberg
Co-Founder and former CE-Yo, Stonyfield Farm Yogurt
Author, Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World

A memoir in seventeen walks — Baltimore to the Camino, Dartmoor to the Alps — tracing an inheritance handed father to son, son to daughter, on foot.

Excerpt from A Walking Life…

That's when I met a man who changed my life. He was short and stout, with a thick neck and a crew cut. A bear of a man. He was a former superintendent of schools in Brussels, a demanding job, and recently retired. For his retirement, he strapped a pack on his back, walked out his front door, and set off to Santiago. He planned to walk from Brussels to Santiago, and back! That's 2,300 kilometers, or about 1,400 miles, and maybe three months' walking, each way. Americans retire, buy an RV, and drive out west. Europeans go for a long walk.

I asked this pilgrim, "How do you manage your pack, traveling as you do?" He replied, "Ten kilos. Just keep everything you need under ten kilos, and you'll do fine." Ten kilos is twenty-two pounds. A light load. A manageable load. I looked at this barrel-chested Belgian, two months into a six-month pilgrimage, pack on his back, joy in his eyes. Ten kilos. That was the secret. If he could do it, I could do it. If I could just keep my pack to ten kilos, I could walk from anywhere to anywhere.