Where is a place you traveled to where you had a walk you absolutely loved? For me, it would have to be the time I traveled to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, although the walks I enjoyed in Scotland would be a close second. Later this week, I’ll be sharing a walk that involved a bit of an excursion, so I’d love to hear some of your favorite places you’ve been to where you had a really lovely walk.
I was a hopelessly young, confused dirtbag when I fell in love with Alex. He was caring, sweet, kind, and filled with family trauma, just like I was. We both had alcoholic parents, both were taking care of younger siblings. Older by a few years, he knew the ins and outs of the Northern California punk scene. We were both musicians and always in bands, but I was in a totally different scene than he was. It was a life changing eye opener to see the world - to see music - through his eyes. We dated for about a year, and then transitioned to a sturdy and long term friendship when we realized it wasn’t meant to be a long term romance. But before we broke up, we spent a lot of time wandering around San Francisco together. I would sneak out of my parents house late at night, and we’d make the 2 hour drive in my shitty Tacoma from the Central Valley to Ocean Beach. We’d drink warm 40s of Mickeys and sixers of banquet beer, purchased from the one liquor store in our town that would sell to teenagers. Then we’d fall asleep watching the fog roll in, only to be awoken by the sun, by the cops, by a stranger, by whoever, and make it back home in time for school the next morning.
Alex died last year from a seizure, young and unexpectedly. We had drifted apart, as time does with even the best of friends, but we still talked when we could. He stayed in town, I moved across the country. He sobered up and married his long time best friend. They had a baby girl. She’d just had her birthday when he died.
I didn’t get to go to the funeral, and I’m not close enough with any of his family or friends to mourn with them. But I loved Alex and he shouldn’t be gone go soon. Selfishly, it feels like more than just his spirit is gone. It feels like the person I was when we were together is gone now too.
So yesterday, I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I lied when my family asked why I was being weird. I said it wasn’t any of their business; I was going to see a friend. I turned off my phone. I drove to San Francisco, parked in the mission, and walked to every place Alex and I had ever been together. I weaved in and out of neighborhoods I hadn’t visited in at least a lifetime. I lingered and smiled in some, I broke down and cried in others. I walked for over 13 miles.
I walked and walked and walked until I finally reached Ocean Beach. I finally said my final goodbyes. I said my “I’m Sorry’s.” I said that I loved him. And I slept on the beach.
After several setbacks, I finally decided to start the Camino del Norte on February 8th, 2017, heading out from Irún. But since we are only discussing traveling TO our walks, I will focus on that part. Long after darkness fell, I was picked up in Zaragoza by Bla Bla car, where there were already three other women and two dogs, we got lost in some suburbs along the way, I wasn’t able to check into my accommodations until around 2 am and by 7 was more than ready to start my walk, which continued the next month and some change. Despite the potential bad weather and fewer places to rest your head along the way, I would still always recommend going “in the off season”-and alone.
Cinque Terre in 2007. We started off in Monterosso and made our way to Riomaggiore. The scenery was beautiful! My twin sister and I loved stopping at each of the 5 towns. It was around the time of the lemon festival. The lemons there are unreal!
I took my mom to Japan in April 2018 to see the cherry blossoms. There were several places with long walks, including Hiroshima Peace Park, Mount Yoshinoyama, and several places in Kyoto among shrines, bamboo groves, and a river. I will never forget the look of joy on her face seeing the trees and the food we ate on that trip.
As a 17-yr-old (I’m 46 now), I hitchhiked alone across Scotland (for reasons that are too long to explain). I came from a strict and at the time abusive family from the Midwest, so doing this was both terrifying and liberating. This is from memory, but I took a bus to Bullers of Buchnan, again from memory, they were high and steep cliffs, walked through the ruins of Slain’s Castle, and eventually walked down to Cruden Bay Beach below. There was a couple walking two Saint Bernards on the beach and me, and for the first time in my life, I felt free. I think I even danced alone on the beach a bit... I will never have another walk or moment like that one again.
I know it might sound bananas, but I love walking all over New York City. I love the city so much I ran the NYC Marathon in 2018. It’s my favorite place (shhh! don’t tell my hometown — Chicago), but it’s also my favorite place to walk. You’re not supposed to walk much the few days before a marathon, but I walked so much on that trip I had blisters on my feet before I started the race! Everything is so alive in NYC. The park, the museums, all the people, the buildings, the theatre, the food! I can’t get enough, and I can’t wait to get back and walk myself sore when the pandemic is over!
We tried to take a ferry from Athens to Santorini and the boat kept getting delayed- so we hopped a flight which is what we should’ve done all along?? We were there for a few days and walked the length of the island (from Thira to Oia) which was too hot and all around glorious.
A friend and I stayed in the historic town of St. George's, Bermuda for a week after POTUS #45 won the election. Every morning I got up early, put peanuts out on the back deck for the birds, then went on a long walk around the parish. Everything was lush and green and quiet. I met some sweet kitties and friendly residents.
I was bad. In October of 2020 I flew from Texas to LA for a friend's 40th birthday. He wanted to camp and hike near Mammoth in the Eastern Sierras, and we were between COVID peaks. My mom and mother in law had both passed away five months earlier and this was the first time since then that things felt even kind of normal. It was scary to travel but I flew in a KN95 and a facemask. The walk, on the John Muir trail, was beautiful and the weather was perfect in that California way where it feels like it's always like that. It was great to feel far away from everything, and I managed to shake off the guilt long enough to enjoy myself.
Anything in Grand Teton National Park, especially hiking Lake Taggart and Jenny Lake. The Grand Tetons punch out of the ground in the most stunning way and the air there is like nowhere else.
I went to Sequoia National Park in 2017 to hike. I travelled from Australia to do so. I don't drive, either, so the logistics of accessing the park required me to stay in a hotel in Visalia and get the 2-hour-plus one way shuttle bus from downtown up to the mountains. I also decided to go to Chicago to see Hamilton (at that point there was no way I was getting cheap tickets on Broadway!), and New York because of course, which meant I had to figure out more logistics as to getting to Visalia from whatever airport was closest (I forget now). Two Greyhound buses and a taxi later, and I was ready to hike!
I don't know if moving across the country counts as "traveled to" but in January of 2007 I moved from Lexington, Kentucky to Sandpoint, Idaho. One of my first days there I took my roommate's dog for a walk in this new place that seemed so alien to me. There were mountains and a giant lake and it was so unlike anyplace I have ever been. At one point we were close to the frozen snow-covered Lake Pend Oreille and I could see these little black dots but I couldn't make out what they were. Birds? Small animals? I hadn't yet gotten used to the scale of things out West and it took me awhile to figure out that they were people. And these people were ice fishing. And all of a sudden I was a person who lived in a place where people went ice fishing. I lived there for 2.5 years and never quite lost the wonder of it and said to myself at least once a day "I can't believe I live here." Every walk I took in that place was amazing, even if I was just going to the store. But the memory of those first few days in that strange new land is very different from the memory of the place I came to know and love. It is saturated with amazement and a fair amount of disbelief that I had done it. I had moved across the country on my own. In that moment looking at those tiny people ice fishing, everything felt magical and possible.
Not sure if it's a walk I loved at the time, but the most memorable - shortly after my mom died, I visited friends in Costa Rica that were setting up a homestead in the jungle and I was helping out for a few weeks, distracting myself from grief. They had a "trail" through the jungle that let out to the beach and local town, about 4 miles away. If I took a machete and cleaned up the trail a bit along the way, they'd appreciate it. So I set off with one water bottle, an unsheathed machete and a little money in my pocket for when I got to the beach and restaurants there. I'd been told I would be able to hear the ocean as I got closer, to just follow the noise of the waves. Well, seven hours later with dusk closing in on me and covered head to toe in mud, no water left at all and standing on the edge of a river with the sound of electric saws drowning out any possible ocean noises.... I was the deepest in my mortal fear center that I had ever been. Lost, filthy, exhausted. And then a fucking crocodile appeared out of the river and jumped out within a couple feet of me and I screamed like a child and wavered on the edge of despair and resolve. I dragged myself along towards another jungle property I spotted that had a pack of guard dogs around it and I stood there shouting the sound of long vowels that the Costa Ricans had told me would calm local dogs, but they barked and threatened to attack; I was too tired to back away. At last, a guy came meandering up the path to see what the barking was about and found this crazy white girl with a machete and a dirty, terrified face. He knew how to get to the beach/town, and had a vehicle and let me jump in the back and took me the last half mile as it got dark. I was so hungry I wandered into a restaurant, forgetting how I looked, and they immediately told me to leave - I couldn't have an open machete like that in the establishment. A kind bartender said he would hold it for me behind the bar if I wanted to stay and eat. I handed it to him and sat and drank a beer and ate cold ceviche and it was the best damn meal of my life. I was probably never actually at risk of dying out there in the tiny patch of jungle, but I also don't know that I ever felt closer to my own death, which was probably the medicine I needed.
In Ireland, my sister and I lucked out and got a hotel next to the Giants Causeway, meaning we could visit the Causeway after the visitors center closed and all the tourists had gone home. We walked down from the hostel and explored the Causeway, then back up and had tea at the top of the hill. It was July, so it was still quite light out even at 8pm, so we decided to just keep walking. The sun didn't go down until after 11, and by the time we got back to the hostel we'd walked 12 miles of the coast of Ireland.
That trip was full of such walks. I would have stayed there and never stopped walking if I'd felt I could have.
Well aside from walking in NYC, walking through the gardens of Versailles was magical. Art was everywhere and in unexpected places and I loved every minute of it. I can’t wait to go back.
I was a hopelessly young, confused dirtbag when I fell in love with Alex. He was caring, sweet, kind, and filled with family trauma, just like I was. We both had alcoholic parents, both were taking care of younger siblings. Older by a few years, he knew the ins and outs of the Northern California punk scene. We were both musicians and always in bands, but I was in a totally different scene than he was. It was a life changing eye opener to see the world - to see music - through his eyes. We dated for about a year, and then transitioned to a sturdy and long term friendship when we realized it wasn’t meant to be a long term romance. But before we broke up, we spent a lot of time wandering around San Francisco together. I would sneak out of my parents house late at night, and we’d make the 2 hour drive in my shitty Tacoma from the Central Valley to Ocean Beach. We’d drink warm 40s of Mickeys and sixers of banquet beer, purchased from the one liquor store in our town that would sell to teenagers. Then we’d fall asleep watching the fog roll in, only to be awoken by the sun, by the cops, by a stranger, by whoever, and make it back home in time for school the next morning.
Alex died last year from a seizure, young and unexpectedly. We had drifted apart, as time does with even the best of friends, but we still talked when we could. He stayed in town, I moved across the country. He sobered up and married his long time best friend. They had a baby girl. She’d just had her birthday when he died.
I didn’t get to go to the funeral, and I’m not close enough with any of his family or friends to mourn with them. But I loved Alex and he shouldn’t be gone go soon. Selfishly, it feels like more than just his spirit is gone. It feels like the person I was when we were together is gone now too.
So yesterday, I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I lied when my family asked why I was being weird. I said it wasn’t any of their business; I was going to see a friend. I turned off my phone. I drove to San Francisco, parked in the mission, and walked to every place Alex and I had ever been together. I weaved in and out of neighborhoods I hadn’t visited in at least a lifetime. I lingered and smiled in some, I broke down and cried in others. I walked for over 13 miles.
I walked and walked and walked until I finally reached Ocean Beach. I finally said my final goodbyes. I said my “I’m Sorry’s.” I said that I loved him. And I slept on the beach.
After several setbacks, I finally decided to start the Camino del Norte on February 8th, 2017, heading out from Irún. But since we are only discussing traveling TO our walks, I will focus on that part. Long after darkness fell, I was picked up in Zaragoza by Bla Bla car, where there were already three other women and two dogs, we got lost in some suburbs along the way, I wasn’t able to check into my accommodations until around 2 am and by 7 was more than ready to start my walk, which continued the next month and some change. Despite the potential bad weather and fewer places to rest your head along the way, I would still always recommend going “in the off season”-and alone.
Cinque Terre in 2007. We started off in Monterosso and made our way to Riomaggiore. The scenery was beautiful! My twin sister and I loved stopping at each of the 5 towns. It was around the time of the lemon festival. The lemons there are unreal!
I took my mom to Japan in April 2018 to see the cherry blossoms. There were several places with long walks, including Hiroshima Peace Park, Mount Yoshinoyama, and several places in Kyoto among shrines, bamboo groves, and a river. I will never forget the look of joy on her face seeing the trees and the food we ate on that trip.
As a 17-yr-old (I’m 46 now), I hitchhiked alone across Scotland (for reasons that are too long to explain). I came from a strict and at the time abusive family from the Midwest, so doing this was both terrifying and liberating. This is from memory, but I took a bus to Bullers of Buchnan, again from memory, they were high and steep cliffs, walked through the ruins of Slain’s Castle, and eventually walked down to Cruden Bay Beach below. There was a couple walking two Saint Bernards on the beach and me, and for the first time in my life, I felt free. I think I even danced alone on the beach a bit... I will never have another walk or moment like that one again.
For me, it was always Firenze as, basically, is a outdoor museum!
I know it might sound bananas, but I love walking all over New York City. I love the city so much I ran the NYC Marathon in 2018. It’s my favorite place (shhh! don’t tell my hometown — Chicago), but it’s also my favorite place to walk. You’re not supposed to walk much the few days before a marathon, but I walked so much on that trip I had blisters on my feet before I started the race! Everything is so alive in NYC. The park, the museums, all the people, the buildings, the theatre, the food! I can’t get enough, and I can’t wait to get back and walk myself sore when the pandemic is over!
We tried to take a ferry from Athens to Santorini and the boat kept getting delayed- so we hopped a flight which is what we should’ve done all along?? We were there for a few days and walked the length of the island (from Thira to Oia) which was too hot and all around glorious.
A friend and I stayed in the historic town of St. George's, Bermuda for a week after POTUS #45 won the election. Every morning I got up early, put peanuts out on the back deck for the birds, then went on a long walk around the parish. Everything was lush and green and quiet. I met some sweet kitties and friendly residents.
I was bad. In October of 2020 I flew from Texas to LA for a friend's 40th birthday. He wanted to camp and hike near Mammoth in the Eastern Sierras, and we were between COVID peaks. My mom and mother in law had both passed away five months earlier and this was the first time since then that things felt even kind of normal. It was scary to travel but I flew in a KN95 and a facemask. The walk, on the John Muir trail, was beautiful and the weather was perfect in that California way where it feels like it's always like that. It was great to feel far away from everything, and I managed to shake off the guilt long enough to enjoy myself.
Anything in Grand Teton National Park, especially hiking Lake Taggart and Jenny Lake. The Grand Tetons punch out of the ground in the most stunning way and the air there is like nowhere else.
I went to Sequoia National Park in 2017 to hike. I travelled from Australia to do so. I don't drive, either, so the logistics of accessing the park required me to stay in a hotel in Visalia and get the 2-hour-plus one way shuttle bus from downtown up to the mountains. I also decided to go to Chicago to see Hamilton (at that point there was no way I was getting cheap tickets on Broadway!), and New York because of course, which meant I had to figure out more logistics as to getting to Visalia from whatever airport was closest (I forget now). Two Greyhound buses and a taxi later, and I was ready to hike!
I don't know if moving across the country counts as "traveled to" but in January of 2007 I moved from Lexington, Kentucky to Sandpoint, Idaho. One of my first days there I took my roommate's dog for a walk in this new place that seemed so alien to me. There were mountains and a giant lake and it was so unlike anyplace I have ever been. At one point we were close to the frozen snow-covered Lake Pend Oreille and I could see these little black dots but I couldn't make out what they were. Birds? Small animals? I hadn't yet gotten used to the scale of things out West and it took me awhile to figure out that they were people. And these people were ice fishing. And all of a sudden I was a person who lived in a place where people went ice fishing. I lived there for 2.5 years and never quite lost the wonder of it and said to myself at least once a day "I can't believe I live here." Every walk I took in that place was amazing, even if I was just going to the store. But the memory of those first few days in that strange new land is very different from the memory of the place I came to know and love. It is saturated with amazement and a fair amount of disbelief that I had done it. I had moved across the country on my own. In that moment looking at those tiny people ice fishing, everything felt magical and possible.
Not sure if it's a walk I loved at the time, but the most memorable - shortly after my mom died, I visited friends in Costa Rica that were setting up a homestead in the jungle and I was helping out for a few weeks, distracting myself from grief. They had a "trail" through the jungle that let out to the beach and local town, about 4 miles away. If I took a machete and cleaned up the trail a bit along the way, they'd appreciate it. So I set off with one water bottle, an unsheathed machete and a little money in my pocket for when I got to the beach and restaurants there. I'd been told I would be able to hear the ocean as I got closer, to just follow the noise of the waves. Well, seven hours later with dusk closing in on me and covered head to toe in mud, no water left at all and standing on the edge of a river with the sound of electric saws drowning out any possible ocean noises.... I was the deepest in my mortal fear center that I had ever been. Lost, filthy, exhausted. And then a fucking crocodile appeared out of the river and jumped out within a couple feet of me and I screamed like a child and wavered on the edge of despair and resolve. I dragged myself along towards another jungle property I spotted that had a pack of guard dogs around it and I stood there shouting the sound of long vowels that the Costa Ricans had told me would calm local dogs, but they barked and threatened to attack; I was too tired to back away. At last, a guy came meandering up the path to see what the barking was about and found this crazy white girl with a machete and a dirty, terrified face. He knew how to get to the beach/town, and had a vehicle and let me jump in the back and took me the last half mile as it got dark. I was so hungry I wandered into a restaurant, forgetting how I looked, and they immediately told me to leave - I couldn't have an open machete like that in the establishment. A kind bartender said he would hold it for me behind the bar if I wanted to stay and eat. I handed it to him and sat and drank a beer and ate cold ceviche and it was the best damn meal of my life. I was probably never actually at risk of dying out there in the tiny patch of jungle, but I also don't know that I ever felt closer to my own death, which was probably the medicine I needed.
In Ireland, my sister and I lucked out and got a hotel next to the Giants Causeway, meaning we could visit the Causeway after the visitors center closed and all the tourists had gone home. We walked down from the hostel and explored the Causeway, then back up and had tea at the top of the hill. It was July, so it was still quite light out even at 8pm, so we decided to just keep walking. The sun didn't go down until after 11, and by the time we got back to the hostel we'd walked 12 miles of the coast of Ireland.
That trip was full of such walks. I would have stayed there and never stopped walking if I'd felt I could have.
Well aside from walking in NYC, walking through the gardens of Versailles was magical. Art was everywhere and in unexpected places and I loved every minute of it. I can’t wait to go back.