Category: Resources
-
Plodcast
When I go for a walk, it’s often to the soundtrack of a podcast. I realise having headphones on splits my attention between where I am and where the podcast takes me, and I miss out on the sounds of the environment I’m in and send signals to others not to approach. This is not…
-
Writers On Walks
BBC Radio 3 has collected a series of its program The Essay into the audio book Writers on Walks. 22 contributors, “an array of novelists, poets, journalists and biographers chart the varied and inspiring walks they have taken around Britain and elsewhere”, gathered into categories like Dawnwalks & Night Walks, Springwalks & Winterwalks, and Strange…
-
The Road Is How
In The Road Is How, Trevor Herriot writes about how while still recovering from an accident, he made a three day walk from his home in Regina to a cabin his family has at Cherry Lake. Trevor is a wonderful writer and attentive observer of the natural world; Daniel Baird in The Walrus called him…
-
Iain Sinclair’s London
Iain Sinclair has spent decades roaming the British capital on foot and excavating the city’s psychogeography in books such as London Orbital, where he follows the route of the M25 motorway, and London Overground, where he walks alongside the city’s Overground rail network. Sinclair has said that 2017’s The Last London is his final book…
-
Robert Macfarlane
Robert Macfarlane has walked in places I never will and his books about his journeys – most of which take place on foot – have been some of my favourites over the past decade or so; he’s a wonderful writer. Macfarlane described his third book The Old Ways (2012) as being about, “the relationship between…
-
In the footsteps of Celine and Jesse
There are films that place walking at the heart of the story. Two favourites that feature characters on foot are Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995), in which the main characters Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) get to know one another while walking around nocturnal Vienna, and Before Sunset (2004), when the two characters…
-
Johnny Strides
Johnny Strides is the handle of John Hicks, who’s been posting videos of his walks – mostly in Toronto but elsewhere as well – since before the COVID pandemic. His YouTube channel has thousands of videos and he’s adding more on a daily basis. In an interview with Spacing Magazine in 2024 he said “I…
-
Flânerie
I was first introduced to the word flâneur and the ideas behind it in grad school. In learning about it, I realised in many ways flânerie described behaviour I’d be pursuing for some time: leisurely strolling through cities, observing the variety of activities an urban environment offers. It’s one of the things I most enjoy…
-
Pedestrian Space
Pedestrian Space is a wonderful resource on a range of topics connected to walking. Created by Annika Lundkvist, Pedestrian Space is an NGO that “through media, communications and research, advocates and educates on walkability as a central aspect of sustainable urbanism”. The website has an extensive catalogue of materials, including a reading list, and connections…
-
A Right to Roam?
Outside our cities and towns, walking in the countryside is impacted by the legal parameters of the jurisdiction one walks in. Nordic countries provide significant public access to land, with Norway allowing it under the concept allmannsretten. In Scotland, walkers have wide access to the countryside, including golf courses (though not the greens). Right to…
Project Pedestrian 