Walking USA

A walking lifestyle intrigues me. Twice I have lived where people walked as a way of life, where it is more common than driving a vehicle. For most Americans, it takes some getting used to. It certainly did for me.

In South America and Eastern Europe, when people shopped, they carried two empty bags and walked to the market. Those two empty bags remained a puzzle to me until the first day I went out to shop.

Like everyone, I walked. The grocery store looked like any modern store in the states, and the products, though the labels weren’t in English, were ones I recognized or could figure out. If the plastic tubes were new to me, and the letters confusing, the pictures of catsup pouring onto a burger helped me understand. I happily filled my cart with the things that people need when they move into new apartments. I wheeled it all to the check-out register, paid, watched as they put the items into bag after bag, filling to the top. I walked my cart out to the front of the store thinking I had done well.

Then I looked to the very small parking lot – few cars, and none belonged to me. How would I make it home with my overloaded bags? You can bet the next time I needed to shop, I took two empty bags with me and stopped shopping when they were filled.

That was just a simple lesson, one of many. It didn’t stop me from admiring places that accommodated walkers. And it hasn’t stopped me from rating my favorite vacations based on how much I can see by foot.

Recently, I began to plan a vacation from our home trying not to use a car. My idea was to start out from my front door, two bags in hand, like my neighbors in those other countries had done. But it would be a long walk, thirty days, 15 out and 15 back. Where would I go?

My plans took me twenty miles as the crow flies. The walk itself was much longer. I had to find routes around freeways, to hotel stops and campgrounds, along walking paths, and to bathrooms. That was just the planning stage, and it took me basically to Trader Joe’s and back. As much as I like Trader Joe’s, it wouldn’t be much of a vacation.

At times, I complain about our rugged American walking life. We have trail systems and back-country treks. We rate our outdoor adventures according to the inclines we mount, and we like to be challenged. There’s nothing wrong with all that, but it seems we miss out on half of the pleasures of simple walking, the part that comes from ease and comfort. That’s where our walking life leaves us in the dust. We normally hike in rustic places, not through our cities. We don’t have a system of walking paths. If we visit towns, we can venture out on our own to find walking spaces, or we may join a walking tour, but a walkable path from one town to the next city isn’t easy to find.

But I have found an organization of Americans who walk. They are called American Volkssport. They have mapped out and organized thousands of walks in our towns and cities and many places of interest in our country. I have taken a couple of their walks, and they are delightful, even if I have to drive to the start point.

In the next year, I plan on taking as many of these walks as time allows. You can join me by reading about them here in Estero Bay News. Or you can join me on the path, one step at a time.

Next up: Walking Los Olivos