Let’s Walk: The Many Benefits of Bipedal Exploration

Ken and Gwen Alley PCT near Lake Hughes, CA 1985

I always liked walking. I like walking so much I actually walked from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail.  And a few years ago, I walked up to the top of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

There’s lots of benefits to walking— physical and mental health plus health of the planet.

hacking how to feel good

In fact, walking more and driving less is one of the best changes you can make— for yourself and for the planet.

impact of climate friendly choices and going car free

I get the habit of jumping in the car— it’s easy and convenient. Most of the time I don’t even think about it.

For many people Burning Man disrupts those habits of driving everywhere— you can’t just get in a car and drive wherever you want. Instead you walk or ride a bike or hop on an art car if you’re lucky. Often when people return from Burning Man to the default world, they will try to ride and walk more — and to live by the 10 Principles, too and more to recreate the way they live at Burning Man.

travel distances in BRC home to Burning Man

Walking changes your perspective on the world. You slow down. You pay attention.

Walking After Thich Nhat Hanh

While walking, praise the world and all that you see. Notice what you’ve been missing.

words for praise

When I travel in Europe, I walk and walk — even when I have a rental car like I did in Italy last year for one month, I still walk. A lot.

Somehow in 2025 for six weeks in Italy and and one week in Vienna, I managed on public transit plus the vans and rides organized by the different press trips I was on in Puglia, Montefalco, and Vienna. It wasn’t easy, but I made it work.

On my recent September 2026 10 day trip to Lombardy and Piemonte, after flying into Milan, I was tempted to rent a car. It’s so much easier in so many ways to have a car to get around, especially if you plan to visit wineries like I do. Instead I took public transit, got a few rides with friends and winery folk, took a bunch of trains and the metro, one taxi, a bus, and, on a press trip for five days in the Roero area, about 10 of us rode together in a van. Again it wasn’t as easy as just having my own car, but there were many benefits — including to the planet and to my pocketbook.

walking in Tuscany among the olive trees at Fattoria La Maliosa; photo by Antonella Manuli

My final two nights and days in September were in Torino attending Terra Madre which celebrates Slow Food. Instead of taking the metro or the bus, I took the “slow” way —I walked. Walking didn’t take that much longer but I came to understand Torino so much better as streets and routes became familiar with repetition.

Over the past few years, I have spent many many hours exploring Rome by walking— and riding bikes. My most recent visit I had a metro pass which was convenient to help me get around faster and easier but I still walked for three hours one evening exploring Rome with my friend Julissa who has lived there for 25 years.

While flying to a destination isn’t climate friendly, once you arrive you can reduce your impact, and there are other benefits too, many which Henry Rollins articulates here as he advises young people to travel:

Bottom line, as Jane Goodall said, “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

Choose to make a difference, to take action, to feel the earth on your bare feet. If you haven’t yet, vote today.

earth

Let’s make new pathways. Henry David Thoreau reminds us: “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” Practice makes permanent.  

Can you do it? Can you walk more? Drive less? Take other climate friendly action?

Let’s walk. Let’s go.

Jane Goodall