Travel on Foot

There was a time long, long ago when if a human wanted to get from here to there, he or she walked or didn’t go. There were no trains, planes, or automobile. Animals hadn’t even been domesticated and used for transportation. The only method of travel was delivered by human power picking one foot up and putting it front of the other walking!

It worked but it really didn’t take mankind too many years to develop the wheel and domesticate animals. Trains, planes, and automobiles took several more centuries.

Today people still walk as a method of transportation, but the effort is generally put forth for one of two reasons: the person is walking on purpose for pleasure or exercise, OR out of necessity because their car broke down or ran out of gasoline.

Today people buy gym memberships so that they’ll have access to treadmills. Treadmills don’t take them from point A to point B. They’re walking for the purpose of getting physical exercise. The point isn’t to travel. People sometimes buy treadmills for personal use in their own homes. Why? Because as a nation we don’t walk enough; instead of walking we ride at every opportunity. We drive our personal cars or take public transportation to prevent having to walk.

But some people do walk just for pleasure. We call it “hiking” or “backpacking,” but really it’s just walking. It’s the same process that our ancient ancestors used to get from point A to point B.

Walking for the sheer joy of walking is becoming a lost art, though. Maybe it’s because the world has become a more dangerous place, or maybe it’s because it’s just the path of least resistance to transport ourselves by car or bus rather than by foot.

If we all walked more and drove less, we’d be a healthier nation, and the earth would be a cleaner planet because we’d stop using all of that gasoline.

Travel on Foot