171–180 of 259 posts
I'd love to have this freedom. As well as a nice cabin up in the Green Mountains of Vermont to explore. But 12mi a day, and you're basically a professional hiker for a living when you include prep time and post prandial hot tub soaks for recovery ;)
I was walking a little bit before, but not regularly. Since I started doing it every day I lost 35 kg and got much happier. I just can't continue to be angry about anything after walking for 1 hour with a good book on the headphones.
Now I'm usually doing about 5-10 km on work days and 20-35 km on free days. I skip if the weather is too bad but it's rare. For example I love walking when snow is falling as long as it's not the heavy wet variety.
I agree that sometimes it's better not to listen to anything - you can recognize these days by the fact you don't actually listen to the stuff on the headphones. Then I just turn it off or put some instrumental music instead.
As for where to walk - I prefer countryside nowadays, but that's probably because countryside here is very walkable. Small roads have pavements or the traffic is so low it doesn't matter. And the expectation is that people walk on them so it's pretty safe. There's only one road nearby that sucks for walking as I've learnt the hard way. Never again.
Here's a useful tool, for planning routes. A friend wrote it: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/easyroute/id605127860
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Getting a good hiking pack designed to sit off of your back a bit was a godsend to me. I'm with you that I won't carry one if it's hot out, but I'll gladly carry a smaller pack all the time otherwise. Fanny packs are sweet, except the part where you're wearing a fanny pack.
> Fanny packs are sweet, except the part where you're wearing a fanny pack. Hear me out: Sport coats. (edit: and blazers) Very light linen ones for hot days, which keep sun off your skin without really making you hotter. Cooler days, break out the wool. All those extra pockets are wonderful. Grab some thin old mass-market genre paperbacks and discover why they made them that size :-) They're like purses for men, that…
I wear a short sleeve polyester t-shirt in black. I own a dozen of them, all identical, and wear them most days. My wife hates it.
The black is not good on very hot days. It’s surprising how much difference a light color makes. But, I can’t seem to keep light stuff clean.
I don’t know if I could stand my arms in a sport coat, but I guess it’s no different from a regular jacket in the winter.
After walking to and from work for 5 years along the same route, I found that I prefer walking without listening to anything on headphones. Just thinking increases awareness of my surroundings, allows me time to process existing thoughts as opposed to consuming more inputs, and connects me to the people I would inevitably see on a semi-regular basis. Personally, I have found that 1 hour + is a good threshold to aim f…
> allows me time to process existing thoughts as opposed to consuming more inputs This can't be stressed enough. With phones and the Internet today, most of us consume way more information than we have time to really process, organize, and reflect on. It's like we do a shopping spree every single day and never spend any time in our house unpacking any of the grocery bags. Our minds are a chaotic mess of piled up worr…
I was thinking of taking up walking again, despite getting stopped by police more than I would really like. But I considered getting some kind of MP3 player and have gone down the bizarre rabbit hole of trying to find out if those even exist now, do they use .m3u playlists, and so forth. I haven't had as much time to listen to my music and I am not a user of streaming services (I want to listen to what I want to list…
Really? I don't think I've ever been stopped by police just for walking.
I did find, at Google, that almost every time I was out, someone would stop me and ask where the Google Store was. Weird.
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> Fanny packs are sweet, except the part where you're wearing a fanny pack. Hear me out: Sport coats. (edit: and blazers) Very light linen ones for hot days, which keep sun off your skin without really making you hotter. Cooler days, break out the wool. All those extra pockets are wonderful. Grab some thin old mass-market genre paperbacks and discover why they made them that size :-) They're like purses for men, that…
I’m so tempted to try this. I never wear a sport coat. Well, unless I’m in a suit, which is a couple times a year if I’m unlucky. I wear a short sleeve polyester t-shirt in black. I own a dozen of them, all identical, and wear them most days. My wife hates it. The black is not good on very hot days. It’s surprising how much difference a light color makes. But, I can’t seem to keep light stuff clean. I don’t know if I…
I was thinking of taking up walking again, despite getting stopped by police more than I would really like. But I considered getting some kind of MP3 player and have gone down the bizarre rabbit hole of trying to find out if those even exist now, do they use .m3u playlists, and so forth. I haven't had as much time to listen to my music and I am not a user of streaming services (I want to listen to what I want to list…
The good news is, a microSD card on your phone can hold all your music, even in FLAC form (unless you have an insanely large collection).
There are many music player apps that can either shuffle randomly, or play albums in sequence if that's what you want.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> allows me time to process existing thoughts as opposed to consuming more inputs This can't be stressed enough. With phones and the Internet today, most of us consume way more information than we have time to really process, organize, and reflect on. It's like we do a shopping spree every single day and never spend any time in our house unpacking any of the grocery bags. Our minds are a chaotic mess of piled up worr…
There is a benefit of re-listening to certain audiobooks, lectures or podcasts. If there was a sophisticated way to just have content on-repeat, that would be cool. New content all the time is over-consumption, while repeating could be used for learning. Also if walking alone, people should try calling friends and family. It's a great way to reconnect and stay connected with friends. Handsfree, heads up, it's good fu…
The Count of Monte Cristo is my current go to re-read.
I find the anti-backpack mindset interesting, because I started urban walking after getting wilderness backpacking experience. I can't imagine walking around without a daypack, and I often bring it with me even when it's empty. On my morning commute today it held a Kindle, a spare set of headphones, and a plastic bag for when I buy more groceries than can fit in the pack. I'm probably not going to use any of those be…
I cannot deal when a backpack when the temperature is above 65 degrees Fahrenheit, for the very reason Arnade gives -- a sweaty back. I've been using a Nittany Mountain Works fanny pack on bike rides recently (the larger model will carry A5 notebooks, which is plenty big for my non-work commuting since I'm remote full time now). I guess I will still deal with a sweaty lower back, but that's better than my entire back…
With that said, the college kids tend to prefer a backpack because it's their mobile office, and they don't want anything on their bike that can get stolen.