Chris Arnade Walks the World

Each morning I wake up and go to the beach1, without crowds or sticky salt water. After a short swim, because I’m not much of a beach person, I leave for a ten mile walk on small shaded roads through forests and fields. Then in the afternoon I read in the McDonald’s, or in a park, or the library, and then at night I either go to a dive bar (I’ve got five excellent choices where I can get twenty five ounce drafts for five or less), or one of the six craft beer places nearby.

(Last weekend I spoke at the Doomer Optimism conference,Another Life is Possible, at the Woodcrest Bruderhof community in Rifton, NY. Below is the talk I didn’t give, and then the talk I did, as well as thoughts a week removed.

I walk because it allows you to see a place in a way that you can’t when zooming through it, treating it as a spectacle to be commodified1. You get to know it, and the people in it, at a thick level, warts and all. You see things that others, including sometimes locals, miss, because of a perspective that comes with being an outsider, but one moving cautiously and slowly. The two people I’m interviewing here also do that, but in different ways, and in different places.

I’ll be doing two zoom calls to discuss Moby Dick — July 14th (Tuesday) at 7 p.m. and July 15th (a Wednesday) at noon, (both NY time) — I hope many of you read it, and then join one of the calls1. Below is my review, of sorts. Needless to say, with spoilers, so if somehow you don’t already know how it ends, maybe wait until you finish the book. “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

Sometimes I immediately like a place, or don’t. As a travel writer I’m supposed to have informed reasons for my judgements, but the reality is sometimes I simply fall in love (or hate) at first sight, and that happened with Estonia, an infatuation that grew and grew over my week there.

In my sixty years of traveling, spanning three different careers and many conventions, I’d never been to Las Vegas. That was mostly intentional, because if given a choice between something hyped as premium, and anything lesser, I’ll choose the lesser.

New Jersey, Snapping Turtles, and a great book. Northeastern New Jersey is part of New York City in everything but name. It's culturally, physically, and economically bound to the city, only removed by the Hudson River, but tethered to it by bridges, tunnels, and a shared history, like a sidecar being pulled along.

Enough solitude to read history Half way through my first day’s hike, from Ulm to Oberfahlheim, I realized this was going to be a lonely trip. While I was passing through a village every few miles, there was nobody around, except in cars zooming past me, or if lucky, at the single open bakery where they would jump out, get their bread, and then quickly drive off.

I’m fortunate to have plenty of free time, so when at home, resting in a McDonald’s, waiting in airports, or on planes, I use it to read, or when walking, listening to books. I walk to learn, which is why I read, since each is a different way to do that. The Metis versus Techne split described by James C Scott, although there are plenty of other terms to describe experiential versus formal learning.

It was an ugly moment in an otherwise charming town, which made it all the more memorable. It wasn’t much, just a drunk guy being weird in a bar, hardly a unique thing, but who he was and how it played out was. I’d only been in North Platte for ten hours and was already charmed by it — the tranquil get-things-done functionality, the wide-open low-slung beauty of the surrounding plains, the non-ironic kitschiness.