Benefits of Walking
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Walking is a wonderful thing to do, whether you're on holiday or not. A regular routine of 20-40 minutes walking per day has many recognised benefits.
This page explains a few of the all-round benefits that come from making walking a regular part of your life.
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Recognising the benefits
embracing the good things of life...
“After a day's walk everything has twice its usual value.” - G.M. Trevelyan (1876-1962), British historian.
Some great reasons to head out for a walk...
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- solitude - time and space to think and wonder
- experience the great outdoors
- create a sense of achievement
- fix the balance between work and recreation
- wonderful physical health benefits
- non-stressful and non-competitive fitness building
- relaxation and improved mental health
- improved sleep
- safety
- low cost
- convenience - just step out
- the chance to socialise in a relaxed atmosphere
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Quotes
words from the wise...
These quotes give further insight into the many benefits of regular nature walks:
- “There is no orthodoxy in walking. It is a land of many paths and no-paths, where every one goes his own and is right.”
- G.M. Trevelyan (1876-1962), British historian.
- “Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.”
- Thomas A. Edison
(1847-1931), American inventor & businessman.
- “I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas.
I'm frightened of the old ones.”
- John Cage
(1912-1992), U.S. composer of avant-garde music, philosopher & writer.
- “..people were walking in the bush for pleasure long before the first club had ever been thought of, or before the first tourist track was ever laid. ..bushwalking can be traced back to 1788.”
- Melissa Harper
Australian researcher; from "The ways of the bushwalker: on foot in Australia", 2007.
- “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
- John Muir
(1838-1914), Scottish-American wilderness preservationist; from Steep Trails, 1918.
- “I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least - and it is commonly more than that - sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.”
- Henry David Thoreau
(1817–1862), American philosopher, author, naturalist.
- “It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.”
- Robert Louis Stevenson
(1850-1894), Scottish writer, critic, naturalist.
- “My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.”
- Aldous Huxley
(1894-1963), British writer.
- “It is not enough to just "love nature" or want to "be in harmony with Gaia." Our relation to the natural world takes place in a place, and it must be grounded in information and experience.”
- Gary Snyder
(b.1930), American poet, essayist, environmental activist.
- “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and places to pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.”
- John Muir (1838-1914), Scottish-American wilderness preservationist & naturalist. "The Hetch Hetchy Valley" Sierra Club Bulletin,Vol. VI, No.4, Jan. 1908.
- “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”
- John Muir (1838-1914), Scottish-American wilderness preservationist; from Our National Parks, 1901, p.56.
- “Not to have known - as most men have not - either the mountain or the desert is not to have known one's self. Not to have known one's self is to have known no one.”
- Joseph Wood Krutch (1893-1970), American writer, critic, naturalist.
- “The wilderness is a place of rest - not in the sense of being motionless, for the lure, after all, is to move, to round the next bend. The rest comes in the isolation from distractions, in the slowing of the daily centrifugal forces that keep us off balance.”
- David Douglas (American writer, water issues advocate; from Wilderness Sojourn; 1987)
- “Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and downs,
To the silent wilderness,
Where the soul need not repress
Its music.”
- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), British poet. The Invitation; 1820.
- “When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods:
what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall?”
- Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. From “Walking” (1862), in “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau”, 1906, vol. 5, pp. 210-211.
- “Of course it is of no use to direct our steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.... What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?”
- Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. From “Walking” (1862), in “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau”, 1906, vol. 5, p. 211.
- “For me and for thousands with similar inclinations, the most important passion of life is the overpowering desire to escape periodically from the clutches of a mechanistic civilization. To us the enjoyment of solitude, complete independence, and the beauty of undefiled panoramas is absolutely essential to happiness.”
- Bob Marshall
(1901-1939), Co-founder of the Wilderness Society (USA).
- “The tendency nowadays to wander in wilderness is delightful to see. Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”
- John Muir (1838-1914), Scottish-American wilderness preservationist & naturalist; Our National Parks, 1901.
- “Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.”
- John Muir (1838-1914), Scottish-American wilderness preservationist & naturalist; The Life and Letters of John Muir, 1924; (Letter to wife Louie, July 1888).
- “Simplicity in all things is the secret of the wilderness and one of its most valuable lessons. It is what we leave behind that is important. I think the matter of simplicity goes further than just food, equipment, and unnecessary gadgets; it goes into the matter of thoughts and objectives as well. When in the wilds, we must not carry our problems with us or the joy is lost.”
- Sigurd F. Olson
(1899-1982), American author, environmentalist, wilderness advocate; from The Singing Wilderness; 1956.
- “Riverbanks lined with green trees, fragrant grasses: A place not sacred? Where?”
- Proverbs, Sayings and Songs, Zen Forest Saying
- “In the country it is as if every tree said to me, ‘Holy! Holy!’
Who can ever express the ecstasy of the woods.”
- Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770-1827), German romantic composer.
- “I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?” - Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), ecologist, forester, environmentalist, co-founder of The Wilderness Society (USA);
considered to be father of American wildlife management.
- “The more that’s done for hikers in the forests and woods and mountains, in that far do they fail to get the most out of it... We must retain the challenging character of the wilderness.”
- Walter O'Kane
American guidebook writer, 1935.
- “Every man needs a place where he can go to go crazy in peace.
Every Boy Scout troop deserves a forest to get lost, miserable, and starving in.... ”
- Edward Abbey
(1927-1989), American author & essayist; from The Journey Home; 1977.
- “Always in big woods, when you leave familiar ground and step off alone to a new place, there will be, along with feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the unknown, and it is your bond with the wilderness you are going into. What you are doing is exploring. You are understanding the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place. It is the experience of our essential loneliness, for nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes common ground, and a common bond, and we cease to be alone.”
- Wendell Berry (b. 1934),American writer & poet; The Unknown Wilderness: Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, 1971.
- “If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can't go at dawn and not many places he can't go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking - one sport you shouldn't have to reserve a time and a court for.”
- Edward Hoagland
(b. 1932), U.S. novelist, essayist. repr. in “Heart’s Desire” (1988).
“City Walking,” New York Times Book Review (June 1, 1975).
- “What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked”
- Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens]
(1835–1910), American humorist, satirist, writer, lecturer.
- “Don't think you're on the right road just because it’s a well-beaten path.”
- Author Unknown
- “The contented person enjoys the scenery of a detour.”
- Author Unknown
- “Let your walks now be a little more adventurous.”
- Henry David Thoreau
(1817–1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist.
- “It is not down in any map; true places never are.”
- Herman Melville (1819-1891), American novelist, essayist, poet; from Moby Dick; 1851.
- “I just wish the world was twice as big and half of it was still unexplored.”
- David Attenborough
(b. 1926), British broadcaster & naturalist.
- “Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), English philologist & writer; from one of several walking songs from Lord of the Rings; 1954-55.
- “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference”
- Robert Frost (1874-1963), American poet; from "The Road Not Taken"; 1916.
- “All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost.”
- J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), English philologist & writer; from Lord of the Rings; 1954-55.
- “If every citizen could take one walk through this [Sierra] reserve, there would be no more trouble about its care; for only in darkness does vandalism flourish.”
- John Muir (1838-1914), Scottish-American wilderness preservationist & naturalist; Our National Parks, 1901.
- “When all the dangerous cliffs are fenced off, all the trees that might fall on people are cut down, all of the insects that bite are poisoned... and all of the grizzlies are dead because they are occasionally dangerous, the wilderness will not be made safe. Rather, the safety will have destroyed the wilderness.”
- R. Yorke Edwards (Canadian biologist & environmentalist.)
- “Consider, for example, the question of "accessibility". An area that cannot be reached is obviously not being put to use. On the other hand, one reached too easily becomes a mere "resort" to which people flock for purposes just as well served by golf courses, swimming pools, and summer hotels. Parks are often described as "recreation areas" and so they are. But the term "recreation" as ordinarily used does not imply much stress upon the kind of experience which Grand Canyon, despite the flood of visitors that comes to it, still does provide namely, the experience of being in the presence of nature's ways and nature's work.”
- Joseph Wood Krutch (1893-1970), American writer, critic, naturalist.
- “Preserving Our Natural Resources for the Public, Instead of from the Public. .”
–motto of the Blue Ribbon Coalition,1987; promoting responsible use of public land in California, USA.
- “All power being derived from the people: therefore all officers of government, whether legislative or executive, are the trustees and servants and in all times accountable to them.”
- 1776 Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights.
- “I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown,
for going out, I found, was really going in.”
- John Muir (1838-1914), Scottish-American wilderness preservationist & naturalist; 1913; in John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, L.M. Wolfe, ed., 1938, p. 439.
- “The walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours … but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day.”
- Henry David Thoreau
(1817–1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist; Walking, Atlantic Monthly, June 1862.
- “Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!”
- Jane Austen
(1775-1817), English novelist.
- “The true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and soul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk.”
- Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens]
(1835–1910), American humorist, satirist, writer, lecturer; In A Tramp Abroad, Ch. 23 (1880).
- “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844–1900), German philosopher
- “I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop,
I cease to think; my mind works only with my legs.”
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(1712-1778), Genevan philosopher; from Les Confessions.
- “To find new things, take the path you took yesterday.”
- John Burroughs
(1837-1921), American naturalist.
- “Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.”
- Henry David Thoreau
(1817–1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist.
- “The rhythm of walking generates a kind of rhythm of thinking, and the passage through a landscape echoes or stimulates the passage through a series of thoughts. This creates an odd consonance between internal and external passage, one that suggests that the mind is also a landscape of sorts and that walking is one way to traverse it. A new thought often seems like a feature of the landscape that was there all along, as though thinking were traveling rather than making.”
- Rebecca Solnit
American writer, historian, environmental activist; from Wanderlust: A History of Walking, p. 5; 2000.
- “I was the world in which I walked.”
- Wallace Stevens
(1879-1955), American modernist poet; from Tea at the Palaz of Hoon, in Collected Poetry & Prose, p.51.
- “It is solved by walking.”
- Latin proverb
- “Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along,
listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.”
- A.A. Milne
(1882-1956), Pooh's Little Instruction Book, publ. Methuen 1996.
- “It is not talking but walking that will bring us to heaven."
- Matthew Henry
(1662-1714), English non-conformist clergyman.
- “Walking meditation means to enjoy walking without any intention to arrive. We don't need to arrive anywhere. We just walk. We enjoy walking. ..... Usually in our daily life we walk because we want to go somewhere. Walking is only a means to an end, and that is why we do not enjoy every step we take. Walking meditation is different. Walking is only for walking. You enjoy every step you take. So this is a kind of revolution in walking. You allow yourself to enjoy every step you take.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh
(b. 1926), Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, author, peace activist; from Resting in the River
- “If you look for the truth outside yourself,
It gets farther and farther away.
Today walking alone, I meet it everywhere I step.
It is the same as me, yet I am not it.
Only if you understand it in this way
Will you merge with the way things are.”
- Tung-shan Liang-chieh (806-869), ancient Chinese Zen (Ch'an) master.
- “On the path that leads to Nowhere I have sometimes found my soul!”
- Corine Roosevelt Robinson
(1861-1933), poet, lecturer, orator.
From the poem “The Path that leads to Nowhere”
in The Poems of Corinne Roosevelt Robinson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1921.
- “One step at a time is good walking.”
- Chinese Proverb
- “Nature is shy and noncommittal in a crowd. To learn her secrets, visit her alone or with a single friend, at most. Everything evades you, everything hides, even your thoughts escape you, when you walk in a crowd.”
– Edwin Way Teale
(1899-1980), American naturalist, photographer, writer;
Circle of the Seasons: The Journal of a Naturalist’s Year - May 4. (1987).
- “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes,
but in having new eyes.”
- Marcel Proust
(1871-1922), French intellectual, novelist, essayist & critic.
- “The country was all wrong and I felt cheated. This wasn't what I had come back for; where were the ferntree gullies, the high plains, the trout? All the plants scratched your legs. The jarrah was a grotesque parody of a tree, gaunt, misshapen, usually with a few dead limbs, fire-blackened trunk, and barely enough leaves to shade a small ant. If you went camping in the summer, you carried water – you couldn't take a running stream for granted. It was slowly borne in on me that I wasn't Australian at all, but a Victorian…. Slowly I came to understand the land better.”
- George Seddon
(1927-2007), Australian academic; writing of Western Australia in the Foreword to his “Sense of Place”; 1972.
- “There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast.”
- Paul Scott Mowrer
(1887-1971), U.S. newspaper correspondent; from The House of Europe; 1945.
- “If a certain assemblage of trees, of mountains, of waters, and of houses that we call a landscape is beautiful, it is not because of itself, but through me, through my own indulgence, through the thought or the sentiment that I attach to it.”
- Charles Baudelaire
(1821-1867), French poet.
- “If the day ever comes when they know who
They are, they may know better where they are.”
- Robert Frost
(1874-1963), American poet; from A Cabin in the Clearing; 1951.
- “We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
- T. S. Eliot
(1888-1965), American poet, dramatist, and literary critic; from Little Gidding.
- “The beauty of nature includes all that is called beautiful, as its flower, and all that is not called beautiful, as its stalk and roots. Indeed, when I go to the woods or the fields, or ascend to the hilltop, I do not seem to be gazing upon beauty at all, but to be breathing it like the air. I am not dazzled or astonished; I am in no hurry to look lest it be gone. I would not have the litter and debris removed, or at the bands trimmed, or the ground painted. What I enjoy is commensurate with the earth and sky itself. It clings to the rocks and trees; it is kindred to the roughness and savagery; it arises from every tangle and chasm; it perches on the dry oakstubs with the hawks and buzzards; the crows shed it from their wings and weave it in to their nests of coarse sticks; the fox barks it, the cattle low it, and every mountain path leads to its haunts. I am not a spectator of, but a participator in it. It is not an adornment; its roots strike to the centre of the earth.”
- John Burroughs (1837-1921), American naturalist; from Birds and Poets, 1877.
- “Go outside and walk a bit, long enough to take in and record new surroundings. Enjoy the best-kept secret around - the ordinary, everyday landscape that touches any explorer with magic.”
- John R. Stilgoe (Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places, 1998.)
- “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”
- Soren Kierkegaard
(1813-1855), Danish philosopher & theologian.
- “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
- Mohandas [Mahatma] Gandhi (1869-1948), Indian political and spiritual leader.
- “Walking takes longer... than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed.”
-Edward Abbey
(1927-1989), American author & essayist; from The Journey Home; 1977.
- “I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes, my rage, forgetting everything.”
- Pablo Neruda [Ricardo Basoalto]
(1904-1973); Chilean poet & politician; translated; from poem "Walking Around".
- “Walking is a man's best medicine."
- Hippocrates
(c.460-370BC), ancient Greek physician & "the Father of Medicine".
- “Of all exercises walking is the best.”
- Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826), third President of the U.S.A.
- “I have two doctors, my left leg and my right.”
- G.M. Trevelyan
(1876-1962), British historian; from Walking, essay in The Art of Walking, 1934.
- “If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”
- Henry David Thoreau
(1817–1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist,
in “Walden’ (Conclusion).
- “Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast
- you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.”
- Eddie Cantor
(1892-1964) U.S. comedian, singer, actor, songwriter.
- “A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.”
- Paul Dudley White
(1886-1973), U.S. pioneering cardiologist.
- “The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God…I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.”
- Anne Frank
(1929-1945), German diarist and Holocaust victim.
- “If you want to know if your brain is flabby, feel your legs.”
- Bruce Barton
(1886-1967), U.S. author, advertising exec., politician.
- “The sum of the whole is this: walk and be happy; walk and be healthy.
The best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose.”
- Charles Dickens
(1812-1870), British novelist.
- “.…[the] brisk exercise imparts elasticity to the muscles, fresh and healthy blood circulates through the brain, the mind works well, the eye is clear, the step is firm, and a day's exertion always makes the evening's repose thoroughly enjoyable.”
- David Livingstone
(1813-1873), Scottish explorer.
from "The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa, from 1865 to his Death"
(journal entry of 26 Mar. 1866); ed. H.Waller, 1874.
- “Early one morning, any morning, we can set out, with the least
possible baggage, and discover the world.”
- Thomas A. Cook
(b.1944), Scottish poet, from the poem "In Praise of Walking" (1988).
- “My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty.
She's ninety-three today and we don't know where the hell she is.”
- Ellen DeGeneres
(b. 1958), U.S. actress, stand-up comedian, talk-show host.
- “The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.”
- Henry David Thoreau
(1817–1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist.
- "Walking is the exercise that needs no gym. It is the prescription without medicine, the weight control without diet, the cosmetic that is sold in no drugstore. It is the tranquilizer without a pill, the therapy without a psychoanalyst, the fountain of youth that is no legend. A walk is the vacation that does not cost a cent."
- Aaron Sussman & Ruth Goode
from "The Magic of Walking", 1967.
- "Your possessions should set you free like a boat or a pair of hiking boots.
If you work for your possessions and they don't set you free, what are you working for?"
- Billy Harris
- "It is good to collect things; but it is much, much better to go on long walks and collect experiences."
- Anatole France
(1844-1924), French author.
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