Explaining the world by walking across it.
The simplest trick I ever learned as a journalist is that if you want to understand something, go for a walk.
Walk around it, walk on it, walk through it. Spot the details, the patterns, the bits that don’t quite fit. Look at the shape of the land, where the sun rises. See what grows, how buildings are made, and what joins with what and why. Speak to people, take a while to sit and eat something. Watch the insects and birds, read a map. Stand with your feet in the sea. Think about the lives people are living, what their every day priorities are, what they dream about. Remember your history and ponder the future.
I’m Nicholas Walton, and I’m a journalist and author. On this website you will find my books - on the Netherlands, Singapore and Genoa - and details of my walks. It is a work in progress but you should find YouTube videos, along with podcasts, descriptions and maps. If you need more, get in touch.
The idea
Books
Something to stick in your backpack
Videos
Some are videos of single walks, and some are part of a series. To accompany my book on the Netherlands, ‘Orange Sky, Rising Water’, I’ll publish four videos for each of the ten walks, plus some interviews and other material.
What can hiking tell you about the way the world works? How countries work, what their history is, the lives lived by their people, and what the future might hold? This video is the 5 minute introduction to my new channel, @TenWalksExplain, and it was shot mainly in Italy, in Liguria and Val D'Aosta - there are brief appearances from my wife and our two dogs, Rita the Rhodesian Ridgeback, and Baffo the Aussiedoodle. Apologies for any sound issues up in the Apennines, but a cold wind was blowing on some of those mountain ridges... (And the video settings seem a bit weird in Val D'Aosta. The thumbnail is not from Italy or the Netherlands, but was me walking in one of my favourite places on earth, Newton and Embleton beaches, with Dunstanburgh Castle in the distance, in gorgeous Northumberland (the far northeast corner of England).
Next up, I'll be publishing weekly videos of the walks that I did across the Netherlands for my new book 'Orange Sky, Rising Water'. The book uses ten walks in that fascinating country to explain its astonishing past, its present day, and its future. Subscribe to get them all as they come out!