# What are the best books about walking?

Canonical: https://zestasy.com/books/best-books-about-walking/  
Section: Books & ideas · Updated: 2026-10-13 · Publisher: Zestasy

For ideas, read Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust: A History of Walking (2000), which treats walking as a cultural and political act as much as a way of getting somewhere. For landscape, Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways (2012) follows ancient paths on foot; for comedy, Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods (1998) recounts his attempt at the Appalachian Trail.

Walking is the least glamorous way to move and the one that has inspired the most writing. Philosophers, poets and pilgrims have all had something to say about it, and the three books below are the best ways in for an ordinary reader: one big history of ideas, one lyrical journey, and one very funny failure.

## Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit (2000)

Solnit's book, first published by Viking in 2000, starts with the old link between walking and thinking and widens out from there. Publishers Weekly's review describes a sweep that takes in human evolution and walking upright, then pilgrims, poets and protesters, and ends up in Las Vegas. Along the way she argues that car-centred development and suburban sprawl have separated everyday life from the body, and that walking is a cultural and even political act as well as a way of getting around.

It is a book of ideas rather than a travelogue, and the central thread, how walking, thinking and writing feed each other, is the one most readers carry away.

**Read it if:** you like essays, history and big connections, and you suspect your best thoughts arrive on foot.

## The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, Robert Macfarlane (2012)

Described as the third book in a loose trilogy about landscape and the human heart, after Mountains of the Mind and The Wild Places. Here he follows old routes on foot and by water: pilgrimage paths, sea-roads, prehistoric trackways and ancient rights of way, in southeast England and northwest Scotland, and further afield in Spain, Sichuan and Palestine. Its guiding spirit is the writer and poet Edward Thomas, and its real subject is how people and places shape each other.

The prose is dense and beautiful, best read a chapter at a time. Many readers finish it looking at the footpath behind their house rather differently.

**Read it if:** you love maps, old paths and writing that slows you down.

## A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson (1998)

In 1996 Bryson set out to hike the Appalachian Trail, the long-distance footpath through the eastern United States, joined for much of the way by an old friend who appears in the book under the name Stephen Katz. The trail turned out to be much harder than expected, and he ended up completing roughly 40 per cent of it. Between the comic misadventures, Bryson works in the trail's history, the region's people, its ecology and conservation.

It is the most purely entertaining book here, and a good reminder that a walk you don't finish can still be worth writing home about. It was made into a film in 2015.

**Read it if:** you want to laugh, or you are planning your own first long walk and need your expectations gently adjusted.

## Which one first?

- **For the thinker:** Wanderlust.
- **For the romantic:** The Old Ways.
- **For the reluctant hiker:** A Walk in the Woods.

## FAQ

### Are any of these practical hiking guides?
No. None of them will tell you which boots to buy or how to read a map. For a gentle, practical start, see /movement/first-outdoor-adventure/.

### Does Bryson finish the Appalachian Trail?
No, and he is cheerfully honest about it. He covers around 40 per cent of the trail, which is part of the book's charm.

### What else has Macfarlane written about landscape?
Mountains of the Mind (2003) looks at why people are drawn to mountains, and The Wild Places (2007) searches for remaining wildness in Britain and Ireland. The Old Ways completes that loose trilogy.

### Is Wanderlust hard going?
It is denser than the other two, but it is written for general readers. Read it in sections, the way you would take a long walk: with stops.

## Sources

- [Publishers Weekly: review of Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit](https://publishersweekly.com/9780670882090)
- [Wikipedia: Robert Macfarlane (writer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Macfarlane_(writer))
- [Wikipedia: A Walk in the Woods (book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Walk_in_the_Woods_(book))

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