I walked across Luxembourg
blog.ioces.comThe history of Luxembourg is an interesting microcosm of how the fortunes of states and dynasties have ebbed and flowed in Europe over the past thousand years.
There was a time when the House of Luxembourg was the main rival to the Habsburgs for control of central Europe, contributing four Holy Roman Emperors:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Luxemburg
The dukes of this area used to be so important to European politics that Henry VIII of England married a Dutch duke's daughter for political reasons (and immediately regretted it of course, as he was wont to do).
The area of the Duchy used to be several times larger, but over centuries it was nibbled away by France, Prussia, and finally the creation of Belgium.
It has been under Spanish rule (those Habsburgs again), then invaded by the French revolutionary republic and annexed into France as a department simply called Forêts (Forests) because the revolutionaries didn't want to keep any names that honored the old nobility. After Napoleon's defeat the Congress of Vienna aimed to restore old borders and reinstate monarchies, but with multiple claims on Luxembourg, it was split and became a grand duchy whose head of state was the King of Netherlands.
It became an independent country in 1890 when the Dutch king died without a male heir. Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a claimant rather than the new Dutch queen. (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.)
>> Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a claimant rather than the new Dutch queen. (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.)
Game of Thrones, with its campy portrayal of regal titles and announcements, kind of drives this point home. European aristocracy, especially those derived from germanic and other barbarian cultures, held titles like collectibles. Lordships accrued rather than expanded. The could be dispersed and often were.
If you watch Queen Elizebeth coronation, the list of titles would shame Daenerys Targaryen. It's quite surreal. Queen of Jamaica, Empress of India, Defender of the faith...
Even the 20th century version was not unrelated to real politics, but as you go back, this reflected real political power and machinations. Every title had different rules, different arbiters, and disputes led to actual wars.
Queen Elizabeth II had so many titles they abbreviated them:
(On accession.) "Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith."
(At death.) "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, and Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_titles_and_honours_of_...
Maybe in parts of the ceremony. The footage on replay at london castle has long (20m+) title read.
>Head of the Commonwealth
that is no joke, remember back in 80 or 70, when she recalled the election results in Australia. Then they had the election again, and of course this time the other guy won.
The relevant title for that action would be Queen of Australia, but the reality was considerably more complicated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional...
Basically Governor-General (the Queen's representative of a country) John Kerr did it without approval from the Queen.
We have the same system here in Canada but if such a thing happened here there would be riots in the streets. Especially Quebec and First Nations. But really anyone would be very mad and we would probably drop the monarchy that day tradition or not.
Governors General are more than a mere “representative” (though they re described that way in my passport), they are viceroys (vice kings) so exercise royal prerogatives.
Of course monarchy is nonsense but I have a thing for pedantry like this.
TBH the nonsensical nature of monarchy works out for Australia, as it costs essentially nothing and sort of acts as a ground strap to make the idea of “head of state” rather irrelevant. Just compare to countries like France or USA where the Head of State gets capital letters and is a person with actual power.
Next best would be a president like in Germany who is basically a nonentity with less power than a GG.
> TBH the nonsensical nature of monarchy works out for Australia, as it costs essentially nothing and sort of acts as a ground strap to make the idea of “head of state” rather irrelevant. Just compare to countries like France or USA where the Head of State gets capital letters and is a person with actual power.
> Next best would be a president like in Germany who is basically a nonentity with less power than a GG.
Meh, you're just moving the position 1 rank down. The German Chancellor (in other countries, the Prime Minister) wields all the power instead.
Plus, you know, they're only presidents. After 4-5-6-7 (x2 in some cases) years they go away.
The concept under description is effectively Bagehot's "dignified" vs. "efficient" parts of government. The head of state being the "dignified", the personification of the nation, and the head of government being the "efficient", the wielder of political power.
I generally favor the American-style presidential system over the British-style parliamentary system, but I think one flaw of the American one is that it combines the roles of the dignified and the efficient, often conflicting with each other, into one office.
The French semi-presidential system is a little weird, with technically the prime minister being the head of government, but the president still wields most of the executive power.
The 5e's constitution was designed for De Gaulle, so de facto, the French Président wields all the power, even quite a bit during "cohabitation". The PM is mainly there is be blamed for things and to manage the legislature for the president.
> Meh, you're just moving the position 1 rank down.
Indeed, that is the point. But the PM can be replaced more easily than, and doesn't have the same focus of attention of, the head of state. Best is when the two are muddled, as in the German case.
I've lived in Australia, USA, France and Germany so have some idea of the spectrum of options.
we would probably drop the monarchy that day tradition or not.
I’m not so sure. If that were the case, why not drop it now? There is nothing virtuous about the tradition.
>Basically Governor-General (the Queen's representative of a country) John Kerr did it without approval from the Queen.
What does this even mean? It's not like G-Gs the world over consult with Buckingham Palace before every action. Kerr acted as he believed was the correct course. You may or may not agree, but the 1975 dismissal was not a case of that Governor-General somehow cheating to get away with a flagrant violation of the rules G-Gs follow.
More to the point, Australians did not agree with your interpretation. The Coalition won the biggest majority in history in the federal election called one month after the dismissal. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_federal_electi...>
>We have the same system here in Canada but if such a thing happened here there would be riots in the streets.
The same thing did happen in Canada. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%E2%80%93Byng_affair> No riots.
Yet again, a Canadian (thinks he) knows more about other countries' affairs than his own. I can guarantee that Canadians as a whole were more aware of Trump winning the 2016 US presidential election by earning more electoral votes than Hillary despite receiving fewer popular votes, than the fact that the same thing (of one party forming a federal government by winning the most seats, despite winning fewer popular votes than another) had happened several times in Canadian history, such as in 1979. I doubt that this has changed even though this happened again in the two most recent federal elections to Trudeau's benefit.
> Yet again, a Canadian (thinks he) knows more about other countries' affairs than his own.
On behalf of Canadians I'm sorry about whatever it is that we did to make you feel this way.
> Yet again, a Canadian (thinks he) knows more about other countries' affairs than his own.
Yeah there's a story there.
Plus their apparent belief in having mind reading abilities is disturbing.
Sorry, not my fault that you misunderstand what Governors-Generals do (and don't do) or what happened with the 1975 dismissal.[1] Or you now pretending that you knew what had happened in the 1979 federal election (let alone the earlier cases, especially 1896) before I told you about it.
[1] Or The Dismissal, depending on who you ask
Yeah… not exactly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional...
remember back in 80 or 70, when she recalled the election results in Australia. Then they had the election again, and of course this time the other guy won.
You'd think the queen interfering in an election would earn her more than one brief mention in the Wikipedia article. But Wiki remembers it differently than you do:
"The leader of the Opposition, Billy Snedden, was enthusiastic about the appointment and also agreed to reappoint Kerr in five years, were he prime minister at the time. Kerr then agreed to take the post, was duly appointed by Queen Elizabeth II, and was sworn in on 11 July 1974."
The kings of England also claimed to be Kings of France until 1800.
In 1800 England was closer to becoming a department of France, than France joining a personal union under England :-))
Of course, life turned out differently, but aristocratic claims are quite crazy. Who's the current King of Jerusalem, again? :-D
So...
The thing to remember is that nations and nationalism are the centrepiece concept of politics today, but this is new.
Medieval politics was all about kings, lords and lordships. Not nations. National sentiments may have played roles, but secondary. Like the role race, class, ideology or whatnot today. Important, but nowhere near as central as nations.
The King of England wasn't very English much of the time.
The competing claims on england & france originate with Normans. They were if scandi origin, became powerful in France. They conquered England, Jerusalem, Cyprus, parts of Italy, etc. England became the house's important, long term procession... but they weren't English. They spoke french and claimed Viking ancestry.
Circa 1800 was a transitional period. Republican nationalism was exploding. Being a German house (Hanover) ruling England was becoming an issue. Royals started to adopt (previously derided) English folkishness. They raised their children in English, started speaking in a native accent, eating English foods and publicly participating in English activities.
You can still see this today, with British royals engaged in symbolic national "customs" like Scottish tartanry, Welsh language or whatever.
England wasn't claiming lordship over France. The king of England was. Up to 1800-ish, the king himself wasn't English. Not culturally and not by self-definition.
There's a Hohenzollern (futilely) trying to claw back the assets of Prussia.
All dutch laws start with "Wij Beatrix, bij de gratie Gods, Koningin der Nederlanden, Prinses van Oranje-Nassau, enz. enz. enz." (or equivalent for different kings/queens) which translates to "We Beatrix, by the grace of god, queen of the Netherlands, Princess of Oranje-Nassau, etc. etc. etc."
You know a title is too long if you have to resort to "etc." in official documents.
They did love collecting titles. The kings of England also claimed the title of King of France until 1802, even though they lost the very last enclave on French soil in 1558:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_claims_to_the_French_t...
There was a recent incident with the first printing of the Book of Common Prayer (the Church of England's official prayer book) after the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
The BCP includes both references to the current monarch, and to Queen Elizabeth I who ordered it to be compiled. Unfortunately someone at the publisher didn't realize this, and did a find and replace of (among other things) "King" for "Queen" and "Charles" for "Elizabeth", resulting in a page that referred to "Our Sovereign Lord CHARLES, by the grace of God, of England, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith.”
Reminds me of "Parsing Html The Cthulhu Way" [0] except for the semantic (meaning) layer instead of the syntactic layer.
0. https://blog.codinghorror.com/parsing-html-the-cthulhu-way/
Holy Roman Emperors also pile on the royal titles. King of the Germans, king of Italy, on top of their regular titles. Charles V was king of Germany, Italy, Spain, Lord of the Netherlands, Duke of Burgundy. When he passed half of his titles to his brother Ferdinand, he was also king of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia.
And yet somehow there's supposed to be only one real king in the Empire (Bohemia).
> Charles V
Funnily he was also King of two different Galicias (the one in Spain and the other one in Ukraine)
Maybe one day some really successful conqueror will be king of both Georgias, the one in North America and the one in Caucasus.
Or maybe a really specific conqueror?
I could bet on what his name would be.
Drago the Dragon King.
Don't forget South Georgia!
I'm reading again Henry V, by Shakespeare. The first scene starts with some realpolitik where the archbishop of Canterbury (a Catholic bishop then) distracts the king from passing a law that would strip the Church from a large part of its wealth and lands by making him go to war against France to claim the throne.
The current King of Sweden decided that he had enough and dropped all except King of Sweden from his.
Bad move. Now it takes one move to dethrone him.
He’s castled with the Stockholm Royal Palace so there’s a bishop and knight defending him, at least.
Ever since the Kalmar Union, Denmark has had the Swedish national emblem the Three Crowns as part of their Royal Coat of Arms. The union ended in 1523.
> The kings of England also claimed the title of King of France until 1802, even though they lost the very last enclave on French soil in 1558:
I imagine a future where China badly loses an expansionist war but continues to identify itself as Protector of Tibet for 10 more generations.
Then again I can also imagine a future US Gov rejecting the Confederation of Desantia after it's Bugs Bunny style secession from the US - and continue to use it's archaic name of Florida.
They still hold the Jersey islands where the English monarch is the Duke of Normandy ;)
Elizabeth was never Empress of India, not least because India became a republic in 1950, two years before her accession.
Yes - the title Emperor/Empress of India was abolished in 1948:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_India
So her father, George VI, was the last Emperor of India.
The reason it was such a strategic position, is because the town was a natural fortress. It's located on top of a high, flat rock, which is riddled with tunnels for gun casemates, making the town of Luxembourg very hard to take.
It was a vital part of the Spanish Road that the Spanish Habsburgs needed to move troops from their lands in Italy to the north during the 80 Years War.
In 1867 by treaty the anything military and the fortress was required to be torn down. Kind of a shame, because just a few decades later fortresses became almost useless in war. It's a bit weird to see the ruins of a fortress and then go to the local museum and realize that it was torn down recently enough that there are tons of photographs of it. On the other hand it allowed the rest of the city centre to be built up.
> (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.)
Friend of mine back-tested the simple "the next king is the first son of the previous king" against the past 1,000 years of English kings and found it to be true only half the time.
I did the same - taking only the kings/queens of England (i.e. starting with Alfred and ending with Queen Anne, ignoring those after the unification of the United Kingdom).
Son is by far the most common (21 from 50), followed by brother (6 from 50).
The next two are especially interesting - 5 new monarchs were usurpers (i.e. not closely related to the previous monach) and 3 times the new monarch was also an old monarch (i.e. a previous King was returned to the throne!).
There were 4 or 5 female successions (twice a daughter, twice a sister and once a daughter-but-disputed-succession [i.e. Matilda]).
Only once does it looks like the succession totally jumped a generation, and a grandson succeeded. In every other situation it looks like people were in the same generation (i.e. brother, sisters, cousins) or one lower (sons, daughters, nephews).
And only once did the succession 'jump back' a generation, with Richard III succeeding his nephew.
I was really hoping that Charles would just be king for a day and give it to William thereafter. Get some fresh blood in there, as well as a figure that didn't have 50 years of somewhat controversial behavior lined up behind them.
Did your friend exclude situations where the previous king had no sons?
> Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a claimant rather than the new Dutch queen
If you are confused by this, try Crusader Kings game by Paradox (I prefer ck2 to ck3) for a good taste of multiple types of inheritance and problems arising from ruling medieval realm and passing all accumulated titles to your heirs.
Wow, I wish I had your ability to synthesise a thousand-year history in a few paragraphs in such an interesting and cohesive way!
He links to a very nice government site which seems to have an interactive (and somehow coloured) Lidar map of the whole country [1]. Navigation is a bit awkward (you need to double-click to move around), but you can almost make out car models!
Indeed https://github.com/potree/potree has a bit awkward navigation, but there are quite a few nice lidar datasets available to explore with it, like the scan of the Matterhorn. I once used it to explore a dataset made by a photogrammetry drone, was quite nice.
The entire country of the Netherlands is also available here: http://ahn2.pointclouds.nl/ There is no rgb information, only elevation. But you can make out individual power powerlines, the scan resolution is really high.
AHN2 was measured between 2007 and 2012. AHN3 from 2014 to 2019 and I believe AHN4 is actually complete now (measured from 2021 to 2022?).
Better resolution, more up to date -- but I don't know of such a nice point cloud viewer for it.
Indeed, but the only viewer for ahn4 I know of is some crappy arcgis site.
This is quite amazing, thanks for these links. Do you have any more info about how was this performed? What is it used for?
I walked across Tokyo last weekend. Took me 20 hours. I suck at writing so all I'll say is that everyone should walk across a city. It's a magical experience. Turn off your your phone, bring a disposable camera and a compass and just walk. You'll discover so many personal insights.
For my 30th birthday a group of friends and I walked the perimeter of Manhattan island. Except for a section along the Harlem river, there are paths along the water the entire way so it required almost no navigation. We picked up and dropped off friends along way that only wanted to do parts of the walk. And we stopped at several bars too, meeting other friends that just wanted to have a drink. We started at 8am and finished just after 4am. I would definitely do it again, even without the friends or bars - but they definitely made it a memorable adventure.
Manhattan is my favorite city to walk in alone.
Manhattan can be enjoyed without ever bringing your gaze to the ground level. The diversity of architecture means that every block feels fresh. World renowned classics, the sheer scale of central park and the greatest hits of art-deco. Pair that with new spots like the Highline, Hudson yards, Little island.... and it keeps on giving.
And then you come back down to earth and Manhattan also happens to be the best city for people watching. What a delight !
I really do not like walking in Manhattan. The city blocks are so short so you're constantly having to cross hectic streets, an the grid nature of the city means you're pretty much walking in long, straight lines. In my opinion, it's hectic and at the same time monotonous.
Just walk along streets rather than avenues and the blocks become quite long.
I've biked that route several times, but I bet we got entirely different impressions due to travel method.
If one cannot afford to travel, videos such as these are a good alternative:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgfd-uWTVwg (Kyoto under the rain)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgYPErtoljI (A stroll in a small town near Tokyo)
This was my early pandemic habit. Watch a long, walking only, YouTube video of some far off place. The best ones had no talking, just the ambient sounds and sometimes a on-screen note about something you were looking at.
The fascinating thing was watching pre-pandemic videos and your own response to groups of people and hearing coughs inside buildings.
Yeah those videos kept a lot of us sane. My jam was Martijn Doolaard's series of him restoring a rustic country house in the Italian Alps.
I still put that on on days where city and modern living is too much and I need to remember what being in nature feels like.
I strongly recommend it to anyone.
> need to remember what being in nature feels like
Have you considered... being in nature instead?
An audiovisual experience, no matter how great, will always miss the smell, touch, and taste of actual nature.
I have, yes.
That’s quite a walk! Where did you start and end?
For about ten years, I walked every New Year’s Day from my home near Yokohama Station to somewhere in Tokyo—Ikebukuro or Ueno or Asakusa, about 35 kilometers one way. Very memorable, as you say.
I don’t think I would do it in the summer, though.
Started in Hachiōji and ended at the start of Chiba prefecture. The heat made it tough. I was thinking about doing a walk from Tamagawa station to Yokohama this weekend. I love seeing what's between all the stations and building up a new mental map of the area.
You might want to start in Yokohama and walk north to Tamagawa Station. Then you won’t have the sun in your eyes so much. (That factor is more important to consider in the winter, though, when the sun is low and the sky is often very clear.)
Enjoy your walk! I did that route only once, and it might be the nicest one. My usual route was parallel to the Keihin Tohoku Line—Tsurumi, Kawasaki, Kamata, Omori, Shinagawa, etc. A bit industrial, but not bad on New Year’s Day.
There aren’t many possible routes because there are very few bridges over the Tama River.
Indeed, I was about to comment on it being a lovely and enjoyable idea to stroll through Tokyo. But doing so with peak temperatures in the mid-30s may make it much more challenging as I know I personally would need to dive into convenience stores now and then just to cool down.
Seconding building a mental map of the city, although I did so by biking for many many years. Only took a few weeks to feel confident about getting pretty much anywhere in Tokyo on a bike.
Yes, building a mental map was one of my original motivations for walking from Yokohama to Tokyo. When I did the walk for the first time, in 2006, I was working in Tokyo and had traveled between it and my home in Yokohama hundreds of times, but only by train. I worried that, if I were in Tokyo when a big earthquake struck, I wouldn’t be sure about the best route for walking home. After walking the other direction a couple of times, I stopped worrying about that.
On the day when I could have actually put my newly acquired geographical sense to good use—March 11, 2011—I happened to leave for Osaka a few hours before the quake struck. All of my colleagues either walked home or slept in the office that night, while I had a comfortable hotel room in Namba.
If, on the other hand, you experience Tokyo mostly by train/subway, your mental map is a bunch of islands, and it can be weird when you walk your way from one to another and suddenly your mental compass shifts. For the longest time, I thought the Hachiko crossing was east of Shibuya station, and my mind was blown when I walked to Shibuya from Roppongi and realized I had it backwards.
My mental model of Tokyo changed a lot when rental scooters became available. Especially traveling East-West, there are a lot of places much closer together than you'd think from the subway maps.
Especially in areas where a lot of subway lines get close together, subway maps often expand the area so you can be better see the stations/relationship between the lines. I tended to mostly take the subway into Boston as an undergrad and generally only walked in a fairly small area of the city. I remember once doing multiple line changes and realizing afterwards that my destination was about 3 blocks from where I started.
Not to invalidate your experience in any way but I think it is a special case of walking in any big city you have never been before. As long as it is sufficiently dense/walkable and you don't need to fear being robbed, it's magical. Taipei, Seoul, Bangkok, you name it...
I agree. I hated walking in the city I lived in Canada before moving to Tokyo. It wasnt very walkable and you really needed to plan for any type of long walk as you might end up in a place with no food or drink shops anywhere. The way Tokyo is zoned allows for every possible convenience I need within a mile of everywhere I walked. I felt extremely safe at all times too which made things way less stressful and allowed me to be completely in the moment.
Agreed about mixed zoning, I should've mentioned that too. It does not necessarily go hand in hand with walkability, you also want to be able to buy eg. water especially if it's hot. But I guess it usually comes together with density
FWIW, I’ve walked across San Francisco many times and the longer I live there the more I enjoy traversing it. The city is beautiful, walkable, filled with nice spots to stop for snack/beverage and nearly half the expanse can be covered by walking through Golden Gate Park down to the ocean. I can’t vouch for most cities, but I suspect that a lot of them are much less pleasant underfoot.
One of my favorite things to do in SF, and I've done it a handful of times, is to rent a bike at the Embarcadero, and bike to Sausalito across the Golden Gate Bridge, have ice cream at Lappert's, wander around, and take the ferry back. Just wonderful days.
Love walking in San Francisco. Feels very European in that regard.
You can't really walk across North American cities, they just don't have the pedestrian infrastructure.
Sadly true. I’ve walked miles across parts of Indianapolis where I’ve been at significant risk of being hit. No sidewalk, and bridges are hair-raising.
Most cities have a coastline or a river that you can walk a great distance along.
While a compass helps with orientation, it doesn't help you find where you are or where you're going, so a map might be a good addition (or a replacement, as I find it pretty trivial to orient myself in a city when given a map).
Why a disposable camera? I would think any user preferred camera would be fine, even a cell phone (just put it in airplane mode to avoid distractions).
With a disposable you'll need to be more intentional about how you want to capture moments. You only have 20 shots and no extra features to create the "best" shot. You begin to really value moments when you know that it'll make the cut for one of the 20. And you don't over think it. Just a quick snap is all you can do. Every shot matters but at the same time doesn't.
As someone who used to be very into photography, there are two other artistic advantages of a disposable camera or film cameras in general.
One, that you cannot see the photo you just took; it makes you more careful with your framing (similarly to your point about only having so many shots), and further helps you stay connected to the scene, instead of "chimping" the shot you just took.
Two, that because there is a period of time elapsed between when you take the shots and when you get back the results after the film has been processed, there is an additional delight factor when you get your photos back, and it can help you see your shots in a different light.
It's an interesting phenomenon that a technically superior implementation don't always mean the artistically superior implementation. Of course, a working photographer (working in news or sports) will sensibly choose the technically superior implementation; but the dilettante has more options, and I encourage all of them to explore those options.
Ah, okay. I'm pretty judicious with my camera use anyway so I didn't realize people needed help with that.
TIL disposable cameras are still available, and apparently quite popular for weddings.
I’m surprised they are still a thing of weddings now that everyone has smartphones. Maybe they are considered nostalgic for the period before smartphones and digital cameras. Or maybe there is no good way to share photos from guests.
I think the bride/groom buy a bunch and hand them out. You're supposed to put them back when you're done and then they will have the photos all aggregated and publish them online. Tends to lead to better candid moments for the wedding. At least that's what happened at a couple of weddings I went to.
That sounds fun.
I'd recommend Kyoto too. I cycled around it a lot but never got tired of the little side streets, temples and older houses.
I’ve often done that in Paris, absolutely enjoyable. Through the city proper you only walk a little over two hours north-south or east-west. With a few detours to points if interest and breaks for coffee it’s one of my favorite ways to spend a half day.
Walk Paris in August when the weather is good, the days are long, and it's empty, for enhanced experience
I once had a long train 'connection' from Gare du Nord to Gare d'Austerlitz, early in the morning, which I decided to walk. Magical.
I took a photo of the Arc de Triomphe in the sunrise without any cars on the Place d'Etiole. Literally zero. I walked across to the Arc.
I have treasured photo, blown up to a poster, which hung on my wall for many years as a student.
I walked across most of Barcelona a few years ago, fantastic experience. On the few solo journeys I've made I get a ton of walking in like this, but yeah, you definitely need a rest day or two.
There is a name for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dérive
Ooo, thanks for the link. Led me to this interesting app with the same concept
That's a far far bigger endevour than my efforts.. but I do love walking from a city to the airport, dragging my carry-on if necessary.
The last part can be a bit stressful, as airport terminals are not always made for pedestrian access. But it's very satisfying to feel like you have 'escaped' a city under your own steam as it kind of falls apart and back together.
What was the distance? Tokyo seems immense and seems difficult to cross efficiently (you have to make a lot of small detours).
Total was 90km. It was a mostly straight shot from west edge of tokyo to the east edge passing through central tokyo. It's one of many routes and I only saw a small slice of it. It's a bit of a labyrinth at times if you don't stick to the main roads. I hit a lot of roadblocks and winding paths through residential areas. I didn't want to overplan though. Getting lost was part of the goal. All I knew was that I had to head east.
If you want to keep your phone on, street complete can be very rewarding, especially in places with not so much osm coverage.
Thank you so much. I read about this app here, but I couldn't find it later when I moved to Germany. I'll use the shit out of this app.
Haha that would have been helpful to include. Thanks for picking up my slack!
Great idea! Will be taking this on all my long walks. Tokyo is lovely for this. Neighborhoods are so dense.
I follow Craig Mod [0], who regularly walks in Japan. You might find him interesting.
I've walked across SF multiple times, it is fun, but maybe doesn't qualify being not even 10 miles. A fit person can easily run it.
A few months back I dragged myself away from Tears of the Kingdom and went on a four day hike across the entirety of Luxembourg.
I planned my route using open source GIS tools, and did the cross country walk over a long weekend back in June.
I see you used QGis. Last time I tried it there was no easy way of plugging a router. I switched to QMapShack. It's a bit more complicated to use the IGN service for the maps (whereas it works out of the box with QGis) but there are several options for routers. The offline one (Routino) requires downloading data but it works well. I use it all the time to plan 2-5 days treks in the French Alps. Having the actual elevation profile for a given segment is really useful.
Just thought you might want to try this setup for your next trek!
Thanks for the recommendation. I used KML files and manually connected them, but a router would've been handy. I'll give it a shot.
I was a bit surprised that Luxembourg is actually quite a bit bigger than I had thought, especially as I wasn't too far off with the population. In my mind it wasn't SO much bigger than the other small European countries it's often lumped together with. Time to visit, I guess :P
> I was a bit surprised that Luxembourg is actually quite a bit bigger than I had thought
I live in Luxembourg now and it's not that small. There are actually various little cities and going, say, from Luxembourg city to Esch-sur-Alzette, driving on the highway (even if it's only for a short while), feels like going to another city.
It sure feels funny to go to, say, IKEA, which takes 15 minutes or so knowing that the IKEA store is in... Another country! (I go to the one in Belgium)
It's a complete change for me: last year I was in a rural area (in France) and the closest highway was a 50 minutes drive or so.
I think Luxembourg gets combined with European micro-states, Andorra, San Marino, Vatican City, etc. But it is quite a bit bigger than them. Luxembourg is 5x bigger than Andorra and 3.5x smaller than Cyprus.
It's four times larger than Singapore!
Had a roadtrip in Europe 15 years ago or so with my wife. We planned to stop in Luxembourg for a lunch, but because we failed to find a parking we had to leave the country
I'm kind of surprised, it was and still is a very car-centric city. The very centre can be busy but these days, with a smart phone you could easily find parking within 500m or so.
It was 2006-8 or so. iGo on Asus MyPal PDA
Parking is a problem in a lot of European cities. Trains are probably a better choice for such trips in Europe.
Trains are probably a better choice for such trips in Europe.
Having 'done' Europe both by train and by car, the trips end up being very different. Trains are great if you want to hit the major cities. With a car you can visit all kinds of small villages, rural areas and interesting nature that you cannot really reach by public transport.
We did a carless vacation this year, and picked Switzerland, which is absolutely perfect for it. Trains are actually better to reach some places than cars are.
Unfortunately to get there, we had to travel through Germany, and their ICE network is a complete mess of confusion and delay. They do seem to be good at keeping the total delay just within an hour (it was 55 minutes both times), so they don't have to pay back any tickets.
Nah, don't worry, they (Deutsche Bahn) hit the hour mark quite often without any problems.
Funny story on the side: German ICEs are only allowed up to Basel, so they will not cause any delays in the Swiss train network. The Swiss fear that we would destroy their fine-tuned system otherwise. :-D
Some ICEs only go to Basel, but there are definitely ICEs going all the way to Bern and Interlaken.
Which is a funny thing: Interlaken is officially a town of 5700 people, and yet they're got two train stations receiving international high-speed trains. I guess it's really a town of 5700 Swiss and 100,000 tourists.
And the ICEs that started in Interlaken left on time. But once our train to Switzerland got delayed, I think we had to switch in Basel and take a bunch of local trains. So maybe you're right; maybe they're only allowed as long as they're not delayed.
Still, I don't understand how German trains manage to become such utter chaos every single time. I feel a lot better about the Dutch railways now.
I think they want to get rid of the trains going to Interlaken directly. At least that's what I read in the SZ [0].
If you haven't seen it, there's the great talk from David Kriesel on the 36C3 [1] about how Deutsche Bahn is... "doing statistics" to hide their delays. It's well worth the hour!
[0]: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/reise/deutsche-bahn-verspaetunge...
The most annoying part isn't even the delays. Not by a long shot. The annoying part is instead of relaxing in our reserved first class seats with a single layover, we're constantly puzzling what's going on, where we have to change now, lugging our luggage across 4 layovers, and losing our reserved seats, having to stand, etc.
I'd rather have an extra hour of delay than ruining a relaxing trip like that.
Yes, I feel that. Did a rather long journey a few weeks ago (7+ hours). The ICE had a delay of 40 minutes in Hannover which they could reduce going down south. Once it rolls, it rolls and then it's mostly okay.
okay, WLAN was down, reserved seat displays were down, bistro was down, but the train was rolling!
> "doing statistics" to hide their delays
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics." The older I get, the more true this becomes!
I think the reason is more bureaucratic, costs, contracts etc - Swiss let happily French TGV on their trails, I took it few times with only Swiss ticket since I was getting off within Suisse (so no surcharge).
I think the TGV is pretty much on time, that's why they have no problem with that.
It's funny because externally Germany somehow has the reputation of perfect punctuality, I can only assume that country stereotypes tend to be outdated.
When I have stayed for some time in Germany about twenty years ago, everything was still as expected from that reputation of perfect punctuality.
When I have stayed again for some time in Germany about ten years ago, in the same cities, everything was changed. A train that was not delayed was a miracle instead of being normal. Also everything was much dirtier, instead of being spotless, as before.
It was a quite shocking change after only ten years.
My impression of German Pünktlichkeit certainly took a big hit.
In the past, my trips to Germany rarely went further than Oberhausen or Essen, so that was never a big challenge to my belief in the German railway system. After this trip, my brother and dad (who have a lot more international train experience) were not surprised at all by our delays in Germany. Apparently confusion and delay are the normal state of things there.
As someone who's lived here 10 years you're spot on. I hear it all went to pot when they tried to reorganise DB to prepare it for privatisation, which never really happened, and centralised everything around Frankfurt. So now it's in a quasi independent state which no one seems very prioritised about fixing. Hey at least there's the cheap (Deutschland) ticket now.
This kind of hits the core.
As the DB (Deutsche Bahn) is a private company now (although they are 100% owned by the state), they have to make a profit.
How do you make a profit? Either raise prices or lower costs. Doing both is the best and that's what they do. Raising prices is easy, it just gets more and more expensive, even the "cheap" Deutschlandticket is too expensive, experts say it should probably be around 29 Euro/month to make a real change.
How do you save costs? You do only the bare minimum of maintenance, don't invest in building more tracks and instead reduce tracks and track switches. That's what they've done the last 20 years or so. [0]
This leads to ICEs being stuck behind slower trains as there are simply no more tracks to switch to and pass cargo trains etc. So, if some train gets stuck somewhere or has a defect, every other train is stuck behind that for some time.
Now, as the state subsidizes some parts of Deutsche Bahn, building something new is also cheaper than maintaining what is there. So they let some things rot down so far that they have to rebuild it completely. As the subsidization is then higher, that's better for the turnaround numbers.
There have been thoughts about splitting off building and maintenance of the tracks completely of the rest but that didn't work so far. In that scenario the state would take care of the infrastructure and DB would just "rent" it to drive on it.
To add something else to it:
I think David Kriesel has it in his talk [1]: DB also "found out", that you can reduce delays in your overall network when you start skipping stops or canceling them completely. If you know that you're too late at your last two stops, just cancel those stops completely.
Cancelled stops are not part of the delay statistics of DB, so not driving somewhere at all is, statistically seen, better than arriving there late. Only a little bit problematic for the people that want to get there or board there.
Turning around early also has the "advantage" that your new train will be back on time again easier.
It's a mess for long distance travel.
[0]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB_Netz#Netzentwicklung [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rb9CfOvojk
I did a similar trip between Prague, Krumlov, Salzburg and Vienna, with a few other stops in between, by bus and train. We saw a lot of things by just walking around and using local transport lines, which include stops in the middle of nowhere. The area between southern Czech and Salzburg is just amazingly beautiful. Of course, Prague and Vienna are also amazing cities to visit, but that everyone already knows.
We only caught trains in Austria, and they were extremely punctual!
Some people deliberately plan trips on ICE with a few connections. Then they are almost guaranteed to be delayed by more than an hour and get a partial refund.
Some places--whatever the continent--are certainly more amenable to not having a car than others. But, generally speaking, people also just generally adapt. If you're in a lot of cities without a car, you just mostly avoid taking trips outside the city very often because it's a pain to do. You tend to orient your activities around low friction most of the time.
Depends on how long you go for? I usually pick a city for a week as a base, then use a combination of trains, buses and sometimes bikes to check out the outskirts. It adds to the adventure, even though it’s definitely more difficult. Surprisingly I haven’t been stuck anywhere, but generally I make sure I have plenty of time and options available to get back.
I did a Scotland road trip in February 2020. Through was hitting like 3 to 5 castles and/or historical sites per day. I think I drive about 6000km that month. It was fantastic.
Which is fitting, as parking is not a big problem in rural areas.
Tell that to these people: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53984239 (Romanian tourists swamp village loved by Prince Charles).
I was there last year, and to be fair, the road isn't metalled, it's mostly large white stones like gravel but about 5-10cm big. Even a single car kicks up a lot more dust than it would on a "normal" asphalt road. Not that I'm diminishing these peoples' problems, just adding context.
I think someone didn't get the joke, or took OP too seriously. No offense to you though.
The joke is not obvious at all. This is a totally realistic scenario.
Source: I live in another small but not that small of a European country.
Yeah it's not 'that' small lol
That is not big either. Most people walking thesantiago de compostela pilgrimage route from the Spanish border, Madrid or Lisbon do walk much more.
I drove the pilgrimage, and there was loads of parking!
I've done hikes bigger than the whole country lol
> Parking is a problem in a lot of European cities.
On the flipside, the inner cities are much nicer. You have fewer of those seas of concrete just for parking. I wish it was even more so and street parking as well as open lots would just not be a thing. If you really need to come by car, put it in some underground parkade (for $$$). Cities are too dominated by cars. They should be there for people, not the other way around.
Parking where you want can be a problem. You won't have issues if you use a parking garage or park in the outskirts and then use public transportation.
Parking is a problem? Just find a fence or lamp post and loop a lock through your front wheel and frame triangle. It's free.
"Free" parking, as far as bicycles go is often: how much can you afford to purchase a new one [after it gets stolen, despite the lock(s)]?
trains better only if you want to follow train path. we had a bit of "freestyle" roadtrip (with multiple stops over couple of weeks, not point to point) Dusseldorf to Paris with help of state of the art iGo on asus pda. In Paris we did ditch a car and took train to the city.
You can train between major spots then use the bus to get to smaller towns and villages.
That's kind of like suggesting wilderness hiking instead of urban sightseeing. I've traveled/toured NL by train and by car. Different countries entirely.
But yeah... In some cities, your best plan is probably to park at the hotel (perhaps on the outskirts) and use trains.
Fans of this sort of thing may enjoy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Time_of_Gifts : "it is a memoir of the first part of Fermor's journey on foot across Europe from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in 1933/34". Extremely lyrical style full of historical context.
I've been in Luxembourg many times on our way from Belgium to France or Germany, but only last year I visited it for the first time. We did one of the Mullertal trails in 3 days and it's an absolutely beautiful little country.
Could be perhaps done as one of the easier straight line missions[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoWizard#Cross-country_missio...
It was attempted/done already though i dont remember their success: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83fEtvKVVVw
In general, as a luxembourger, i am intrigued by doing it, though there are several hurdles: - lots of villages, with gardens you cant walk through - various highways that are illegal to cross probably, and dangerous, though feasible. - some big cliffs that are very dangerous. I refer to some of the images in the original post
Max Fosh: "I Rode A Barbie Bike Across An Entire Country"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGqTzcQjD2c
This was across Luxembourg as well.
Max Fosh is a national treasure
This looks fun - but I just can't get past the Clarkson-like delivery that everyone seems to have these days.
wauw, you inspired me.
I dont live that far from luxembourg i'm planning to hike your trail.
i'm planning on doing it with a tent in my backpack. Did you came across some official campgrounds? Or is it legal to camp wild in luxembourg?
Thanks
There are multiple official camping grounds and caravan parks on the route. Unfortunately wild camping isn't allowed anywhere. I know that some people still try it, and probably so long as you're somewhere off trail, camp late and leave early nobody will bother you.
Great read and endeavour. What a fantastic region to hike, drink the finest beers with some smoked ham and enjoy the golden hour. 2 other great and well documented trails are the Eisleck trail and Escapardenne Lee Trail.
Happy trails!
I don't want to be one of those people, but: Woohoo, our tiny country has been mentioned on the Internet!
Many years ago I was traveling around Asia and came across a Spanish traveler called Samuel who was walking from Barcelona to Kathmandu.
I don’t know if he made it, but he made a lasting impression on me.
There are parts of the world on such a trek that these days I would not want to cross by vehicle, let alone on foot.
In the 70s, though, I was with my parents on the Delhi-Tehran portion of the old Kathmandu-London route. I'm only seeing recollections of the old trips, though, no indication that groups are doing it now.
Yes. Even 15-20 years ago, parts of Iran / Pakistan ( Baluchistan) were very tricky, and while on the road I met people who got kidnapped and eventually ransomed. Afghanistan was of course not a recommended path either.
I think in the 70s people went through Afghanistan, the Khyber pass and then Pakistan/Peshawar, which is a very bad idea these days.
Maybe I’ll see Khyber pass one day, I don’t know. The Hunza valley in northern Pakistan was incredible enough. Stay safe first !
Edit : this assumes you’re an obvious tourist. If you’re a local I guess things are very different
Édit : he had been in a car accident, and couldn’t use his right arm.
Got to love their Minecraft exports of any place in the country: https://blocks.geoportail.lu/custom_static/worlds/3fa997d2-b...
The recent ones seem to be broken, but old ones still have a working preview.
Love it! I use organic maps on a daily basis and it is an awesome tool even if you're just commuting.
I have it too, but often forget to use it in favour of Google Maps, but Google Maps is terrible for anything not in a car or train, and OSM always has fantastic detail for hiking trails. Every vacation I find myself switching to Organic Maps.
This vacation it helped us find a trail to a really beautiful waterfall in Switzerland.
Google Maps whole use case is finding restaurants and pubs in new places, and that's about it.
Even that it's not great at. It's not showing them all, it's not showing the link to the restaurant itself upfront, but neither is the menu it lists the right one.
If they actually wanted to make it easy to find the right restaurant for you in the area, there's dozens of things they could do to make it easier for people.
Organic maps has the same feature and they also have opening hours which is cool, Google Maps still has a lot more but for an Open-Source project it's quite decent
TIL about it and I'm gonna try it for sure. Yesterday I had a very bad experience with a "Garmin Connect" generated route for gravel bike, by checking it in Organic Maps I could probably have avoided the issue.
I'd definitely recommend poles.
They enable using the entire body when walking and act as additional points of balance which means you don't have to focus as much on just staying upright, it's like having two extra legs attached at your elbows.
That and memory foam / gel pads in your shoes. I walk a lot since the lock down and I've had knee issues in the past. Good gel pads help and using your knees with light exercise actually improves things. I Mostly wear sneakers. Hiking shoes tend to be a bit more rigid and have less shock absorption.
The poles might help as well. Nordic walking, is a thing that a lot of cross country skiers do in Scandinavia to stay in shape during the summer. Also nice for people with balance issues or weak backs of course. Done properly, it makes for an intensive workout.
You should not get kee problems from walking. Maybe your gait is somewhat unnatural?
Fortunately I never had problems like that but I am sure using barefoot shoes (Fivefinger in my case) improved how I walk. When I am not using those I use zero drop Trailrunners (Altra Lone Peak) which kind of force you to use your front foot more.
Depends on the terrain.
I can walk all day on reasonably level terrain with no knee issues. I prefer poles when there is appreciable climb and I absolutely must have poles and compression sleeves on my knees for any substantial descents.
I always hike with poles but if the terrain is level enough they'll be simply in one hand or possibly stowed on my pack. If I'm on a mountain I'll be using them frequently.
Nordic walking seems to be popular among people of late middle age in Germany too.
Eager to read similar about Lichtenstein, Andorra, San Marino.
I live in San Marino, let me chime in!
The historic center, which is called San Marino Città, is a gorgeous medieval town and it's also part of UNESCO heritage. I definitely recommend a trip there, if you happen to be somewhere near.
When I went to school there, I regularly missed the bus so I had the chance of doing a few walks down to my home. It's a bit steep, since the town is located at the top of mount Titano at 700m of height, but it's truly charming.
When I tried to buy stamps direct from SM back in the 70s, and addressed mail to the SM post office, my local (USA) post office did not believe that there was a country with that name. He went thru their giant post office reference book and hey there it was !
BYW it had a 1500 year anniversary in 1992, yes ? I recall not reading too much about celebrations.
Maybe it was the 1700 anniversary on 2001? The official founding date is 3 September 301 AD
I hike across Liechtenstein from time to time. A very light but picturesque set of trails for one day (30-50km). I usually start at the south border in a Switzerland town, cross the country up north and enter Austria.
On a much lighter category, someone "hiked" Monaco in a straight line: https://magamig.github.io/posts/crossing-an-entire-country-i...
...and The Vatican! (I had a beer in Rome, then strolled across The Vatican and three minutes later had another beer in Rome...)
Issue with the Vatican in this context so, that major parts of it are blocked off for the public.
You could probably walk across and around the whole of San Marino in less than a full day.
... and Monaco. Choose one of the roads higher up on the cliffs
Sounds more impressive if you don't know Luxembourg is at max 50 miles long...
Wow. As someone who has driven from LA to Seattle without breaks quite a few times (which is around 1,000 miles), that really puts in perspective how small Europe can be at times. I guess that shouldn't be surprising as that's similar to the distance between Berlin and Moscow.
>that really puts in perspective how small Europe can be at times
Well, Europe is not exactly small. Luxemburg is just a small country.
Europe is 3.93 million sq mi. The contiguous US is 3.1 million square miles (3.6 if we include Alaska) [1]. So Europe is quite bigger. The European Union countries alone are over 50% of the contiguous US.
So that would be like judging the US as small by considering how small Rhode Island is (which is roughly the size of Luxemburg).
>I guess that shouldn't be surprising as that's similar to the distance between Berlin and Moscow.
Well, Berlin is almost centered in Europe, and Moscow is in the very east of Russia, so that's not very surprising. On the other hand, "the European route E45 (...) with a length of about 3,225 mi is the longest north–south European route (some east–west routes are longer)".
For comparison NY to LA is 2,790 miles (so shorter than that), and even Portland, Maine to San Diego is 3,090 miles (again shorter).
[1] With an area of 10.2 million km² (3,938,000 sq mi), Europe is 20% larger than the contiguous United States. The European Union has an area (without the UK) of over 4.23 million km² (1.6 million sq mi). How many countries are there in Europe? Europe is shared by 50 countries.
> Moscow is in the very east of Russia
I'm confused, did you mean to say that Moscow is in the very West of Russia?
Yes, west.
(Well, technically not the very very west, but pretty close given the scale of that country).
Thanks! Geography isn't my strength, so I was genuinely confused :)
That comparison makes no sense. Hawaii island is 100km large and it doesn't say anything about how small the US are.
Well yeah, Luxembourg is smaller than basically entire US Pacific Coast for sure. Most places are.
There is a popular coast-to-coast walk in the UK that runs across the top of England that is approx 100 miles in a straight line. No-one in Britain is more than about 70 miles from the sea.
But those 70 miles can take a disproportionately long time!
GeoWizard (a GeoGuessr expert YouTuber) dribbed a football the whole way in under 24 hours for charity.
And you might want to steer clear of your closest beach
Europe is a little bigger than the US. It's just it's divided into countries while we are divided into states.
Wow, that looks like a lot of fun! Maybe I'd try and do something like that over a week.
I also looked and Rhode Island is 70km north to south. I don't know if it has as many pubs and hotels as Matt encountered, though.
I've now completed several multi-day walks. At some point I plan to walk across Britain on the Coast to Coast path. I've walked across Spain and Gran Canaria. Maybe I should write those up on my blog...
There are a lot of good long distance walks in the UK. Not having done the coast-to-coast personally, I will say I've heard from various people that the part in the middle of the country is less interesting than the two ends given the highways etc.
definitely do that!
Does anyone know if a similar path (scenic, close to towns/cheap hostels along route) exists in the US? Somewhere in Appalachia perhaps?
Scenic, yes. Far more remote, though--you'll be spending a lot of nights in the wilderness and most of what you drink will be natural sources that you filter. Your cell phone will rarely work--assume a SOS will have to go by satellite.
Look up the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. All make his 4 day trip look like a stroll in the park--to do any of them in 4 *months* would be a very good performance. All require a certain amount of permitting, I know the PCT permits are by lottery (capacity restrictions), I'm pretty sure the CDT ones are not except for problems getting campsites in the national parks it passes through. No idea on the AT. To accomplish any of these in a single trip requires maintaining a good pace. There are people who have hopped around (doing hot parts in cool times and cool parts in hot times) and completed all three within a single calendar year--last I knew the number of such people exactly matched the number of moonwalkers.
If that's too big for you there are things like the Arizona trail (IIRC 800 miles) and the Colorado trail (I think it's under 500--but note that an awful lot of it is in the 10,000'+ range.) There is the Vermont Long Trail, no idea of the details. I know there are many others but they do not come to mind.
Yeah those hikes sound pretty epic. My original question was more about finding a tiny segment of those hikes that would be close to civilization and could be done in a few days.
Next time walk around Luxembourg.
how are people able to walk 100kms in 4 days with no rest days.
i just can walk 8 kms every day :(
25km isn't too rough unless you're copping a lot of ups and downs, or don't enjoy walking. Helps if you start early to cover ground and give yourself time to rest.
Our 4yo daughter did day hikes in the 15-20km range a few times last year, in mountainous terrain. I think attitude and resilience are key.
In this case, one advantage was the author having a 7kg pack and using accommodation/food along the way rather than carrying a tent, sleeping gear, food, 2-3L of water, etc. Starting with day hikes or walking part of your commute is an easy way to build up to trying longer adventures.
4yo hikes 15-20kms? man, sources please.
She was 4.5yo if you want to be picky. Some of the hikes were:
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/montana/grinnell-glacier-... (from where we started, this was 19km return plus climbing around at the top; I carried her on my shoulders for less than 1km)
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/idaho/sawtooth-lake-via-i... (15+ km and rained for part of it)
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/utah/chesler-park?u=m (16km)
In 2021 when my other two children were 6yo and 9yo, they did 40+ km in 24 hours. Hiked midday until 10pm and then 7am until midday the day after. They are just normal kids; I am not fit but enjoy hiking.
Here's that story: https://sarogaining.com.au/news/almertas-bluff/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CUUTaCcJfN8/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2...
I've not personally seen a 4yo in the backcountry but a 6yo has climbed our local highest peak. 30km round trip with 1.5km of climb.
And how about this family:
https://thetrek.co/pacific-crest-trail/big-trail-big-family/
Their 4yo is to date the only 4yo to complete the AT. Now they have done the CDT at 6yo. These are both >3000km treks.
It depends on how much you do it.
25 km/day, flat terrain, light pack--I have dietary issues that could prove problematic for a four-day trip (expending 4,000 calories in a day, not an issue. Consuming 4,000 calories in a day would be hard--I would worry about bonking) but I fairly routinely hike 25km in a day and with nearly twice his load (I'm typically in the middle of nowhere, if I have to push the button help would likely be hours away--my safety standard is I should be able to survive the night) and rarely less than 500m of climb over the day.
A lot depends on the terrain and the condition of the trail/road. (Pavement does tend to be a bit harder on your feet than a nice dirt trail.)
25km (~15mi) per day on level terrain on a path in good condition is a good walk but not anything exceptional. If there are ups and downs and the trail is rock and rough that's a whole different story.
I was wondering this too. Last time I did a ~15km walk, my legs and feet were really aching at the end of it. I think I could have done another 15km back if I had no other choice, but it would have been miserable. As it started to rain, I got a lift back instead.
Of course. If you're not used to that kind of thing you will be aching. If you're used to it, though, it's not hard.
Napoleon's soldiers marched 120km in 2 days! With weapons and gear, in enemy country, without wibrams, gel pads, walking poles or socks.
Trekking poles are not necessary. Focus on stride, balance and core strength.
Trekking poles are not necessary. But they are useful, and he obviously see a potential use for them. Your comment comes across as somewhat rude.
I can live with that.
Shoes are not strictly necessary either, but they help. Trekking poles help, and I also need them to pitch my tent, so I'll keep them.
They come as part of the tent or what? Tell me more I'm intrigued.
Here's an example. This tent is not in production anymore, but was sold without poles. UL-hiking often involves finding as many uses as possible for as few items as possible.
Sibling comment gives a good example. I happen to have a Durston Gear XMid 2p: https://durstongear.com/products/x-mid-2-tent-ultralight-bac... .
Some tents are designed to use your hiking poles in place of some or all of the poles they would normally use. Get double duty out of the mass you carry. If you're going to carry it hundreds or thousands of miles weight becomes very important.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32965526071.html
If you want a 'cheap' option that uses trekking poles.
That's a tarp, I also use one sometimes (a simple rectangular one.) Lanshans are cheap tents that are pitched with trekking poles: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255800228890614.html (this is the older generation I think.) A friend of mine has one, they're good.
Where have you walked? How far? How much weight do you carry? How old are you?
For days in the Norwegian wilderness, Australian outback, Japanese mountains.
And..? The details are really important here. I walked extensively in Snowdonia, the Lake District and the Peak District without poles but only carrying at most 3kg on my back. Distance covered in Britain tends to be less because the going is tough. 10 miles (16km) in the Peak District can be a very long day of walking. I then walked 320km across Northern Spain on the Camino Primitivo. Pack was more like 12-13kg and days were up to 32km with >2000m of elevation change day after day. Pretty much everyone who didn't have poles said they wished they had poles. It became something of a meme.