"As the Freak Takes You . . ." — Hiking Advice from Robert Louis Stevenson

     A walking tour should be gone upon alone, because freedom is of the essence; because you should be able to stop and go on, and follow this way or that, as the freak takes you; and because you must have your own pace, and neither trot along-side a champion walker, nor mince in time with a girl.  And then you must be open to all impressions and let your thoughts take colour from what you see.  You should be as a pipe for any wind to play upon.

     I cannot see the wit," says Hazlitt, "of walking and talking at the same time.  When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country," — which is the gist of all that can be said upon the matter.  There should be no cackle of voices at your elbow, to jar in the meditative silence of the morning.  And so long as a man is reasoning he cannot surrender himself to that fine intoxication that comes of much motion in the open air, that begins in a sort of dazzle and sluggishness of the brain, and ends in a peace that passes comprehension.

Robert Louis Stevenson, "Walking Tours", in Works