Erling Kagge - Walking: one step at a time

“Everything moves more slowly when I walk, the world seems softer and for a short while I am not doing household chores. […] A free man possesses time. […] Walking, I become the centre of my own life, while completely forgetting myself shortly afterwards”. (p. 15)

These are the words of Erling Kagge, the Norwegian explorer who was the first person in the 1990s to reach the “three poles” (the North Pole, South Pole and peak of Mount Everest) on foot and without backup. He is also the first person to have explored the underworld of New York by walking its sewage and railway tunnels all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. The one thing that Kagge is sure about and which he seeks to transmit in these pages is that anyone can go for a walk and you don’t need to climb Everest for it to be memorable. Just walking from the house to the office can change your day and restore intensity to your life, as all you need to do is simply put one foot in front of the other.