Now, usually when anyone suggests going for a walk or hike, I’m like a dog who can hear his leash shake two floors away. That hasn’t been the case this summer, a summer underscored by record humidity. In the past week or so, though, with daytime temperatures sometimes not making it out of the 60s, I’ve been all about the passeggiata, and I will be for the next month and a half or so. And so should you.

In the past, I’ve bemoaned the fact that once September rolls around, you really start to notice the sun setting earlier and earlier. Consider the following sunset times for central North Carolina:

• Sept. 4: 7:42 p.m.
• Sept. 15: 7:27 p.m.
• Sept. 30: 7:05 p.m.
• Oct. 15: 6:44 p.m.

And finally, when we go off Daylight Savings Time:

• Nov. 2: 5:22 p.m.

The main reason I’ve bemoaned this rapid advance in the past is that there simply isn’t enough time to get in a decent hike after work, what with the time to get ready and drive to the nearest trailhead. 

There is, however, time to work in a passeggiata, which requires little preparation and starts out your front door. An added benefit, according to Melody Warnick, author of “This is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live” — it will enable you to better get to know your neighborhood and the people in it. Consider these suggestions from Warnick:

• Follow the “1-Mile Solution.” That is, walk everything — shopping, going out to eat, etc. — within a mile of where you live.
• Explore unfamiliar parts of your town without a GPS. Let yourself go and just roam.
• If possible, switch to a walking (or biking) commute.
• Draw a map of your neighborhood and see how many details you can fill in. Not many? See how many you can fill in by walking it regularly.

By walking evenings in your neighborhood you’ll be surprised at what you’ll find. 

‘Explore Your Neighboirhood’

In 2020, I wrote a guidebook called: “Explore Your Neighborhood: A Guide to Discovering the World Immediately Around You.” I wrote it during the pandemic, when we were subject to shelter-in-place guidelines, with the goal of helping readers identify places to explore out their front door. It covers everything from how to use Google Maps to identify potentially interesting places to explore nearby, to what you might see along the way (and what you should avoid), to staying safe, and more.

In short, the book will help you make the most of this two-month window of after-work exploring time that we have. 

Walking after eating has a number of health benefits. In addition to aiding with digestion, it can help regulate your blood sugar, lower your blood pressure, elevate your mood and, of course, burn calories. 

We’re especially motivated by the “elevate your mood” benefit. We all know how we’re affected by our weekend hike. So why not get that benefit throughout the week?

* * *

Resources

“Explore Your Neighborhood,” by Joe Miller. This compact 53-page guide provides the direction and confidence to get you exploring your neighborhood on a gorgeous fall evening. Learn more here.

“This is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live,” Melody Warnick. After moving with her family to Blacksburg, VA, after living in various other locations, Warnick decided to forge a true connection with her new home. She writes about how she made that happen in these nomadic times. Learn more here.

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Appearances

Tuesday, May 13, 7:30 p.m.: Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh
Thursday, May 15, 7 p.m.: Barnes & Noble, Cary
Saturday, May 17, 11:30 a.m.: Country Bookshop, Southern Pines
Sunday, May 18, 2 p.m.: Barnes & Noble, Burlington
Friday, May 30, 7 p.m.: Scuppernong Books, Greensboro
Saturday, May 31, 2 p.m.: Park Road Books, Charlotte
Sunday, June 1, 1 p.m.: City Lights, Sylva

If you have a bookstore, an outdoors shop, an outdoors club, a civic group, a business wellness program — whatever — and would like to have a talk about adventure, drop me a line at joe@getgoingnc.com.

The post Let’s talk Adventure, Carolinas appeared first on GetGoing NC!.

This evening, at the Cary Commons Barnes & Noble, I launch another book “tour,” this one in support of my just-released “Backpacking North Carolina,” from UNC Press. The book highlights 43 backpacking trips in North Carolina, with detailed information on — well, I’ll spare you the sales pitch: you can read more about the book here.

If the talks associated with this book are like the ones I did for “100 Classic Hikes in North Carolina” (Mountaineers, 2007) and “Take it Outside: Hiking in the Triangle” (The News & Observer, 1998), here’s how they’ll unfold: I’ll jabber for about 15 minutes about the book, about how it came to be, about how I decided on these 43 trips. Then someone will ask a question, something like, “I see you included three trips in the Shining Rock Wilderness but none from it’s next-door-neighbor, the Middle Prong Wilderness. How come?”

I’ll start to answer by saying Middle Prong was actually the 44th trip and I’ve included it on my hiking and backpacking Web site, NCHikes.com. But before I can finish answering someone else will say they were just up in the Middle Prong this past weekend and discovered a new route few people are aware of. After that person finishes sharing (and I’ve finished furiously scribbling notes so I can follow-up with a scouting trip), someone else is likely to say, “You know, I was in the Slickrock Wilderness two weeks ago with a couple locals and they showed me a route I’d never seen before … .”

And so it will go for 45 minutes or so until a bookstore official who wants to get home for supper says, “Thanks all of you for coming. Now if you’d like to buy the book, just step up to this table where Joe will be happy to sign it.” And people will come up and buy a signed book and thank me profusely for everything they learned in the past hour and I’ll sit there and nod while thinking I should share proceeds from the book sales with all the audience members who know far more about backpacking in North Carolina than I do and, of course, were the ones dispensing all the useful information.

Which isn’t to say you shouldn’t buy the book. You should, because it’s got all this stuff written down and it really is a pretty decent guide. But you should come to one (or more) of my appearances where you’ll tap into a rich reservoir of additional resources — namely the folks sitting next to you.

If you can make it tonight, swell. We’ll get started at 7 p.m. at the Cary B&N, located here. If you can’t make it tonight, here’s a rundown of additional appearances scheduled so far.

Wednesday, March 23, 7 p.m.
Flyleaf Books
Chapel Hill

Saturday, March 26, 11 a.m.
McIntyre’s Fine Books
Pittsboro

Wednesday, March 30, 7:30 p.m.
Quail Ridge Books
Raleigh

Wednesday, April 6, 7 p.m.
Regulator Bookshop
Durham

Saturday, April 9, 10 a.m.
Mayo Park
Roxboro

The post Let’s talk backpacking and hiking appeared first on GetGoing NC!.