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The Gentle Art of Tramping

The Gentle Art of Tramping by Stephen Graham is an absolute gem of a book. Dating back to 1927 it is a fabulous How-To guide to becoming a wanderer, a vagrant, a hobo. Chapters covering kit selection blend with others on the philosophy of travelling light, simple and slow, and doing it just for the heck of it.

A brilliant addition to any vagabond’s library. A few snippets for you:

  • So when you put on your old clothes and take to the road, you make at least a right gesture. You get into your right place in the world right away… You get into an air that is refreshing and free. You liberate yourself from the tacit assumption of your everyday life. What a relief!
  • A tramping hat does not get old enough to throw away. The old ones are the best.
  • Of course, once you have slept a night wearing your hat it is not much more use for town wear. It has become more of a tramp than you are.
  • The less you carry the more you will see, the less you spend the more you will experience.
  • In tramping you are not earning a living, but earning a happiness.
  • There is perhaps no greater test of friendship than going on a long tramp. You discover to one another all the egoisms and selfishnesses you possess.
  • If you want to find out about a man, go for a long tramp with him.
  • I am inclined to measure a tramp by the time taken rather than by the miles. If a hundred miles is covered in a week it is a longer tramp than if it is rushed in three days.
  • You cannot tell till you’ve spent a night in the rain, or lost the way in the mountains, and eaten all the food, whether you have both stout hearts and a readiness for every fate.
  • On the road the weak and strong points of character are revealed. There are those who complain, making each mile seem like three; there are those who have untapped reserves of cheerfulness, who sing their companions through the tired hours. But in drawing-rooms they would never show either quality. The road shows sturdiness, resourcefulness, pluck, patience, energy, or per contra, the lack of these things.
  • The morning swim is such an embellishment of the open-air life that many are tempted to plan their whole expedition with that in view.
  • Nothing in the present ever seems so good as what is past.
  • Beware of going to Jerusalem in order that you may come back and tell the world you have been. It spoils all you found on the way.

I spent over six years abroad and on adventures before it ever occurred to me to explore my own country. Like many young people I found the place where I had grown up to be stultifying and infuriating. I wanted out! So I did my time, by bike and boot and backpack, exploring the ends of the earth.

Along the way I discovered that I loved simplicity, endurance, wilderness, and eccentricity. I travelled myself restless, ensuring that I would always suffer from wanderlust and struggle with the routines of normal life.

I used to think that I was weird. That at regular intervals I needed to turn off my computer and go sleep on a hill for the night, or just run howling into the nearest deep, cold woodland river. And perhaps that is a little odd! But stumbling upon Stephen Graham back in 2011 reassured me that at least I was not alone!

Written back in 1927, The Gentle Art of Tramping suffers a little with its title. The modern reader would do well to swap the word ‘Tramping’ for ‘Hiking’, ‘Backpacking’, or simply ‘Being Outdoors’. It is, essentially, a fabulous How-To guide to all these things, combined with wry humour, philosophical musings on living a full life, and enjoyably dated advice on gear, such as the suggestion that ‘a collar and tie may be secreted in a pocket of the knapsack to be unwillingly put on when it is necessary to visit a post-office or a bank, a priest, or the police. But otherwise we go forth with free necks and throats, top button of shirt preferably undone.’

The modern day adventurer, all shiny Gore-Tex and smartphones, will find little useful equipment advice but will still enjoy Graham’s recommendations from almost a century ago: “A jacket. It may as well be a tweed one with half-a-dozen roomy pockets.” I get exasperated with how often people ask me about equipment needs for going on adventures, as if it is only possible to leave the office in gear more fitting to the Himalayas. Graham’s advice here is pertinent: ‘The less you carry the more you will see, the less you spend the more you will experience.’

The true pleasure from The Gentle Art of Tramping is how much of the lifestyle that Graham espouses is still relevant today, perhaps even more so in our crazy era of permanent busy-ness. He urges us to escape (if only for a weekend) the constraints of careers we hate, ‘to cease to be identified by one’s salary or by one’s golf handicap.’ It is a simple thing, though many of us build it up to seem prohibitively complex, to get out of the city into ‘an air that is refreshing and free. You liberate yourself from the tacit assumption of your everyday life. What a relief!’ I have, since 2011, derived so much calmness and enjoyment from small simple acts such as spending a night in the open air, following my nose cross country for a day or a week, and – perhaps most of all – from seeking out refreshing swims wherever I go. Graham too was a convert, recognising that ‘The morning swim is such an embellishment of the open-air life that many are tempted to plan their whole expedition with that in view.’ I couldn’t agree more!

Graham does not only write about bucolic, comfortable days out in the sunshine. He is a fan, as I am, of longer tramps, of a hearty dose of masochism and misery. You learn a lot about yourself on long, difficult journeys. You also discover the true depths of character of any companion you choose to tackle a challenging tramp with. Graham is full of gems of wisdom on this subject, noting that ‘There is perhaps no greater test of friendship than going on a long tramp’ and that ‘You cannot tell till you’ve spent a night in the rain, or lost the way in the mountains, and eaten all the food, whether you have both stout hearts and a readiness for every fate.’

From my own travel experiences I have learned to travel slowly. It is often tempting to dash through a landscape accumulating experiences. But Graham sensibly cautions agains this, preferring to ‘measure a tramp by the time taken rather than by the miles. If a hundred miles is covered in a week it is a longer tramp than if it is rushed in three days.’ A couple of summers ago I spent a month walking through northern Spain. It was a journey that felt like the perfect accumulation of all that I had learned from The Gentle Art of Tramping. I lived like a vagrant, sleeping under the stars every night, on a frugal budget of fewer than a handful of Euros a day. And in the whole month I walked a mere 500 miles, a distance I could have covered in a day by bus. It was a magnificent experience, though also difficult. Time is always kind to the memory of hungry, uncomfortable nights sleeping on hill tops: ‘Nothing in the present ever seems so good as what is past.’

And I would do well also to remember Graham’s cautioning against boasting, or travelling merely to tell the tale, to show off on social media. ‘Beware of going to Jerusalem,’ he warns, ‘in order that you may come back and tell the world you have been. It spoils all you found on the way.’

I am thrilled that The Gentle Art of Tramping is being shared to a new audience once again. It will provide entertainment, advice, and food for thought for all of us who love getting away from the world out into the peaceful wild places.

Finally, what this book reminded me, in a polite and appealing way, is that ‘in tramping you are not earning a living, but earning a happiness.’

If this all resonates with you then you might also enjoy the Best Bits section of the blog.
Camping in Mexico

Finally I hope this video encapsulates the same essence of enthusiasm for microadventures as the wonderful Gentle Art of Tramping.

Read Comments

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Comments

  1. “You get into an air that is refreshing and free. You liberate yourself from the tacit assumption of your everyday life. What a relief!”

    “In tramping you are not earning a living, but earning a happiness.”

    My own memory of pure happiness was waking up one morning covered in dust next to a river close to the Pamirs when the sun started rising and having my breakfast. Everything was so tangible and simplistic… A shower was the last thing on my mind and food had just been consumed, so the only thing remaining for the day was just the cycling and experiencing the amazing surroundings.

    What a life!

    Reply
  2. I love H. D. Thoreau’s description.

    I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering; which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la sainte terre” — to the holy land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a sainte-terrer”, a saunterer — a holy-lander. They who never go to the holy land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all, but the Saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which indeed is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this holy land from the hands of the Infidels.

    Reply
  3. also reminds me of leigh fermor’s walking books. lovely.

    Reply
  4. “Beware of going to Jerusalem in order that you may come back and tell the world you have been. It spoils all you found on the way.”

    I think that’s the most pertinent quote of all.

    Reply
  5. Graham’s book about walking around the Black Sea in 1910 was the only ‘guide book’ I read before riding around the Sea on a moped. I love it, and The Gentle Art, what beautiful writing. It was fascinating going to places he had written about exactly 100 years before, and seeing the chance. Fascinating, and at times a little sad.

    Reply
  6. He, who was not by any means one given to sensationalism, drew everyone’s attention to Kateri’s face, which was North Face Winter Jacketsnow magnificent and radiant.

    Reply
  7. Lump in my throat after reading that. It resonates so strongly. I would like to add one more:
    If you never take photos of the people you meet on your journey, you will only ever remember their souls, which is so much more beautiful than any photo you can ever take of them.

    Reply
  8. A friend of mine suggested this book for me a few years back but for the life of me I couldn’t remember the author or title – thanks a lot for the reminder!

    Reply

 
 

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