Walking with your imagination
Walk yourself happy with an imaginary hike
Hello writers and walkers 👋🏻
If you’re new to The Writer’s Walk – welcome! I’m Sarah, a writer and walker. I combine my love of both to boost my physical and emotional wellbeing, inspire my writing and hopefully inspire you, too. In each edition, I share an approach to taking a walk – our theme – pair it with a simple writing prompt, and invite you to try it for yourself. If you’re not already subscribed, you can sign up free to get each edition by email.
How’re you finding the changing of the seasons? If you’re in the northern hemisphere, like me, then hopefully you’ve been treated to a blaze of golds and auburns recently. And if it’s spring where you are – I am sooooooo jealous. Please send me your sunshine pics and warm thoughts.
I’ve written before that I’m not a huge fan of this time of year. As the days get shorter, I get an overwhelming urge to hibernate on the sofa with a good book. And I was doing exactly that when I got the idea for this edition’s walk.
So kick off your shoes and hang up your coat because you’re not going to need them where we’re going.
Walking
What’s your idea of a perfect walk? Is it one you’ve done already, or is it one you’re planning?
If I could curate my perfect walk it’d include the best that nature offers. From lush landscapes with rolling hills and skies that go on forever…
… to peaceful woodlands, waterfalls and little streams with bridges…
… there’ll be interesting locals to meet along the way…
… and maybe a bit of magic…
… there’ll be a sleepy village with narrow back streets to explore…
… and rugged coastal trails with paths down to beaches where I can take off my shoes and walk barefoot across the sand…
… and once I’ve walked myself happy, I’ll round off the day with an epic sunset…
I’ve yet to find a single walk that comes with all of this – and can be done in just one day – but it lives strong inside my head. Anyway, if you know a place that has all of this, please let me know!
In the meantime, we can just pretend it exists by making it all up. So for our walk this time, I want us to try something a little different by visualising a perfect walk rather than going on one.
You might want to get comfortable for this by choosing a time and place where you can be quiet and let your imagination play without any interruptions.
Now, the first thing you need to imagine is where you’re walking and what the conditions are – because before you open that imaginary door to the trail you need to decide what to wear.
So let’s start with the season. Is it spring, summer, autumn or winter? Or maybe your walk is in a tropical place with only 2 ‘seasons’ – wet and dry?
Next, you’ll want to narrow down the weather. Sunny or snowing? Cool or hot? Pick your favourite.
Now imagine the time of day. Day or night? Maybe you’re a night owl and fancy an early morning wander, so you’re in time to see the sunrise for once? Perhaps you’re an old romantic and sunsets are more your vibe, or you want to take a moonlit stroll beneath the stars. Remember when light pollution wasn’t a thing? It’s your walk and you can make anything happen.
Once you have the seasons, weather and time of day in mind, you’ll need to dress the part. Will it be shorts and a t-shirt or winter woollies and a scarf? Raincoat or sunglasses? Don’t forget your feet. Will it be your favourite walking boots, trainers (sneakers), sandals or barefoot? In a perfect walk, you don’t need to worry about blisters so you can wear whatever you want. And your gear can be any colour you like. Yes, even the colours you *never* see in outdoor gear shops.
Every good hike should come with snacks. Pick your faves – and stick them in your backpack, which, magically, is light as a feather and never gets clunkier or heavier the more you put in it. Or maybe you fancy stopping for lunch? You can imagine a 3-course meal, served by a butler at a private table on the beach, if you want – normal rules do not apply here.
Now you’re ready to set off. So where will you walk? You can be in any kind of landscape you like – real or imagined. Do you enjoy mountains and moorlands, meadows and valleys, woodlands and rivers, coast or inland? If you can’t decide (like me) you can have it all.
Finally, think about who’s with you. You might choose to enjoy your walk alone or invite someone along. Real or imaginary, alive or gone, someone you know or someone you long to meet. Who’s your hiking buddy? And will you wander together in companionable silence or will you chat about life, the universe and everything in between?
Think of this as the Fantasy Football of hikes. You can imagine whatever you want and bring it to life in your mind.
Writing
It’s a nice and simple one this time. Once you’ve visualised your perfect walk, I invite you to write it down in whatever way feels best for you. It could be a list of all the things you want to experience on your walk, a story a poem or even a letter to the person you take the imaginary walk with.
As ever, I love hearing about your walks and stories, so please let me know what you discover with this one by leaving a comment👇🏻
Happy dreaming and writing until next time,
Sarah
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I'm pretty sure a walk something like your imaginary one could be had in Snowdonia. In fact, if you're happy with lake beaches rather than coastal ones, I can almost picture it in the valleys & hills around Beddgelert.
PS so refreshing to hear that you don't much like this time of year - I hear so many people praising autumn lately, I've been beginning to feel like I'm the only one who dreads the shortening days and the encroaching cold (even though the cold did take longer than usual to encroach this year)