A thousand miles or more, I’ll travel east and north

Hey everyone.  As you’ve probably figure out by now if you read the big words at the top of this page, I’m going to be walking from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’Groats in Scotland.  This route is idiomatically equivalent to the expression “coast-to-coast” here in the U.S.  It’s essentially the longest straight-line (for the most part) path across the mainland of the United Kingdom, and all told it is between 900 and 1200 miles, depending on the proportion of paved roadways to national trails used in the route.  I’ll be updating this blog as I go in the hopes of wearing out my fingers as well as my feet, so my fingers don’t get jealous or anything.

Accompanying me on my trek, though not for the entire journey, will be my esteemed roommate Trevor Weltzer and my good friend Alex Klonick.  Hopefully by this point they are both aware that it is not necessarily a good idea to follow my initiative, but if they are not already, they will be soon.

As of right now, I have been buying up and borrowing all kinds of high tech, waterproof hiking equipment.  Great Britain is nothing if not consistently moist.  I plan on booking a ticket later today, at which point this entire endeavor will transform from an amusing alternative to entering the real world into a massive undertaking that will likely cause me to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat at least once.  Other than that I have done shockingly little preparation, which, for the moment, is part of the fun.  I have the utmost faith that my gigantic brain will be able to handle things on the fly.

That’s all for this introductory post.  Look for the next update, in which I will tell you all about how my puny brain is inadequate for all but the most basic calculations!