Second-hand pleasure, second-hand anxiety
The two crucial components of a great travel-adventure story.
The best travel-adventure stories are the kind that make your stomach twist up in knots with second-hand pleasure.
That’s exactly what happened when I read Ben Buckland’s account of his walk across Switzerland using only hand-drawn maps from strangers he met along the way for navigation. My chest tightened and something within me thrilled.
It’s not unlike the feeling one gets at the climax of a romantic movie (Harry running down the streets of New York to find Sally on New Year’s Eve; Baby telling Johnny that she’s “scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you”) or when the would-be lovers in a romance novel arrive at an inn to find there’s only one bed—or when they realize they don’t hate each other as much as they thought.
Of course, the thrill of a good adventure or travel story is often accompanied by pangs of envy—I want to do that—and also, in my case—why didn’t I think of that story?
Which brings me to the second component of a good adventure story: The thing that makes you wince or cringe or twists your stomach up in knots with second-hand anxiety. And that, in Buckland’s case, is obviously the whole “asking and relying on strangers for navigation” thing.
After the waves of desire and envy washed over me, I was left desperately curious about the ins and outs of this endeavor. How did Buckland approach locals and what did he say to persuade them to draw him a map? What if he didn’t see anyone? What if they didn’t speak the same language? What if he misread a map (or the map was mis-drawn) and he fell off a mountain?? What if he got lost???
A quick Google search reveals Buckland is a photographer1 based in Geneva, Switzerland, so this is on his home (or adopted-home) turf, but still! Even I, a fairly gregarious and chatty hiker, would hesitate to commit to such an endeavor.
Even so, his tale delighted and thrilled me. It was a good reminder that creativity is as important for adventures, and particularly adventure stories, as ambitious distances or challenging terrain.
And the hand-drawn maps really are lovely.
Reading list
Ticked off: Horrified to learn that once relatively tick-free NYC parks are…not so tick-free anymore. “Last year, 80% of Brooklyn and Queens parks had blacklegged ticks — a dramatic increase from 2022, when researchers found the eight-legged critters in only 40% of surveyed parks,” Rosemary Misdary reports. Yes, this includes Prospect Park. Professor Maria Diuk-Wasser, the lead investigator of the NYC Ticks research project at Columbia, says this trend will continue as global warming causes milder winters. More ticks means more tick-borne illnesses, including Lyme, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, and the one that causes people to develop an allergy to red meat, Alpha-gal syndrome. [Gothamist]
In 2000, there were 215 cases of Lyme disease in the city. In 2020, there were 704 cases. In 2023, there were 3,323 cases. —Rosemary Misdary
Hikers beware? A New Hampshire resident has died after contracting eastern equine encephalitis, a rare but potentially deadly virus spread by mosquities. As soon as I heard that several Massachusetts towns were closing public parks at dusk and urging people to stay indoors after dark because of the virus, I began wondering what it all meant for Appalachian Trail hikers. The areas that the trail passes through are currently considered to be at low or remote risk for the virus—for now—and the AT community on reddit, at least, seems pretty sanguine. But climate change is creating conditions in which mosquitoes thrive, as average temperatures in the northeast rise, summertime conditions extend further into the fall, winters become more mild, and precipitation increases. There’s no guarantee that the trail will always be in the clear. [Anna Betts in the Guardian; Nick Perry for the AP]
Shocked but not surprised: An American tourist died while touring an ice cave in the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier in southeastern Iceland when the cave collapsed on top of his tour group. “According to the US Geological Survey, the Breiðamerkurjökull was growing until the turn of the 19th century, but since about 1930 it has been melting due to planet-warming fossil fuel pollution,” write Hira Humayun and Sharon Braithwaite. [CNN]
Win-win situation: I was delighted to read that widespread protest and anger over plans to convert some of Florida’s state forests to pickleball courts and golf courses has forced Governor DeSantis to renounce the project, claiming he doesn’t even know her. “We’re not going to take away any green space,” DeSantis told reporters. “If we do nothing, then that’s fine with me.” Keep up the good work, folks! [Max Chesnes and Emily L. Mahoney for the Tampa Bay Times]
SUMMER POSTCARD: SCENES FROM FIRE ISLAND
I couldn’t help but notice that some of his photos had a vignette effect similar to the one I accidentally used on my latest hike, although I imagine that, as a professional photographer, he did it intentionally, and to great effect.