11.10.2026 – exercise that needs

exercise that needs
no gym, the vacation that
does not cost a cent

Years ago, scientists were predicting the evolution of a race of men without legs, thanks to the automobile. Nowadays we know they were wrong. It is not our legs we are losing. It is our minds. We are also losing our figures, our good looks, the use of our senses, our health — and some of us are losing our lives as a result of ills that walking could prevent or keep in check.

Walking is the exercise that needs no gym. It is the prescription without medicine, the weight control without diet, the cosmetic that is sold in no drugstore. It is the tranquilizer without a pill, the therapy without a psychoanalyst, the fountain of youth that is no legend. A walk is the vacation that does not cost a cent.

Some people know this. Some people never give up walking from the day they take their first step. There are more such people than anyone knows, because walkers tend to keep their walking private. When anyone admits that he arrived somewhere not by car, bus, subway or taxi but on his own two legs, people stare at him and exclaim, “You mean you walked?”

From The Magic of Walking by Aaron Sussman (Fireside: New York, 1980).