Publish at June 02 2015 Updated January 07 2026
How does walking help us learn? There are many authors who encourage us to put on our shoes and take to the forest paths. Walking helps us to get to know ourselves, to meditate, to feel free. But it also provides us with a deeper knowledge than we can get from books. Finally, walking encourages the emergence of ideas, stimulating creativity...
To gather so many ideas, we suggest a sketchnote, i.e. a drawn note that we'll then describe in detail.
Without getting into physiological considerations or dwelling on the physical aspect of walking, it's the relationship to time, and the availability that walking requires, that explain how walking encourages reflection.
Frédéric Gros is a philosopher. He is also the author of Marcher, une philosophie. According to him, walking doesn't make us more intelligent, but it does make us available to thought. The philosopher explains that many philosophical works were conceived while walking.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau is one of those authors who claims to have learned and discovered a great deal by walking. During digressions, he observed plants and minerals. But Rousseau is also one of those authors who contrasted learning by walking in nature with frequenting libraries. Rimbaud, in his poem "Les assis", Nietzsche mocking the erudition of philologists, David Thoreau comparing books to hay... Many of them tell us to leave our books and immerse ourselves in nature.
Walking offers those moments of detachment that encourage creative discovery. Cédric Villani, in Théorème Vivant, reminds us that invention happens not in the moment of intense concentration and research, but in a quieter activity, when our mind takes a little distance. Concentration is therefore necessary, but so is the time for escape that follows. Cédric Villani describes the outskirts of Princeton University, where eminent researchers can be seen walking at night.
Inspector Adamsberg, the hero of Fred Vargas's novels, also feels the need to walk to bring out the intuition that enables him to solve his investigations.
Many authors use the metaphor of forest paths to evoke the meandering paths of thought that eventually lead to new ideas or creations. In his latest book, Michel Serres shows that inventions, innovations and discoveries are often the work of "lame lefties", who don't follow the roads that others have traced.
Echoing this, Henry David Thoreau, author of the little book Walking, tells us:
"What's the use of taking the same old paths over and over again? You have to blaze trails into the unknown. If I am not me, who will be?"
Once again, Frédéric Gros and David Le Breton enlighten us. Walking breaks down masks and roles. Walkers share a tiredness, a rhythm. They are no longer concerned with social appearances.
The two authors seem never to have hiked with shavers. It's exceptional, but over twenty kilometers, it's a long way...
Walking is a slow form of displacement, forcing those who practice it to devote time to themselves, sometimes hours. David Le Breton underlines the surprising side of this practice when our contemporaries tend to praise speed.
Frédéric Gros explains that there is a sense of gratitude in the walker's contemplation of the landscape. The landscape appears as the reward for an effort. Walking also has a physical dimension. The walker feels tired, sometimes in pain, and breathes. They feel alive!
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