The Gentle Art of Tramping
By Stephen Graham. Originally published by Robert Holden & Co., Ltd., 1927, 264 pp. (with a dozen blank pages for "Notes by the Wayside"). Re-issued in 2019 by Bloomsbury Reader, foreword by Alastair Humphreys. Available on Kindle.
First published in 1927 and recently re-issued, The Gentle Art of Tramping, by the British travel writer Stephen Graham (1884-1975) is a terrific and timeless guide, at once practical and spiritual, to tramping.
And what, you might well ask, is "tramping"? In his foreword to the new edition, Alastair Humphreys suggests a better word for the modern reader might be "hiking," or "backpacking." This is true—but for Graham, the activity connotes far more than these neutral words imply.
To tramp, says Graham, is "to liberate yourself from the tacit assumption of your everyday life." For those who tramp—which includes "all true Bohemians, pilgrims, explorers afoot, walking tourists, and the like"— "there is much to learn, there are illusions to be overcome, …prejudices and habits to be shaken off." Indeed, "Know how to tramp," says the author, "and you know how to live." Read More