Flânerie: The Art of Aimless Strolling | Hacker News Reader

Flânerie: The Art of Aimless Strolling

samwoolfe.com

200 pointslordleft125 comments

This is probably one of my favorite activities in foreign cities - walk or take public transportation aimlessly for a few hours. Buy a snack that catches my eye, or find a cafe or pub to linger at long enough to see the ebb and flow of foot traffic.

Directed tourism is fine, but seeing a few randomly sampled slices of a culture and place gives the experience 'roots' for me in some intangible way.

Great idea... in a safe city

The same behaviors will get you mugged in safe cities and unsafe cities.

Wonder like a local. Look casually disinterested just like you're walking home from work.

Or get a blending in item, like a bag from a cheap local supermarket. Also doubles as my camera bag if I feel I wondered into the wrong place.

Hilarious! You must have only been in the first world then.

I moved from one of the most dangerous cities in the world to one of the safest. Wandering in the latter is fun, in the former - it's Russian roulette. You have to go from A to B, as fast and carefully as possible.

It’s implied that we’re only talking about the first world here

Not really. “Foreign cities” is the opener.

Ditch the white shoes! Minimize staring at maps on sidewalks, and if you need a bit of time to regroup dive into a cafe or kebab/taco joint. If your random track gets you to a sketchy zone, increase your speed and outward sense of purpose.

I have wandered all over a bunch of Mexican cities, and still have only ever been mugged on a hiking trail in the N. Georgia (US) mountains.

I remember such a stroll Eddy St. in the Tenderloin one fine midnight.

No muggings, but a number of fellow citizens were very curious about whether I would like to buy stuff from them.

fear is mostly irrational, as people are generally bad at perceiving risk objectively. statistics show that nearly all cities and neighborhoods are generally quite safe for casual visitors and residents alike. vehicular accidents are more likely than violent confrontation, for instance, yet no one bats an eye at getting into a car.

even in the rare occasion of some type of confrontation, most people want to resolve it without violence, and certainly not death. people have varying strategies for such confrontations--congeniality, causticity, evasiveness, etc.--and it's worth developing yours through practice, rather than living in fear. as alluded, most of the sketchy characters in the tenderloin are druggies, not thugs, and really don't care about you at all.

I think you're right, but there is also the possibility that people avoiding places and situations which feel unsafe is a factor in the low number of incidents.

that's marginal though, as people might be, at the margin, shifting the places they go, rather than not going anywhere (covid lockdowns excepted). so that might induce a marginal change in incident rates, but not anywhere near at a magnitude to warrant a change of behavior.

the biggest threat in our urban walking lives is really cars[0], and even that isn't so large that we should remain in a state of constant fear.

[0]: pollution is actually the biggest (external) threat, since it's estimated to be responsible for millions of lives lost annually worldwide, but that's regardless of urban walking, so it's beyond the scope of the argument here.

I accidentally walked through a Rio favela one evening. Never ran into anyone and didn’t realize it until the next day when I was looking at a map. But I believe by most accounts, that was foolish and lucky. Crime, including robbery and kidnapping, is quite common in Rio. It’s common for nice buildings to have armed guards outside them.

I’m American so I’d love to hear locals tell me how wrong/right my belief of luck/foolishness was.

probably a marginal rise in risk, but not enough to warrant a complete change in behavior (i.e., actively avoiding the area). you'd need to quantify "common" and the relevant priors before you could know for sure. that's not to say it's prudent to be an idiot and flaunt your wealth or something, but that risk is relative and to act accordingly.

I've accidentally walked through a few "bad" neighborhoods while traveling and mostly found them just fine. I think the thing is that they might be fine to travel through once or twice because the odds really aren't all that high you'll get mugged, but if you travel through there every day of your life because it's where you live, you're much more likely to at some point have witnessed or experienced first-hand the violence. So it's understandable that locals might steer you away, even if it's still not especially likely that you'll have a bad experience on the one time you pass through.

That said, I often get poor advice from wealthier residents of "dangerous" cities, because they tend to sequester themselves from the poorer parts of town and think it absurd that any traveler would want to visit or pass through. I suspect in that case there is some kind of classism or other prejudice involved that as an outsider you are immune to because you didn't grow up in the environment that produced it.

Either way, although locals can provide you with some data points, I think ultimately when you're traveling you have to make your own risk assessment based on the situation. And this is true whether you are in a city or the countryside - I think it's an awareness that most frequent travelers develop over time.

As someone who lived for a few years as an expat in Brazil, you got really lucky. I spent a lot of time on the streets, with nothing but a short, a t-shirt, and havaianas, and I speak Spanish and Portuguese, and even so I would try to avoid crossing a Rio favela as much as possible.

We are talking of a city where mobs close a highway tunnel with automatic guns, stop traffic, and rob every car stuck in the tunnel. On broad daylight. Life is not worth much, neither theirs nor yours.

Maybe before heading out, memorise a few no-go zones next time?

Statistics often miss a huge amount of threatening behaviour, and in many countries you just outright cannot trust the stats at all. Plus, people will take more precautions in areas that are genuinely more dangerous - if they didn't, the statistics would look much worse.

In general I think people are actually quite good at perceiving the risk present to them. That doesn't mean 'always correct' but it does mean 'has a good idea of which places are at much greater risk of turning dangerous at 2am'.

Finally, don't forget survivor bias: people who were killed or whatever in a random dangerous area simply cannot go on to report how unsafe an area or activity is. Overall your chances of a bad outcome might still be low in terms of absolute risk but being in the wrong area could easily be hundreds of times more dangerous than anywhere else you've been.

no, people are mostly terrible at perceiving actual risk vs. the imagined, because evolutionarily, it was much less harmful to get it wrong one way than the other. we humans no longer live in a world of such unpredictable mortality. and even if imprecise, statistics provide relevant information, especially on relative and general magnitude. moreover, serious crimes are the ones most likely to be reported, and therefore having more accurate stats, so survivorship bias isn't a significant factor.

humans consistently overestimate the dangers of the unknown and consistently underestimate the dangers of the known, often by orders of magnitude. we're also wired to be highly overconfident in our estimations of just about anything. your conjectures include prime examples of such mis-estimation, e.g., "much greater risk" and "hundreds of times more dangerous", implying all that avoidance behavior is justified. but death by firearm, for instance, is caused 90+% of the time by the self or familiars, yet we spend all of our time and resources worrying about strangers and extremely rare scenarios (armed robbery, home invasion, mass shootings, terrorism, etc.) rather than the common (suicide, accidental shooting, crimes of passion, etc.). mostly, we worry about the wrong things most of the time.

Once I was lucky enough to observe the iconic green Art Nouveau neon sign of HOTEL ESSEX in the Tenderloin when just the right letters were burnt out to spell "HOT SEX".

Hotel Essex, at the corner of Ellis St. and Larkin St., in The Tenderloin, San Francisco.

https://gedris.org/node/327.html

Close but no cigar:

https://nl.pinterest.com/pin/479000110337911544/

Up from the deep: The Tenderloin

https://upfromthedeep.wordpress.com/uptown-tenderloin/commen...

>Hotel Essex. 684 Ellis Street. Hotel with 128 rooms and seventy-two baths. Architects: Righetti and Headman. 1912.

>Though unique amid the surrounding architecture, the Art Nouveau-inspired facade of the Essex was nevertheless crafted to blend in by its designer, James Francis Dunn. The hotel’s neon blade sign is especially fine. Now owned by the Community Housing Partnership, the Essex began undergoing renovation late in 2006.

>Night-Sign---Essex

>By the end of April 2008, its renovation was complete. The paint job is unfortunately garish and unbecoming, but the new marquee and restored blade sign are spectacular, although it seems the latter may still have some electrical problems. Even so, the corner of Ellis and Larkin is utterly transformed after dark by the torrid glow of neon.

I really miss Virtual Tourist. The site had "Off the beaten path" and "places to avoid". I was so comfortable and prepared in an unknown city on day one that other visitors would come up to me and ask for directions.

TripAvisor is the next closest thing, but it's not exactly the same.

Is there really such a thing?

Singapore for instance. Many European cities are very safe too.

I can't help but ask where you're from when that's your initial reaction? My initial reaction was what city isn't safe for taking a walk?

Maybe you took the comment the wrong way.

It could mean there are dangers in every city. Thus, don't look for a safe one.

Eh. As a city person you’ll have developed certain instincts and as long as you follow those instincts while you wander, the probability of something happening is usually quite low.

Something tells me you spend very little time in cities, period.

On the contrary. I've never lived in a non-city, and have spent most of my life surrounded by 10m+ people. Check your biases.

And what of the bias that says "every city that I deem 'unsafe' is indeed unsafe"?

You can look at the murder rate per 100k people and draw a conclusion, all without any bias.

Looking at wikipedia's list, I have walked all over Ensenada and Guadalajara w/o problems. In fact, I really enjoyed them. But I know how to walk a city and read a barrio. Mexico City is really something, FWIW.

I will say that I have felt more uncomfortable walking in certain parts of LA, NYC, Oakland, Chicago, and yes SF (I lived SOMA in early '90s, before the boom), than I have in Mexican cities. (Not minimizing the carnage, if you live outside of the nice parts, I'm sure it's hell.)

This assumes that the sample of murders over the population is uniformly distributed. But I think it's very obvious this is not the case!

Would you please read up on the kinds and degrees of relationships between perpetrator and victim in the statistics? You will find that the vast majority of cases involve two people who already have a prior relationship, and typically a close relationship either in a social or business sense.

Random murders happen so rarely, you can be confident in the assumption that your family is safe unless you get involved with some sketchy people. But then, it's your responsibility to avoid those people, not the city's job to do that work for you.

I've walked aimlessly around Boston, Chicago, Manhattan, London, Edinburgh, and probably a few others I'm forgetting.

Nice neighborhoods are nice to walk around.

Sure some cities are complete cesspools that shouldn't be walked around at all, but in general people aren't going to walk around those cities, so mentioning that doesn't add much to the conversation.

paranoia isn’t a virtue

Yes, as an American living in a city (even a safe one by American standards) almost every city I travel to is safer than default (except for some travel to places of great natural beauty like Madagascar, where I did not wander the cities).

It must be exhausting being this afraid of the world around you

There are a lot of dismissive replies to this comment but as a woman who has tried this in "safe" but unfamiliar cities, things can get scary very quickly. Catcalls are inevitable, and only the beginning. A catcall from a passing car that has slowed to swerve towards you is terrifying. Yes, self-defense and being aware of your surroundings help, but don't exactly lend themselves to the state of mind described in this article. I am not speaking from paranoia, but from experience.

Thank you for the reminder. As a 95 kg white male who only on a few very rare occasions felt even a bit nervous walking anywhere, it is good to get a reminder that different people experience our same world very differently.

I'm a big guy too. It's always good to remember that women and smaller men essentially live in a different world from us from a safety point of view.

But in a truly dangerous city, size won't help you - even a kid can kill you with a gun or a knife.

It is not the physique / weight but the intent, which is some kind of sexual harassment at a minimum.

A 60kg skinny man can worry less tham a 60kg gym going woman.

> It is not the physique / weight but the intent, which is some kind of sexual harassment at a minimum.

that seems like a weird take. Most of the time I'd think people wandering unfamiliar streets will be accosted by assholes looking for money than looking for someone to sexually harass. Even catcallers will have various motivations which might not involve intent to sexually harass (even though that's usually the effect).

Men have a lower risk of being sexually assaulted while a mugger or a scammer will happily target individuals of either sex if they think they can get away with it. Men do tend to the preferred target for someone looking to start a fight however which can make a difference depending on the area and how territorial the local thugs are.

Still, I'd feel way more comfortable as a 60kg woman who was fit and knew how to defend herself than I would as a 60kg man who had no idea how to fight and little muscle. In either case if someone assaulted me I would be targeted because I'm being perceived as weak and vulnerable, and in only one of those scenarios would I be in a position to quickly give an assailant cause to reassess and back off.

Staying aware of your surroundings and taking sensible precautions when wandering (anywhere) is good advice for anybody.

My original point was not about being accosted. You would be surprised how quickly someone yelling about your genitals will take you from "aimless strolling" to fight or flight, regardless of their weight or your level of fitness.

No argument there!

>Still, I'd feel way more comfortable as a 60kg woman who was fit and knew how to defend herself than I would as a 60kg man who had no idea how to fight and little muscle.

Generally, even in this situation, men are more able to defend themselves. Women have 60-70% of the upper body strength of a man of the same weight.(see https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/brzycki/fi...)

I imagine that just demonstrating that you're ready and able to fight would be enough to dissuade an attacker who was just looking for an easy mark, but even if they persist I'm not sure raw strength would necessarily win out over skill and stamina. I suppose it's a matter of how skilled and how athletic/healthy you are vs the person you'd be fighting. I doubt I'd find a decent answer to the question though. I'm not sure it could be researched ethically and even it could, what would a representative sample of street muggers and rapists even look like? It might need to include everything from gangbangers and strung out junkies to drunken frat boys and mentally ill homeless people.

Strength is critical in fighting. I have assumed that even an expert can't go up against people in different weight classes in fighting sports, and that basic skill is something that all sporty people have.

Some assumptions there eh?

Some places are just genuinely scary. Some aren't. Let the stats be your guide.

Genuinely curious what city you are thinking of that would make it not a great idea to walk around in?

You're being downvoted but you're completely correct. You can't 'aimlessly stroll' without being delusional in many places. Unsafe areas exact a massive psychological toll on residents.

Done this, take random walks and find somewhere to eat/shop!

Walking where locals walk, getting a feel of the buildings, finding your new favourite restaurant, and even visiting boring strip malls right outside the tourist zones makes for much better memories.

It’s even better when you unknowingly walk to an attraction—-the discovery and brief disorientation is so satisfying. “Is that really the Sagrada Familia above those buildings? It looks a bit small. Hmm, let’s walk closer. It’s huge!”

After nomading on/off for 12+ years, this is pretty much what it boils down for me. I don’t care about any tourist traps anymore. Just want to get lost in the city and have fun. No point. Just aimless wandering.

I'd like to put a word in for the early morning walk. Before the streets are crowded and all business is happening. There will still be a interesting activity to observe as the city wakes up and begins preparation for the new day. Maybe you'll find out where the cabbies meet and what they do to pass the slower hours. Who buys the first bread when the bakeries open. In some cities, there may be animals about that would wouldn't see during the day!

One aspect of flânerie is that it goes beyond strolling _for one's self_. The point isn't to stroll aimlessly with an empty mind. It in fact is to help one understand the city in which they are in, to better comprehend it, to feel it. You are in it in order to see it. I think the more often one practices flânerie the better they are at discerning what part of town they just wandered into, and can thus decide whether it is "safe" or not.

One of my favorite flânerie times was wandering from the Arc De Triomphe to the Sacre Coeur in Paris. It took hours. I saw amazing scenes I'd never seen before, moments of tranquility, of bizarreness, of beauty, just because I didn't take the metro or e-scooter. Snacked in a super cool cafe that I'm sure wouldn't have appeared in any travel guide. Meandered through parks that also get no mention but were swelling with local life. I highly recommend visiting places like this.

I had a wonderful time of my life randomly wandering around Paris.

I arrived at the train station, wandered around, found a hotel, checked in, went out, forgot to remember where my hotel was, wandered around some more, decided to go back to the hotel, then realized I had no clue where it was, so wandered around a hell of a lot more, finally wandered back to the train station, then retraced my wandering steps to the hotel, and found it again! No regrets, it was a wonderful time!

Along the route I found several different Space Invaders made of tiles on the sides of buildings at various locations around the city. There are also a bunch around Amsterdam and other cities, but I was surprised how many I just happened to run across in Paris, during that one long walk. Always look up on the sides of buildings, don't just stare at your feet, you'll spot more space invaders that way!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invader_(artist)

https://www.space-invaders.com/world/

https://www.space-invaders.com/world/paris/

https://www.space-invaders.com/world/amsterdam/

(press arrows to scroll!)

It’s because the artist is French. He’s quite abundant in Europe, but of course there are loads in France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invader_(artist)

Flânerie is just idle strolling. I don't need to justify it to others by making it sound grandiose. I agree it is enjoyable.

> The flâneur is traditionally depicted as male and is a figure of urban affluence and modernity since he has the free time and ability to wander detached from society, with no other purpose than to observe contemporary society with keen interest.

I used to walk around a lot on the weekends with no destination in mind. However, after my transition from male to female, I realized the truth of this quote from the article. This sort of aimless strolling is mostly available to men. Although I still enjoy walking around, and prefer to live in a walkable city, I usually have a destination in mind. Invisibility in public space is no longer afforded to me. Now I am a target for eyes and unsolicited comments, and occasionally aggressive behavior. The heightened awareness of risks to my safety has somewhat diminished the joy of flânerie for me.

I think(at least in America, or less walkable cities) this is becoming a lost art. So many of my friends simply can't imagine what an hour or two might look like without being preoccupied by something. Walking to them is a boring activity, a pointless one. But when I do it, its almost like my mind just explodes with creativity, I notice the smallest details that would otherwise pass me by. And its a great form of low intensity exercise to boot!

> when I do it, its almost like my mind just explodes with creativity, I notice the smallest details that would otherwise pass me by.

Man, did this resonate with me: some of my some of my best ideas, my most profound revelations have occurred while strolling and allowing myself to be swept up with what's happening around me. It doesn't happen with driving, and happens less with cycling. You must be on-foot.

I'd encourage anyone reading this who hasn't before/in a while: make some time where you have no time constraint, and go stroll.

Leave your watch, your phone. Wander past the point of feeling like "I should go back now" or "I want to go work on that thing." Don't suppress the thoughts of things you should be doing … but allow your curiosity to be tickled by whatever's around; follow it.

This might seem awful, but I do this in my car. I'll just take random routes and drive around seeing different parts of neighborhoods or cities. I'd much prefer walking but that's not very reasonable for where I am.

I don't see a problem with it, although (gas prices aside) it's not ideal since I find it hard to really look around while I drive, especially in places that are unfamiliar. I once lived at a place I'd stayed at for a couple of years and it wasn't until I was moving out that I realized I'd never once taken a left turn from my own driveway! These days I tend to do that kind of neighborhood wandering in google maps/earth.

That's because walking sucks in most of North America. My home town doesn't even bother with sidewalks in many places. You have loud roads with giant parking lots and quiet neighborhoods with only houses and no businesses. The countryside is all fenced up, so you can't just walk between fields and into forests. You pretty much need to drive to a park.

I can't speak for all of Europe, but Germany has a gigantic network of bicycle and foot paths where you can be truly in nature. Cities have mixed housing with cafés, pubs and other businesses. The countryside is criss-crossed with quiet paths that are accessible to all.

I couldn't pinpoint why I enjoy Canada less and less until I realised how flânerie became ingrained in my habits in Germany. I just pack water, snacks and a notebook and bike around all day. I meet friends in cafés, read by the river, eat pastries in parks etc. That's simply not doable in large parts of NA.

There’s a lot to be said for serendipity. I occasionally do walks where at every intersection, I randomly select a direction to go (left/right/straight—I use a dice app on my phone to keep things random). It takes me places that I might not otherwise go.

Another thing I did along these lines was I had a project when I lived in Santa Monica where I walked streets end-to-end in alphabetical order. I got up to the D’s as I recall. I started this in Oak Park, IL where I live now, but it fell by the wayside when I went to grad school and then had kids. The next walk on the schedule would be end up being about 7 miles, assuming I walked to and from the start/end points as well, and I’ve been procrastinating taking that time for a walk, but maybe I should just do it as the shoe commercials say.

Love the random direction choosing: it's good to choose to see/experience difference.

Even just passing down the other side of the street / coming at the same one from the opposite direction you experience such different things …

How I do it: if I feel a "pull" toward a certain direction (often due to familiarity / urge to 'get back'), I'll go the another direction … just to show the subconscious who's boss.

> just to show the subconscious who's boss.

That's just your consciousness putting together the same old story where it's always in control knows why you did what you did!

You might be interested in this app: https://deriveapp.com/s/v2/

It gives you tasks, like "Keep walking until you pass someone wearing green. Take the first left." to allow you to explore a city.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dérive

Debord defines the dérive as "a mode of experimental behaviour linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances." It is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, in which participants drop their everyday relations and "let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there".

Someone made an app to help engage in your city like this:

https://deriveapp.com/s/v2/

I also enjoyed Randonautica when it first came out but it has gone through a number of transformations that make it more game-y than explore-y.

https://www.randonautica.com/

Love comments sections for the iOS Dérive app:

> Great game. I ended up getting lost and robbed that was so much fun can’t wait to do it again.

In hindi, aimless strolling is called matargashti. There's actually an amazing song by the same name from a fantastic movie called Tamasha, which is all about matargashti in life.

Great to see broadening of the discussion's cultural scope from red light districts and western tourism in Paris to parallel concepts. However, the definition I found online suggested Hindi/Urdu maṭaragashtī can also refer to aimless loitering... a much less romantic and far more prevalent activity in the subcontinent!

One of my favourite Indian flaneur moments was finding a safe-looking mushroom while circumambulating a hill near a Jain site I was visiting in Karnataka. Bored and of generally flaneurial mindset I decided to eat it. About ten minutes later I wandered past a push-cart in to a small village, and came across a fluorescent hot pink goat. I wondered if the mushroom had anything to do with it, and had to double take - but no: they'd missed a spot. The animal had been spraypainted! Only in India...

https://i.postimg.cc/yNFrtPZm/hot-pink-goat.jpg

This nearly induces a panic attack for me - I need routes, a plan, a map, a goal/end location, and a task. Aimless walking stresses me out big time!

Listen to an audible book while you do it. Treat it as meditation time. Treat it as exercise. Use the time to call your mum or dad.

Lots of things can be done while aimlessly walking.

One of the most amazing things about aimlessly walking is the opportunity to let your mind wander freely! Not to say that you can't multitask while walking, just a thought :)

For me it's the plain old mind daemon screaming "Why aren't you busy?! You are certainly missing some super important obligations!". Curiously, it doesn't activate when I'm actually wasting time. It's the aimless walking that activates it.

But not the aimless scrolling on HN?

Of course not then! "Curiously, it doesn't activate when I'm actually wasting time."

Interesting. I do get the feeling when scrolling aimlessly, usually I relent to aimless consumption when I'm stuck on something hard I can't figure out. Whereas walks I view more utilitarian: they're good for me and the changing of environments helps me stay focused.

What works for us when you’re in a city is to pick a restaurant you want to go to, then walk in the general direction there. Allow spontaneous detours in corners you find interesting.

This allows one to flaneur but still have a destination.

On vacation, one can literally eat lunch, then wander about the city until it is tea time, then repeat until dinner. Beautiful way to spend the day and explore the city.

Have you considered why this is?

that's not normal

Conversations with Tyler (with urbanist Alain Bertaud)[1]

COWEN: Next question from the iPad: “When you arrive into a city you’ve never been to, what and how do you prioritize what to see?”

BERTAUD: Before Google Earth, I will just walk randomly through the city and usually start from the center, and to have a cross-section toward the suburbs. I will just walk for hours. Just as my father recommended, look with the idea that nothing in this city is random.

If you see a barbershop at the corner, it’s because the owner of the barber shop found that it was the best place for his business to be there. If you see a tall building next to a short building, it has a reason, too. You have to try to understand why it is there. Do not think . . .

One word I hate that the World Bank use all the time in a report is, urbanization is “haphazard.” There is no such thing. Urbanization is done by people, and they have a very, very good reason for doing it. Sometime distorted by regulation or something like that, that’s true — discrimination — but you have to understand why the city’s it.

After Google Earth, then it’s very different because now, I look at an image of Google Earth, and I select some neighborhoods in AdSense (sic) that I want to visit, which intrigue me. Why are they that way? This seems particularly dense or not dense at all. So rather than going at random, I will select the places based on my interpretation of Google Earth.

[1] https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/alain-bertaud/

I used to call this "getting lost on purpose". In a foreign city, I would leave my hotel and just head out. Get on a bus without knowing where it goes and ride for a while. See something interesting, get off and take a look. Maybe walk a while, and get on another bus. At some point you either decide to try to get back on your own, or you look for a taxi and ask for your hotel.

Sounds similar to a Lindy Walk as defined here ([it] isn’t just a beeline from Point A to Point B; there should be no set destination, with turns made at random to stimulate the mind): https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/style/lindy.html

I do the same online: aimless scrolling.

twitter is really the only place you can do this - tik tok too i guess but you dont learn anything

Chris Arnade has done this around the US and now around the world.

https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/

He worked as a quant for years after getting a PhD in Physics.

He is worth reading.

His book on the US is also worth a go.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/38796298-dignity

I've always liked the expression "How nice for you!" but I heard a better one on Quora:

This British lady was walking in a questionable part of NYC, and a guy came up and said, "I've got meth! I've got cocaine! I've got [list of other illegal substances]!"

She said with full British accent, "Who's a lucky boy, then?"

We have a similar word in English, "perambulating". The Brits sometimes call it "rambling", as well.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/perambulate

As a New Zealander, I wouldn’t say either of those words were similar, although I admit our usage of English is special.

My naive interpretation of those words is: perambulate is closer to just walking; rambling is a country walk with the sense of avoiding normal walking routes, but often planned and often walking with others (really need UK person to clarify).

Wander or meander-through have the sense of randomness, but lack the intentionality of deep attention to your surroundings.

Brit here: can confirm that rambling generally implies countryside walking (perhaps a bit slower and less purposefully than hiking or trekking). Perambulation sounds a bit Victorian and tends to imply walking in some sort of defined circuit. Strolling might be closer but also doesn't really imply paying much attention to surroundings.

High recommend for The Flaneur - A Stroll Through The Paradoxes of Paris by Edmund White.

Love it. There is a similar concept in German I believe called "Lustwandeln".

Also, uh, "flanieren": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flanieren

Oh totally, I knew that sounded familiar

I really like this way of exploring! Also a way to just have time to think, I feel like walks are well suited to just to flesh out ideas or reflect on things that I do not have time to reflect on normally.

I love this article from 2012, reflecting on how the web turned from flanerie and aimless surfing to a more controlled experience: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-death-...

This seems similar to the difference between hiking ( trailing walking ) and off trail trekking. The later is more of an overland pursuit where any number of surprises await from geological formations to stands of vegetation to a vast array of creatures.

It is the unknown just around the bend of the ravine, or inside the stand of trees, or over the next ridge that causes me to disappear into a more natural world as often as possible.

Wouldn't you say the flâneur has very strong parallels to the wandering and discovering our ancestors made?

Not really similar. The point of flâner is to let your mind go free, it is a relaxing experience that I could only compare to a massage. You just let everything go and just wander around, get lost in your thoughts, sometimes an external element cat he's your senses but it is purely curiosity and not really focus demanding. You are not exploring. You could do it in an IKEA for all that matters.

Going off trail trekking requires attention and focus, even if not constant. You can't just look at the sky and think about nothing if you risk fouling your ankle at every step or fall into a hole!

Off trail trekking is maybe more similar to coding something completely new. It's exciting, you experiment with different things, read bit here and there, and very satisfying, but also tiring. If I go flâner I will be less tired when I end than when I start.

Yeah, agree; I find it very interesting how the article keeps coming back to the point that this should be done _in the cities_, that even a relaxing hike through nature just ... would be something entirely different. They even have the quote contrasting London to "the country".

I found it very French, centered on the contact with the city, the people, the architecture; in contrast with the very common practice in Switzerland (where I live) of taking any chance you get to _go out_ from the city into the mountains/nature. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a Swiss who would consider walking in the city instead of out in nature. So, yeah, very interesting cultural contrast.

Agreed.

It is perhaps necessary to be completely comfortable with the surroundings. To those who have not found complete comfort with nature and would be concerned about things like twisting an ankle ( as if you couldn't do that on a curb or broken sidewalk ) it may be difficult to enter this mindless state in nature.

What is very odd about the absolute focus on _in the cities_ is if you were to switch that with _in the desert_ or _in the hills_ or _on the mountain_ the feelings the article is describing are very similar to the sense I have when I have actually left it behind and am now 'lost' if you will in my surroundings.

I can't recommend this action enough. There is nothing quite like it. Opening myself up to this sort of chaotic energy is a surefire way to make me feel better.

These articles always remind me of a McSweeny’s article titled, “I’m a Short Afternoon Walk and You’re Putting Way too Mich Pressure on Me”

- https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-a-short-afternoon-wal...

It is a good thing to do because you no longer have a planning / schedule burden. I regret doing so much planned out travel.

Driving and cycling aimlessly can be fun too.

The joy may be a survival instinct thing too. You are surveying the land. And engaging with new tribes who might have valuable commodities to trade. You are encouraging serendipity.

Aimless strolling + a certain kind of meditation (concentration) = a pretty good wishing machine.

Yeah something to be said for this and stuff like Randonauts.

I did explore quite a bit of my home city just by wandering to map stuff in OpenStreetMap.

I am a pathological flaneur, I guess. I’d happily spend all my time doing that.

UNC Chapel Hill's campus is very well suited for this. I did it all the time without knowing the corresponding french vocabulary word for it :)

Many a great idea came to my head during such scrambles.

Steve Martin has a banjo song about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htTLWC1unMc

Protip, if you aimlessly cycle in the city, follow a river so you don't have to look at the map all the time!

What is the equivalent of doing this in a car?

Just driving around aimlessly, thinking and observing.

>> driving around aimlessly

Commuting to work? Couldn’t resist. Sorry.

Getting just a little bit lost, and enjoying the scenery on the way. It can be very relaxing if you don't panic about needing to be somewhere.

Cruising. See American Graffiti

Not quite - cruising, at least AIUI, is more about being seen and seeing people. more of a performance than just letting yourself get lost in the world.

I've never understood the word to have that connotation of performance.

Some cities are too big to cover by foot. So I set my GPS to route to home, and I just drive around a neighborhood randomly and when I get tired I follow the directions to home.

I did this in my home city of Chicago, and discovered so many new nooks and crannies and interesting streets that I would never had occasion to traverse. I also learned where major streets ended eg Michigan Ave.

20 years ago I enjoyed this too. But today I can't imagine burning fuel as a past time activity. It even makes me angry thinking others still do this.

You might want to temper that with a sense of proportion.

Typically downtown locations are quite compact and it doesn’t really take a lot of gas (or electricity as the case may be) to drive around the city once in a while.

Also I imagine very few people actually do this.

One time I went on a drive and only took right turns and only when I felt it might be interesting. Ended up in a suburban area I'd never seen before and discovered a restaurant from a chain in my home state that I didn't realize was here.

It’s really corny how this became the word for “I walk around sometimes”. Always taking pains to point how it’s so different from how other people walk around.

I like to go walk around because I’m a normal person. It doesn’t need to be an identity with a fancy word imo

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