The Natural Explorer
The most rewarding travel experiences do not depend on our destination or the length of our journey, but on our levels of awareness. A short walk can compare with an epic journey, when we take the time to focus on the things that dramatically enrich each journey.
Combining the work of the some of the most insightful travellers of the past two thousand years with his own experience, Tristan Gooley demonstrates how it is possible to connect profoundly with the lands we travel through.
Exploration is no longer about hardship or long distances, it is about celebrating the sense of connection and discovery that is possible in all our travels.
The Natural Explorer is being published by Sceptre in March 2012.
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Reviews:
“Discover a whole new world… a journey through the intricate, detailed and often-missed sides of a walk.” Wanderlust Magazine
“The Natural Explorer is an essential part of any outdoor/nature writing library and it works in several ways. It’s a cogent paean to the glories of nature, a subtle manifesto, a call to arms to get out and appreciate the wonders of the natural world. It’s also full of wonderful examples of how to better read, understand and connect with the landscape.” Damian Hall, Country Walking magazine
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About the Book
The Challenge:
When researching and writing The Natural Explorer, I imagined myself confronted with the following challenge,
Someone is about to go on the same journey twice, once before reading The Natural Explorer and once after reading it. My challenge is to make sure that the second journey is a significantly richer, profounder and more fascinating experience than the first.
My sincere hope is that The Natural Explorer is the book that someone would choose to read if they knew they would only be able to go on one more journey in their life.
Each of the 30 chapters takes one of the aspects of a journey and examines the ways it can help us connect with the places we travel to and through. Each is packed with insightful and entertaining examples of the way travellers have used each perspective to deepen their understanding of a place, and therefore how we can use it to enrich our own experiences.
Wherever possible I’ve tried to illustrate each example with the most colourful travel stories possible, including the story of the loneliest woman in the world, which my copy editor tells me made tears run down her cheeks. Lots of more cheery stuff too, including a tale of mead, pubic hair and ice which will bring a chilly smile to your face.
Contents (or see the Index)
The Lost Explorer. An Introduction.
The Senses
The Plants
The Changing Mountain
The Coast
Valleys of Ice
The Earth
The Animals
The Shape of Nature
The Light
The Sky
The Weather
Still Waters
Colour
The City
The Trees
The Human Animal
Worldly Goods
Food and Drink
Contrasting Lines
The River
Lines in the Earth
Time
Language
Companions
Customs and Habits
Religion
Beauty
Inner Time and Mood
Imagination and Wonder
Sharing the Experience: Towards a New Explorer
The End of the Journey.
For a fuller idea of the topics covered in the book, you can find the index here.
Behind the scenes of this book:
In 2008 I gave a public lecture at the Royal Geographical Society during which I explained that I found it odd that people were referring to me as an explorer. I did not consider myself one at the time.
This was not the first moment that I’d considered what it meant to explore, but it did reignite my curiosity about it. Then I stopped thinking about it and concentrated on teaching and writing about natural navigation for several years.
It was during this time that I began to notice something intriguing.
I have spent years working in travel and years walking through landscapes and steadily these two professional experiences came together in a simple realisation. Everyone sees the world through a prism.
Whenever I walked with another person, they saw many things that I did not and I noticed many things they did not. We each viewed the world through a different lens. But we were also each capable of noticing intriguing small details. The most exciting of these moved from our senses to our minds, then to our mouths as we sought to share the joy of our observations. I noticed this was true no matter what the background of the person I walked with. It was also true regardless of the length of our journey, from several days in the wilderness to minutes spent exploring a town.
Geographers, meteorologists, rangers, geologists, farmers, soldiers, biologists, archaeologists, housewives, psychologists, astronomers, children, foragers… all see the world we travel through slightly differently, but each is capable of insight that leads to a sense of connection with their landscape. I was repeatedly witness to the fact that the most sublime and joyous of these insights can lead to moments of wonder.
The moment when we notice the connection between the rocks, the earth, the plants, the animals, the water, the light, the air, the planets, the colours, time… when our awareness of these aspects of a landscape come together we cannot help but experience something profound. It is, quite literally, wonderful.
‘What if someone tried to write a book that brought all of these perspectives together in one place?’ I thought to myself. ‘What if someone tried to write a book that offered the experience of these insights being shared during the course of a single walk? And did it in a way that others could take into their own journeys?’
All journeys of exploration start with a crazy idea. I am very fortunate to have a publisher who shared this crazy idea.
Writing this book has been exciting, exhausting and terrifying… but, I’d better stop there before I start to sound too much like the old explorers!
Thanks for reading this and I hope you enjoy the book,
Tristan
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Acclaim for Tristan Gooley’s last book, The Natural Navigator:
Winner, National Trust Outdoors Book of the Year 2010
“A wonderfully stimulating book.” Michael Palin
“A must for any lover of the outdoors.” Daily Telegraph
“The best nature writing changes the way you seen the world.” Sunday Times
