I walked across Luxembourg (opens in new tab)

>> Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a claimant rather than the new Dutch queen. (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.)

Game of Thrones, with its campy portrayal of regal titles and announcements, kind of drives this point home. European aristocracy, especially those derived from germanic and other barbarian cultures, held titles like collectibles. Lordships accrued rather than expanded. The could be dispersed and often were.

If you watch Queen Elizebeth coronation, the list of titles would shame Daenerys Targaryen. It's quite surreal. Queen of Jamaica, Empress of India, Defender of the faith...

Even the 20th century version was not unrelated to real politics, but as you go back, this reflected real political power and machinations. Every title had different rules, different arbiters, and disputes led to actual wars.

The reason it was such a strategic position, is because the town was a natural fortress. It's located on top of a high, flat rock, which is riddled with tunnels for gun casemates, making the town of Luxembourg very hard to take.

It was a vital part of the Spanish Road that the Spanish Habsburgs needed to move troops from their lands in Italy to the north during the 80 Years War.

> (Monarchy is pretty weird in practice.)

Friend of mine back-tested the simple "the next king is the first son of the previous king" against the past 1,000 years of English kings and found it to be true only half the time.

> Dutch law allowed the throne to pass to a female child, but the Grand Duchy was under different laws and was inherited by a claimant rather than the new Dutch queen

If you are confused by this, try Crusader Kings game by Paradox (I prefer ck2 to ck3) for a good taste of multiple types of inheritance and problems arising from ruling medieval realm and passing all accumulated titles to your heirs.

Wow, I wish I had your ability to synthesise a thousand-year history in a few paragraphs in such an interesting and cohesive way!

Indeed https://github.com/potree/potree has a bit awkward navigation, but there are quite a few nice lidar datasets available to explore with it, like the scan of the Matterhorn. I once used it to explore a dataset made by a photogrammetry drone, was quite nice.

The entire country of the Netherlands is also available here: http://ahn2.pointclouds.nl/ There is no rgb information, only elevation. But you can make out individual power powerlines, the scan resolution is really high.

For my 30th birthday a group of friends and I walked the perimeter of Manhattan island. Except for a section along the Harlem river, there are paths along the water the entire way so it required almost no navigation. We picked up and dropped off friends along way that only wanted to do parts of the walk. And we stopped at several bars too, meeting other friends that just wanted to have a drink. We started at 8am and finished just after 4am. I would definitely do it again, even without the friends or bars - but they definitely made it a memorable adventure.

If one cannot afford to travel, videos such as these are a good alternative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgfd-uWTVwg (Kyoto under the rain)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgYPErtoljI (A stroll in a small town near Tokyo)

That’s quite a walk! Where did you start and end?

For about ten years, I walked every New Year’s Day from my home near Yokohama Station to somewhere in Tokyo—Ikebukuro or Ueno or Asakusa, about 35 kilometers one way. Very memorable, as you say.

I don’t think I would do it in the summer, though.

Not to invalidate your experience in any way but I think it is a special case of walking in any big city you have never been before. As long as it is sufficiently dense/walkable and you don't need to fear being robbed, it's magical. Taipei, Seoul, Bangkok, you name it...

You can't really walk across North American cities, they just don't have the pedestrian infrastructure.

While a compass helps with orientation, it doesn't help you find where you are or where you're going, so a map might be a good addition (or a replacement, as I find it pretty trivial to orient myself in a city when given a map).

Why a disposable camera? I would think any user preferred camera would be fine, even a cell phone (just put it in airplane mode to avoid distractions).

That sounds fun.

I'd recommend Kyoto too. I cycled around it a lot but never got tired of the little side streets, temples and older houses.

I’ve often done that in Paris, absolutely enjoyable. Through the city proper you only walk a little over two hours north-south or east-west. With a few detours to points if interest and breaks for coffee it’s one of my favorite ways to spend a half day.

I walked across most of Barcelona a few years ago, fantastic experience. On the few solo journeys I've made I get a ton of walking in like this, but yeah, you definitely need a rest day or two.

There is a name for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dérive

That's a far far bigger endevour than my efforts.. but I do love walking from a city to the airport, dragging my carry-on if necessary.

The last part can be a bit stressful, as airport terminals are not always made for pedestrian access. But it's very satisfying to feel like you have 'escaped' a city under your own steam as it kind of falls apart and back together.

What was the distance? Tokyo seems immense and seems difficult to cross efficiently (you have to make a lot of small detours).

If you want to keep your phone on, street complete can be very rewarding, especially in places with not so much osm coverage.

I follow Craig Mod [0], who regularly walks in Japan. You might find him interesting.

[0]: https://craigmod.com/

I've walked across SF multiple times, it is fun, but maybe doesn't qualify being not even 10 miles. A fit person can easily run it.

I see you used QGis. Last time I tried it there was no easy way of plugging a router. I switched to QMapShack. It's a bit more complicated to use the IGN service for the maps (whereas it works out of the box with QGis) but there are several options for routers. The offline one (Routino) requires downloading data but it works well. I use it all the time to plan 2-5 days treks in the French Alps. Having the actual elevation profile for a given segment is really useful.

Just thought you might want to try this setup for your next trek!

> I was a bit surprised that Luxembourg is actually quite a bit bigger than I had thought

I live in Luxembourg now and it's not that small. There are actually various little cities and going, say, from Luxembourg city to Esch-sur-Alzette, driving on the highway (even if it's only for a short while), feels like going to another city.

It sure feels funny to go to, say, IKEA, which takes 15 minutes or so knowing that the IKEA store is in... Another country! (I go to the one in Belgium)

It's a complete change for me: last year I was in a rural area (in France) and the closest highway was a 50 minutes drive or so.

I think Luxembourg gets combined with European micro-states, Andorra, San Marino, Vatican City, etc. But it is quite a bit bigger than them. Luxembourg is 5x bigger than Andorra and 3.5x smaller than Cyprus.

It's four times larger than Singapore!

I'm kind of surprised, it was and still is a very car-centric city. The very centre can be busy but these days, with a smart phone you could easily find parking within 500m or so.

Parking is a problem in a lot of European cities. Trains are probably a better choice for such trips in Europe.

It was attempted/done already though i dont remember their success: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83fEtvKVVVw

In general, as a luxembourger, i am intrigued by doing it, though there are several hurdles: - lots of villages, with gardens you cant walk through - various highways that are illegal to cross probably, and dangerous, though feasible. - some big cliffs that are very dangerous. I refer to some of the images in the original post

Max Fosh is a national treasure

There are multiple official camping grounds and caravan parks on the route. Unfortunately wild camping isn't allowed anywhere. I know that some people still try it, and probably so long as you're somewhere off trail, camp late and leave early nobody will bother you.

There are parts of the world on such a trek that these days I would not want to cross by vehicle, let alone on foot.

In the 70s, though, I was with my parents on the Delhi-Tehran portion of the old Kathmandu-London route. I'm only seeing recollections of the old trips, though, no indication that groups are doing it now.

Édit : he had been in a car accident, and couldn’t use his right arm.

I have it too, but often forget to use it in favour of Google Maps, but Google Maps is terrible for anything not in a car or train, and OSM always has fantastic detail for hiking trails. Every vacation I find myself switching to Organic Maps.

This vacation it helped us find a trail to a really beautiful waterfall in Switzerland.

TIL about it and I'm gonna try it for sure. Yesterday I had a very bad experience with a "Garmin Connect" generated route for gravel bike, by checking it in Organic Maps I could probably have avoided the issue.

That and memory foam / gel pads in your shoes. I walk a lot since the lock down and I've had knee issues in the past. Good gel pads help and using your knees with light exercise actually improves things. I Mostly wear sneakers. Hiking shoes tend to be a bit more rigid and have less shock absorption.

The poles might help as well. Nordic walking, is a thing that a lot of cross country skiers do in Scandinavia to stay in shape during the summer. Also nice for people with balance issues or weak backs of course. Done properly, it makes for an intensive workout.

I live in San Marino, let me chime in!

The historic center, which is called San Marino Città, is a gorgeous medieval town and it's also part of UNESCO heritage. I definitely recommend a trip there, if you happen to be somewhere near.

When I went to school there, I regularly missed the bus so I had the chance of doing a few walks down to my home. It's a bit steep, since the town is located at the top of mount Titano at 700m of height, but it's truly charming.

I hike across Liechtenstein from time to time. A very light but picturesque set of trails for one day (30-50km). I usually start at the south border in a Switzerland town, cross the country up north and enter Austria.

On a much lighter category, someone "hiked" Monaco in a straight line: https://magamig.github.io/posts/crossing-an-entire-country-i...

...and The Vatican! (I had a beer in Rome, then strolled across The Vatican and three minutes later had another beer in Rome...)

You could probably walk across and around the whole of San Marino in less than a full day.

... and Monaco. Choose one of the roads higher up on the cliffs

Wow. As someone who has driven from LA to Seattle without breaks quite a few times (which is around 1,000 miles), that really puts in perspective how small Europe can be at times. I guess that shouldn't be surprising as that's similar to the distance between Berlin and Moscow.

There are a lot of good long distance walks in the UK. Not having done the coast-to-coast personally, I will say I've heard from various people that the part in the middle of the country is less interesting than the two ends given the highways etc.

definitely do that!

Scenic, yes. Far more remote, though--you'll be spending a lot of nights in the wilderness and most of what you drink will be natural sources that you filter. Your cell phone will rarely work--assume a SOS will have to go by satellite.

Look up the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. All make his 4 day trip look like a stroll in the park--to do any of them in 4 *months* would be a very good performance. All require a certain amount of permitting, I know the PCT permits are by lottery (capacity restrictions), I'm pretty sure the CDT ones are not except for problems getting campsites in the national parks it passes through. No idea on the AT. To accomplish any of these in a single trip requires maintaining a good pace. There are people who have hopped around (doing hot parts in cool times and cool parts in hot times) and completed all three within a single calendar year--last I knew the number of such people exactly matched the number of moonwalkers.

If that's too big for you there are things like the Arizona trail (IIRC 800 miles) and the Colorado trail (I think it's under 500--but note that an awful lot of it is in the 10,000'+ range.) There is the Vermont Long Trail, no idea of the details. I know there are many others but they do not come to mind.

25km isn't too rough unless you're copping a lot of ups and downs, or don't enjoy walking. Helps if you start early to cover ground and give yourself time to rest.

Our 4yo daughter did day hikes in the 15-20km range a few times last year, in mountainous terrain. I think attitude and resilience are key.

In this case, one advantage was the author having a 7kg pack and using accommodation/food along the way rather than carrying a tent, sleeping gear, food, 2-3L of water, etc. Starting with day hikes or walking part of your commute is an easy way to build up to trying longer adventures.

It depends on how much you do it.

25 km/day, flat terrain, light pack--I have dietary issues that could prove problematic for a four-day trip (expending 4,000 calories in a day, not an issue. Consuming 4,000 calories in a day would be hard--I would worry about bonking) but I fairly routinely hike 25km in a day and with nearly twice his load (I'm typically in the middle of nowhere, if I have to push the button help would likely be hours away--my safety standard is I should be able to survive the night) and rarely less than 500m of climb over the day.

A lot depends on the terrain and the condition of the trail/road. (Pavement does tend to be a bit harder on your feet than a nice dirt trail.)

25km (~15mi) per day on level terrain on a path in good condition is a good walk but not anything exceptional. If there are ups and downs and the trail is rock and rough that's a whole different story.

I was wondering this too. Last time I did a ~15km walk, my legs and feet were really aching at the end of it. I think I could have done another 15km back if I had no other choice, but it would have been miserable. As it started to rain, I got a lift back instead.

Napoleon's soldiers marched 120km in 2 days! With weapons and gear, in enemy country, without wibrams, gel pads, walking poles or socks.

Trekking poles are not necessary. But they are useful, and he obviously see a potential use for them. Your comment comes across as somewhat rude.

Shoes are not strictly necessary either, but they help. Trekking poles help, and I also need them to pitch my tent, so I'll keep them.

Where have you walked? How far? How much weight do you carry? How old are you?