Walking is weird. Most of us do it to get from the car to the office, or maybe to hit a step goal on a plastic watch. But for Robert Macfarlane, walking is a way of "reading" the earth. His work, specifically The Old Ways book, isn't just a travelogue or a nature guide. It’s a deep, muddy, salt-crusted exploration of how paths connect us to the past. It’s about the tracks we leave and the tracks that leave their mark on us. Honestly, in a world where we spend half our lives staring at glowing rectangles, Macfarlane’s obsession with "holloways" and ancient sea roads feels less like a hobby and more like a rescue mission for the human soul.
The book is the third in a loose trilogy, following The Wild Places and Mountains of the Mind. While those focused on specific landscapes, The Old Ways is about movement. It’s about the "line-made world." Macfarlane spent years walking thousands of miles—from the chalk paths of southern England to the bird-paths of the Outer Hebrides, and even further to the limestone peaks of Spain and the sacred mountains of Tibet.
He’s not just hiking. He’s looking for ghosts.
What is it about The Old Ways book that sticks with people?
Maybe it's the language. Macfarlane uses words you’ve probably never heard but somehow feel right. Smeuse. Holloway. Zawn. He treats language like a physical part of the landscape. He argues that as we lose the words for the natural world, we lose the world itself. If you can’t name a specific type of moss or the way light hits a specific rock, do you really "see" it?
The book kicks off with a snowy walk near his home in Cambridge. He describes the "white world" where everything is muffled and the usual landmarks are gone. This sets the tone. Most of the book deals with "deep time." This is the idea that the ground beneath our feet isn't just dirt; it’s a record of millions of years of geological shifts and thousands of years of human footsteps. When you walk a path that has been used since the Neolithic era, you aren't walking alone. You're walking with everyone who ever needed to get from point A to point B for survival, trade, or worship.
The Icknield Way and the Ghost of Edward Thomas
A huge chunk of the narrative is haunted by Edward Thomas, the poet who was obsessed with roads and eventually died in World War I. Macfarlane follows Thomas’s ghost along the Icknield Way, a trackway that runs through southern England. It’s a chalk path. Chalk is a theme that comes up a lot. It’s soft. It holds impressions. It’s white and skeletal.
He talks about how Thomas felt a "calling" from the road. It’s a bit eerie, really. You get the sense that Macfarlane isn't just writing a book; he's undergoing a slow-motion spiritual crisis or awakening. He sleeps out in the open, often without a tent, feeling the cold seep into his bones. He wants to be "porous" to the landscape.
One of the most striking parts involves the Broomway. This is an ancient offshore track in Essex. It’s incredibly dangerous. When the tide comes in, it comes in fast—faster than a person can run. It has claimed dozens of lives over the centuries. Macfarlane walks it with a local guide, describing the sensation of walking on water and mud where the horizon disappears. It’s terrifying. It’s beautiful. It makes your daily commute look pretty pathetic.
The Sea is a Path Too
We usually think of paths as being made of dirt or stone. Macfarlane disagrees. He spends a significant portion of The Old Ways book on the water. Specifically, the "sea roads" of the North Atlantic.
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He travels to the Outer Hebrides and sails in a traditional boat. He talks about how, for ancient people, the sea wasn't a barrier; it was a highway. They knew the currents, the stars, and the flight patterns of birds. To them, the water was as mapped out as a city street is to us.
- Navigation by Nature: He describes how sailors could "read" the color of the water or the shape of the waves to know where land was, long before they could see it.
- The Bird Paths: There’s a beautiful section about the migration patterns of birds and how they overlap with human paths.
- The Peat and the Salt: The sensory details are intense. You can almost smell the rotting seaweed and the damp wool of his sweater.
He eventually goes to Palestine, walking with Raja Shehadeh, an author and lawyer. This is a crucial pivot in the book. It moves from the "gentle" history of English chalk to the hard, politically charged landscape of the West Bank. Here, paths are contested. Walking isn't just a philosophical exercise; it’s an act of resistance. Fences, settlements, and checkpoints have sliced up the old ways. It’s a stark reminder that land isn't just nature—it's power.
Why Macfarlane’s perspective is controversial to some
Not everyone loves his style. Some critics find it a bit "twee" or overly poetic. They argue he romanticizes the landscape while ignoring the harsh realities of rural life or the fact that most people can't afford to just wander around for three years.
But that misses the point. Macfarlane isn't saying we should all quit our jobs and become nomads. He’s asking us to pay attention. He’s pointing out that our ancestors had a relationship with the earth that was intimate and local. We’ve traded that for a relationship that is global and abstract. We know where our iPhone was made (sorta), but we don't know the name of the stream three miles from our house.
The Science of the Path
There’s some fascinating "brain stuff" in here too. He touches on how walking changes the way we think. It’s a rhythmic activity. Left, right, left, right. This cadence mimics the way our brains process information. There’s a reason people go for a walk to "clear their head."
In The Old Ways book, the path is a "memory theater." We remember things better when we move through a landscape. This is an ancient technique—the "Method of Loci"—where you associate pieces of information with physical landmarks. When you walk an old path, you are literally moving through a physical manifestation of human memory.
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He mentions the work of neurologists and psychologists, though he keeps it accessible. He’s more interested in the "felt" experience than the data. He talks about the "kinesthesia" of the trail—the way your muscles and tendons react to the uneven ground. It’s a full-body engagement that you just don't get on a treadmill.
Landscapes he explores:
- The Chalk: Southern England, specifically the South Downs and the Icknield Way. Soft, white, ancient.
- The Silt: The Broomway in Essex. Deadly, flat, liminal.
- The Gneiss: The Outer Hebrides. Hard, old rock, shaped by wind and sea.
- The Limestone: Spain and the West Bank. Sharp, bright, contested.
- The Granite: The Himalayas. Spiritual, towering, overwhelming.
What can we actually do with this?
So, you read the book. You’re inspired. Now what? You probably can't go walk across Tibet next week. But the "Old Ways" philosophy is actually pretty practical if you squint at it.
It’s about re-wilding your own perception. You don't need a mountain. You just need a sense of curiosity about the ground you're currently standing on. Honestly, most of us treat the outdoors like a backdrop for our lives. Macfarlane wants us to see it as the main character.
Search for "Desire Lines" in your own city.
Ever see a path worn into the grass where people have taken a shortcut instead of using the paved sidewalk? Urban planners call those "desire lines." They are the most basic form of an "old way." They show where people actually want to go, rather than where they are told to go. Start noticing them. They tell you a lot about human nature.
Learn the names of five local plants.
Don't just call them "weeds." Use an app like Seek or a local field guide. Once you know the name of a plant, you start seeing it everywhere. It stops being "green stuff" and starts being an individual. This is what Macfarlane means by language shaping reality.
Find your local "holloway."
A holloway is a sunken path, worn down by centuries of use and erosion. Many of these still exist in wooded areas or even at the edges of suburbs. They feel different. The air is cooler. The sound changes. Find one and just sit there for twenty minutes.
Walk without a destination.
This is the hardest one for modern people. We are obsessed with "efficiency." Try walking for an hour with no goal other than to see what’s there. Turn left when it feels right. Stop when something looks interesting.
The Old Ways book is ultimately a plea for us to stop being tourists in our own lives. It’s a reminder that we are part of a very long, very complicated story that is written into the dirt and the stone. We just have to learn how to read it.
Actionable Steps to Connect with the "Old Ways"
- Audit your local map: Look at a topographical map of your area. Ignore the highways. Look for the dotted lines—the footpaths and rights of way. Many of these follow routes that are hundreds of years old.
- Practice "Deep Observation": Pick a 10-foot stretch of a local trail. Spend ten minutes looking at every inch of it. Notice the insect tracks, the different types of soil, the way the roots cross the path.
- Read the land's history: Every town has a local history society or a small museum. Find out what your neighborhood used to be 200 years ago. Was it a forest? A farm? A swamp? Knowing the "ghost" of the land changes how you walk through it.
- Keep a "Commonplace Book": Like Macfarlane, jot down interesting words, sketches of stones, or feelings you have while outdoors. It turns a simple walk into a creative act.
The world is still there, beneath the asphalt. It’s just waiting for someone to walk on it.