This week, I dust off an old goal and some even older guidebooks to talk about something I have been wanting to do for almost fifteen years - walk the Hadrian's Wall National Trail in northern England.

We're back up to 241 members, so just 9 short of our "Sprint to 250" Goal. I'm now hoping we can reach 250 by the end of July. There was no new podcast this week, but we did announce that we were able to secure a 30% off discount exclusively for members to the University of Chicago Press Bookstore, which is home to thousands of great British titles. You can use the code FOA to get 30% off your purchase. You can browse the British books here.

Also, I forgot to mention last week that Anglotopia has published a new book called 'Great London Buildings' - which is a historical guidebook to London's most important buildings. We've tried something new this time, publishing a full-color hardcover edition, which has ended up selling better than the 'regular' edition. I want to remind members that you have a 20% discount you can use on all our books in the Anglotopia Store.

Friends of Anglotopia can get a 20% discount in the Anglotopia Store using Coupon Code: FriendsAnglotopia2024. Shop the Anglotopia store here.

Also, the podcast will be back on Wednesday with a special episode about Jane Austen!

Back in April 2013, I published an article on Anglotopia.net that stated I was officially preparing to walk Hadrian’s Wall, the 84-mile National Trail that runs from coast to coast in Northern England, roughly following the path of the wall built by the Romans at the edge of their frontier. There were a couple of updates after that one on training for the walk. But then…. something that is uncharacteristic of this website, when I write about something, silence.

2013 was a long time ago. It’s 2025. I was a very different person in 2013 and at a very different stage in life. Now, in 2025, again, things are very different. I never gave up the dream of walking Hadrian’s Wall. I regularly thought about it, but it was always something I planned to do ‘next year.’  According to the archives on Anglotopia, I last wrote about training for the walk in 2014, and I said it the walk would be delayed. The reason was we were trying to buy a house at the time. Well, we bought the house, and we’ve now been living in it for 10 years. I think enough time has passed to not be able to use that as an excuse…

Amongst all the things Anglotopia has managed to do over the years, this walk was essentially my ‘white whale’ - I just couldn’t make it happen.

That’s going to change.

There are plenty of reasons it hasn’t happened. We had young children (the optics of spending a couple of weeks in Britain without the wife and kids is not good when they're young; they're teenagers now, I think they'd all would actually prefer I leave for a few weeks!), busy careers, and the timing was never right. Other travel goals came up. The business of Anglotopia collapsed in 2018 and went on a course correction that involved me getting a ‘real’ job, which meant less time for travel or much of anything. Then COVID. Then a 4-year absence from Britain. Then. Then. Then. Then.

It’s a lot. In the end, they’re all just excuses; the only person really disappointed in this state of affairs is me, because this is something I genuinely want to do. The fundamental reason I have not done the walk is that I am lazy and overweight. I have always known this about myself. It’s not a new revelation. The truth is that once I researched the nuts and bolts of the walk and realized the level of walking it would require for eight days straight, I realized that I was in no physical condition to just set off on an 84-mile walk (I have hypertension, sleep apnea, and am carrying too much weight).

I have to prepare for it. I have to train. I have to be able to walk long distances, then get up the next day and do it again. I have taken up walking in the last year, for my health, and the main lesson I have learned after doing a four-mile walk is that I’m shattered for days after. The longest stretch of the Hadrian’s Wall walk is 15 miles. In a day. And then you have to get up the next day and walk 10 miles. On purpose. At this stage, I genuinely don’t believe that my body is capable of doing it (but I know the human body is capable of many things most of us can’t conceive of, so I’m holding on to that…).

So, there’s about a year’s worth of work in advance required to do this. I will have to walk several days a week, slowly building my distance. That means starting now, continuing this autumn, and walking through the harsh midwestern winter, walking as much as I can to build my distance tolerance up. That’s a lot of time and work, to do something next year. To make it even harder on myself, I have to walk outside. I hate the treadmill. It feels pointless. My brain needs to feel like it’s going somewhere. I only really enjoy walking when I'm actually in England. I have to make the best of it here in Indiana with few trails and only busy roads to walk on.

But I have to do it.

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing on the Anglotopia Podcast a man named Quintin Lake who spent five years, on and off, walking the entire coastline of the island of Great Britain. He literally just set off one day and did it, with minimal planning. It was a fascinating interview, but it was really inspiring to me personally. Here was a man of considerable photographic talent who was not much older than me, who had walked every National Trail in Britain, walked the entire coastline, was climbing all the mountains, etc. If he could do it, why couldn’t I just do Hadrian’s Wall?

Quintin had a very zen-like aura about him about it all, which was admirable. Then he said something that really resonated with me: “The Norwegians have this great expression, the doorstep mile, the hardest part of any journey is taking the first step.”

The doorstep mile. I like that. The problem is that I have just been overthinking it. I am perfectly capable of walking 84 miles in a week. The average American walks 20 miles a week just living life. I’m only asking my body to do 4 times that amongst some pretty hills, ruins, and landscapes, with pub lunches in the middle of the day, and comfy B&Bs at night. Just walk. You’re not going anywhere without walking.

So, a few weeks ago, I started walking again with purpose (this is the key: purpose). I’m trying to walk every day (well, except when there is a heat advisory, it's been HOT this summer...). I’m thinking about Hadrian’s Wall every day. I’ve done my typical thing and bought updated guidebooks and maps and am reading about every inch of the walk. Actively planning when to go, how to book it, and when to do it. I’ve made it known with my family that I am doing this, I am going to do this, and when I’m going to do this. Everyone is supportive. They know it’ll be good for my terrible health and even better for my mental health. Why? Because I’ll get to go to England and inhabit the beautiful landscape for more than a week, at least!

I have to do this walk, finally, not because I want the content for this website and possibly a book, but because I have to prove to myself that I can still do hard things. On purpose. There are two components critical to making this happen. I need to be physically ready, and I have to figure out how to pay for it. I think I’ve figured out the latter (hint: it might involve our yearly calendar fundraiser, but still working out the math), but I have a lot of work to do on the former. But if I can get things booked by this autumn, that creates an immovable deadline that will only help my motivation to continue training and walking, during the deepest darkest winter months coming up.

Do it for England.

Take the first step, for England.

So, here I am again telling readers of Anglotopia that I’m going to walk Hadrian’s Wall next year. Except I will actually do it this time. Right now, I need to put on my shoes and go for a walk. I’m currently listening to ‘This Sceptred Isle,’ a 60+ hour-long BBC Radio documentary series on the history of Britain from the Roman era until now. This will narrate the first few months of my walking training (along with some British podcasts like “The Rest is History” And “Answer Me This”).

And so begins an irregular series of articles about my journey to go on this walk, and a chronicle of the walk itself, members will read about everything first.

Have you walked Hadrian’s Wall? Or want to walk it? Leave a comment, but I’ve also started a discussion thread on Anglotopia.chat that you can join here.