Let me offer you my latest peregrinations, which consisted of a 15,000-mile sweep through the Americas, north and south, that produced a series of giant carbon footprints, while giving me hardly any opportunity to stretch my legs. I blame the kids: two small boys are a sufficient drogue to brake any possibility of sustained walking, unless it’s on a treadmill facing a marathon screening of all the Harry Potter movies.

Walk 1. Sao Paulo Airport. Distance: 260m. Time: 2.5 hours.   More...

Consider Doggerland, the landmass that before the end of the last Ice Age connected the British Isles with The Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. My brother wised me up on Doggerland, sitting in the humid garden of his house in upstate New York: “When we think of Britain and the continent being connected, we obviously imagine an isthmus or land bridge,” he averred, “whereas the reality was an enormous plain. Archaeologists have discovered human artefacts and evidence of habitations from the Mesolithic in this area. Think of it! A tundra where the North Sea is now, teeming with game — lion, mammoth, hippo — criss-crossed by the hunting trails of sophisticated huntsmen.”   More...