Well, it feels very late to be publishing this considering I started reading it at 7am on official release day on January 11th but there’s been so much Georgia stuff and I had other stuff to slot in but finally, it’s time for Alastair Humphreys’ Local. I read his Ask An Adventurer last year and I’ve been looking forward to this one for years. I followed it live on social media, from him ordering his custom OS map back in 2020, I think, to his regular adventures exploring it, as it gradually became a book and then through some (sorry, Al) absolutely awful attempts at a cover and title. The ones he’s settled on are far and away the best and I was excited to read it. While we were stuck at home, I bought my own Single Map (the original project was called A Single Map Is Enough) and although I didn’t get anywhere near as far with exploring mine as he did, the book has reinspired me to take it down off the shelf and find some more bits to walk on it, and so has going to his book talk, when he came to a bookshop near me.
I love the custom maps, by the way. I have my big local map but I’ve also made small ones for when I’ve been glamping or camping because a) good souvenir but also b) it gives me an idea of walks to do that don’t require me to drive a long way when I’m supposed to be on holiday and c) a little A3 map is much easier to handle in a breeze than a full-sized OS map and it’s cheaper! Al recommends you get yourself a local map and so do I.
So, the point of the book is this: rather than heading off around the world by plane in search of big adventures and expeditions, are there adventures to be had a bit closer to home? This was kind of forced on him by the events of 2020, when big adventures and plane trips abruptly came to a stop but the feeling of wanting to go out and explore and have adventures doesn’t stop just because the world is in lockdown. So Al bought a custom OS map with his home (more or less) centered on it, a map 20km on each side and then randomly picked one of the 400 squares to explore each week using a random number generator. The book makes a point of not saying where this area is but if you read the blog, you’ll discover that he’s somewhere in the region of Gravesend/Dartford/where north Kent meets south London. It’s not quite as picturesque as exploring a single map in the Highlands of Scotland, or the Lake District or even the South Downs, a point he makes in the book, but really, that’s what this whole thing is about – it’s about finding nature and beauty and things worth exploring even on a doorstep that looks like it might be one of the most boring in the country.
It’s also about the human impact on the environment: the wilds disappearing under industry, pollution, land & access rights and about how barren even our beautiful green hills and woods actually are. The first quarter of this book is quite depressing – Al is constantly coming up against barriers and damage to the world, there’s nothing left that’s open and beautiful and I started to wonder, do I want to finish this book? Living in the countryside, open unabashed countryside, my experience of exploring my map is very different. It was something I enjoyed, discovering footpaths and hills and muddy woods I never knew about. His experience of going to a random square, whether it was a hill or a suburb or a river, is very different from me choosing somewhere that looks nice and interesting and, in some cases, suitable for the weather.
I stuck with it. It gets better. By which I mean it feels less depressing. Al starts to look at his local area differently as he sees more and more of it and the “private land” signs are more and more often balanced by observations about trees and birds and people and connections.
At the book talk, someone asked Al what’s the one thing he would want us to take away from this book. Somewhat surprisingly, it’s not taking notice of humans encroaching on nature, or access – it’s to go out and start exploring your own local area, preferably with your own local map (not that either the book, the talk or this post are an advert for Ordnance Survey…), discovering what it has to offer instead of believing that the only interesting places worth visiting are the ones hundreds or thousands of miles away. Part of the reason Al doesn’t state what area his map covers is no doubt for privacy but also so that people don’t just buy an identical map and copy his adventure and instead have an adventure of their own in their own local area. He’s demonstrated that there’s a lot to discover even if you think you don’t live on a very interesting map. Even if you centre your map on Trafalgar Square in the very middle of the UK’s biggest city, you still end up with Putney Heath and Vale in one corner, Walthamstow Marshes in the opposite one, Welsh Harp Nature Reserve in the top-left, dozens of London parks, heaths and commons and I know you haven’t explored a fraction of urban London or walked the length of the Thames. See, even if you’re in a huge city, there’s plenty to see and do on foot.
So, first of all read this book for some inspiration. And second, get outdoors and see what’s in walking distance of your own home. (And third, tell Al all about it!)