Introducing: Walk Forever Club, and my longest walk ever

I’m going on a walk. On September 15, I will leave Wakkanai, Hokkaido, for the third and final stage of my walk around all of Japan, a journey I started in 2017 and continued in 2022. Come and join me on my longest walk ever, which you can also support if you become a member of Walk Forever Club, my new membership program.

Who?

Greetings! Peter Orosz here and you’re reading an email from the I 💜 Wasting Ink Mailing List. If you were forwarded this email, you can subscribe here.

What?

I’ve been going on long walks since 2015. Many of them have been in Japan, including the longest one so far, when I walked from the south-western end of the country to its easternmost point in 2017, a journey of some 4,300 kilometers. Last year, I continued from the same spot and walked on to Wakkanai, Japan’s northernmost city. Yes, maps.

In September, I’m going back to Wakkanai to attempt a walk around all of Japan: back on a different route to Kagoshima, the city in the south-west I had walked out of in April 2017, then along the Ryūkyū Islands that stretch in a long arc from Kagoshima to Taiwan. The last island is called Yonaguni. That’s my spot on the horizon. It’s the very end of Japan, closer to Taiwan than to the nearest Japanese convenience store, a place with its very own writing system and its own breed of horse. I was recently told by Mark Rosa, an American linguist who has studied Yonaguni for decades, that the horses are wild and on the small side.

He appears to be right, but I want to see for myself. I expect to get to Yonaguni around April 2024, one calendar year after leaving Kagoshima. Regardless of whether I make it or not, this will be my last long walk in Japan.

When?

• September 5: Estonia ✈️ Japan
• September 11: Tokyo ✈️ Wakkanai
• September 15 → : Wakkanai 🚶🏽 Yonaguni

Where?

1. Mastodon

I will keep a visual field diary on Mastodon. Two to three text posts a day, complete with pictures, maps, and videos. Similar to the diaries I kept on Instagram during previous journeys. You can follow here:

https://mastodon.ilovewasting.ink/@peter

If you don’t use Mastodon, or you have no idea what it is, just bookmark the link and you can read my posts in your web browser.

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2. Glass

I will be posting the best photos from the walk on Glass:

https://glass.photo/ilovewastingink

If you don’t use Glass, which is a members-only photography website that you have to pay for, you can also bookmark the link and refresh it in your browser when you want to catch up on my latest photos.

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3. I 💜 Wasting Ink Mailing List

Every two weeks, I will send a dispatch to the I 💜 Wasting Ink Mailing List. If you’re already signed up, you’ll receive them in your inbox. If you were forwarded this link, you can sign up here:

If you want to read about the first two stages of this journey, you’ll find them on this website:

• These Walking Dreams, the visual field diary from my 2017 walk
• Human Again, the series of dispatches I wrote from last year’s stage

Why?

Perhaps because it is an adventure.

How?

With your help.

Concurrent with the walk, I’m launching Walk Forever Club , my new membership program. Some of you have already heard about it in private emails, and I thank everyone who has decided to join.

If you become a member, you will make it possible for me to produce the writing and photography available on my website for everyone, and you will also get members-only benefits: large discounts on my books, access to live video streams from the walk, participation in discussions about future projects, and more. Read all about it here.

Walk Forever Club costs €10 a month. You can also pay €100 to join for a year, and then you will get large discounts on The Wilds of Shikoku, my book about another walk in Japan, and on all my future books, too, beginning with A Something Like Peace, my book about re-thatching a medieval farmhouse in Kyōto, which will be published after my walk around Japan, in the summer of 2024.

Is this for you? Unless you are a huge fan of my work, probably not. But if you are that person, if my work brings to your life the monthly equivalent in joy of eight scoops of the best ice cream in Rome, then I will thank you with all my heart if you spend another €10 by joining Walk Forever Club.

It’s not cheap. If all you have is €10 to spare, definitely go for the ice cream. Maybe Pistacchio al quadrato, Nocciola, Mandorla in comitiva !!!!, Croccante totale and Lampone for the main course and Fichi, Uva fragola and Pesca percoca for dessert. That’s a lot of ice cream. The main course is also ice cream. €10. No, it won’t be bad for you, and neither will walking vicariously.

See you from Giappone and enjoy the ride.

Next → The urge to drop everything

Prev. ← Talking the walk

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