Join author Robert Young as he walks along the roads traveled by Henry David Thoreau and companion Richard Fuller in 1842. Explore and relive the thrill and the challenge of making the 34 mile journey from Concord, MA to Mt. Wachusett, located in Princeton, MA.

Summer and winter our eyes had rested on the dim outline of the mountains in our horizon, to which distance and indistinctness lent a grandeur not their own, so that they served equally to interpret all the allusions of poets and travellers; whether with Homer, on a spring morning, we sat down on the many-peaked Olympus, or, with Virgil and his compeers, roamed the Etrurian and Thessalian hills, or with Humboldt measured the more modern Andes and Teneriffe. Thus we spoke our mind to them, standing on the Concord cliffs.

A New Yorker Best Book of 2022 A New England Indie Bestselller A New York Times Best Book of Summer, a Wall Street Journal and Town & Country Best Book of Spring “A gorgeous reminder that walking is the most radical form of locomotion nowadays.” —Nick Offerman “I think Thoreau would have liked this book, and that’s a high recommendation.” —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature On an autumn morning in 1849, Henry David Thoreau stepped out his front door to walk the beaches of Cape Cod. Over a century and a half later, Ben Shattuck does the same. With little more than a loaf of bread, brick of cheese, and a notebook, Shattuck sets out to retrace Thoreau’s path through the Cape’s outer beaches, from the elbow to Provincetown’s fingertip. This is the first of six journeys taken by Shattuck, each one inspired by a walk once taken by Henry David Thoreau. After the Cape, Shattuck goes up Mount Katahdin and Mount Wachusett, down the coastline of his hometown, and then through the Allagash. Along the way, Shattuck encounters unexpected characters, landscapes, and stories, seeing for himself the restorative effects that walking can have on a dampened spirit. Over years of following Thoreau, Shattuck finds himself uncovering new insights about family, love, friendship, and fatherhood, and understanding more deeply the lessons walking can offer through life’s changing seasons. Intimate, entertaining, and beautifully crafted, Six Walks is a resounding tribute to the ways walking in nature can inspire us all.

A Literary Guide to the Mountains of New England Commentary by William Howarth Walking with Thoreau features Henry David Thoreau's writings on nine New England mountains. William Howarth's illuminating commentary, printed alongside Thoreau's text, allows the presentday hiker to retrace Thoreau's footsteps up some of New England's most popular mountain destinations.

No matter where you are in the great Northeast, there are bound to be excellent walking trails. No matter where you are in the great Northeast, there are bound to be excellent walking trails. This collection of 50 of New England’s can’t-miss hikes takes you from the relatively flat lands and easy rambles of Rhode Island to prime hiking real estate in Connecticut; from challenging terrain in the Pioneer Valley and Berkshires of Massachusetts to breathtaking seaside treks in Maine’s Acadia National Park. Find great hikes to the heights of New Hampshire's White Mountains and over to the verdant Green Mountains of Vermont—all the best hikes in New England are no more than a few hours from each other, so you'll want to keep this guide close at hand.