Rules for walking in 2025

Sauntering and safety in the years ahead

Spoiler alert: If last week’s Mind The Moss story on walking as a form of protest was an aspirational piece, then this story is the thornier, more complicated sequel. It’s the necessary reality check that sets in after a big and thrilling idea has been hatched. In the best instances, that reality check is a humbling, which allows you to find a way to realize the big idea. Today, we’re going to look at walking safety in 2025 and beyond.

Now, when I say “walking safety,” I’m not talking about evergreen considerations like wearing reflective clothing after dark or recruiting a walking buddy for areas that feel too uncomfortable for solo sauntering. Instead, we’re going to focus on walking risks that are relevant to this current moment and likely to get worse in the near future. And we’re also going to reckon with the harsh reality that “risk” is not going to be universal.

It’s not lost on me that as a 6’4 tall white man publishing a newsletter about walking in big cities, the countryside, the suburbs, and the occasional place where you have to climb over a wall, what seems accessible to me is not necessarily the best yardstick for measuring what will feel manageable to a wider audience. Some contemporary walking risks are things that I can speak to directly, as a walker who has experienced this stuff things firsthand. That will be the basis of my three “rules” for walking safely in 2025. But there are additional risk factors that I cannot write about through my own experiential lens. For that, I am going to introduce you to a couple of authors who can.

Rule #1: Listen to the land…and your gut

Nine years ago, I was working on this documentary project that never quite took flight. Those of you who want the full strange story are welcome to reach out, but the whole thing eventually led me to the woods in Estacada, Oregon—about an hour southeast of Portland. I was there to interview the founders of a ramshackle eco village deep in the forest, and after 36 hours of being immersed in the village, I felt like was starting to lose my grip on reality. So I excused myself and I went for what I thought would be a head-clearing walk on the long, grassy access road we had taken deep into the woods.

What I had forgotten is that a mile or so down from the eco village, there was a house within sight of the road; a house that brought to mind the home of the cannibal family in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It wasn’t that the house looked creepy in any way; it was the fact that this lonely house was all the way out here, in the middle of nowhere, and there was someone living in it. As we had driven past the place on our approach to the eco village, one of the founders had referred to the owner as “a real bastard,” and from the safety of our car, this hadn’t remotely fazed me. But as a solo walker following the access road and remembering that I was heading toward the house, I started to get intrusive thoughts. What if this guy had security cameras set up along the road? What if he had a rifle mounted on the porch? And what if he had me in the crosshairs and was just waiting to see if I would step off the road onto his property?

And then, a sound from the landscape pierced through these troubling thoughts; the bark of a dog, somewhere in the vicinity. I immediately turned around and retreated.

In general, when walking through less familiar territory, it’s a wise idea to keep your ears unblocked. Leave your earbuds at home, save the EuroVision playlist for more familiar territory, and take stock of any sounds that stop you dead in your tracks. If you can identify the source and it’s relatively harmless, continue onward. But if you can’t and your gut is telling you let’s get the fuck out of here, listen to it. Head back.

Why is this important in 2025? Well, it’s pretty simple. A fascist won the presidential election, and he won after running on a platform laced with xenophobia, racism, and misogyny. He won by encouraging people to indulge their most poisonous instincts and lean into grievance, animosity, and paranoia. These sentiments are going to be more concentrated in some places than in others. You won’t always be able to to tell when you’re walking in one of these hot zones. So, be mindful of your surroundings.

Rule #2: Anticipate the demented drivers

In last week’s story, I wrote about how automakers are designing bigger and deadlier cars, and how some states are making it easier for drivers who hit pedestrians to get off the hook. It’s pretty alarming stuff. What I didn’t touch on as much is how drivers themselves are doing these days. The answer, as far as I can tell, is “Not Very Well.”

The last four 4-5 years have been tough on many of us, the current year will introduce new challenges and stressors, and a lot of drivers seem to be taking out their anxiety and anger on the roads. Lots of us have noticed trends like more drivers running red lights or doing 80mph in the exit lane. But sometimes driver behavior crosses a line that leaves you at a loss for words. These days, when I use a crosswalk and there’s a car stopped before it, I carefully peek around the front of the car. Why? To make sure that the vehicle behind that car isn’t going around it and plowing into the crosswalk. I know, it sounds insane, but drivers are pulling moves like this. I’ve watched it happen.

Last summer, I actually witnessed this move while using a crosswalk! I didn’t get hit by the rogue Kia Soul, thanks to my safety method described above, but I did shout some expletives at the driver, whose window was rolled down. And the driver hit the brakes, with a screech that sounded too cinematic to be real. He started getting out of the car. Once again, I made like A Flock Of Seagulls and I Ran. If you encounter a driver doing something stupid, hopefully you can do a better job of containing your rage than I did. But sometimes you can’t help but shout or swear when adrenaline is involved. And if that happens, my advice is to leave the scene and do not look back.

Rule #3: Beware the lawns

In general, Americans have an intense relationship with the idea of private property. The concept of one’s home as a castle inspires all kinds of investments; from more decadent indulgences like a swimming pool in the shape of a Fender Stratocaster, to darker designs such as electric fencing, motion-activated floodlights, and big dogs that have been specially trained to nip intruders in the nuts. But the real risk factor here is the reality that millions of property owners in America are also gun owners.

This creates considerable risk in any climate, but at a time when so many Americans are on edge, the danger becomes more substantial. Even the most innocent misstep onto someone else’s propety can end horribly. In 2023, a teenager named Ralph Yarl was shot in the head for ringing the wrong doorbell. Upon being arrested, the 84 year-old shooter claimed that he assumed he was about to be robbed when he saw Yarl, a Black teen, at his doorstep. Yarl survived the shooting, but that same year, a young woman named Kaylin Gillis was shot and killed after her friend drove their car down the wrong driveway while searching for another friend’s house in upstate New York.

Walking through residential areas like a tony suburb or a little town may initially seem “safer” than walking in the woods or the desert. But as some of us know all too well, a residential area poses more potential for human-to-human interactions, and while this is often a good thing, some of those interactions might take a bad turn, real fast. And given the mood of the moment, my approach to avoiding these interactions is going to involve being extra careful about treading onto private property. If I stumble upon a patch of birch woods at the edge of town and there’s no signage indicating that public access is allowed, I’m going to see if I can identify the woods on Google Maps. And if I can’t verify the ownership status of those woods, then I’m going to avoid them.
The same goes for temptations like sitting down for a snack on a little stone wall that runs along the sidewalk and the edge of someone’s lawn. Instead, I’m finding a bench.

It sucks to have to be so mindful of hair-trigger property owners these days. I *really* hate having to write this. But the best outcome for any walk is coming back from it.

And there you have the extent of what I believe I’m qualified to offer, when it comes to walking safety “rules” for 2025. From here, I strongly encourage you to read the linked insights below, from authors who have dealt with walking risk factors of a more racial and gendered nature. Their writing and the ideas within will resonate with some of you on a personal level. However, those of you who don’t have to grapple with these risk factors should read the stories too! Because one of the first and most crucial steps toward making walking safer for all walkers is understanding what some of us have to deal with, when venturing out for a walk….and realizing how some of us might be perpetuating these risks without knowing it. Only then can we actually improve things.

For Melanin Basecamp (a publication I recommend reading regularly), Shameyka McCalman interviewed Girls Fight Back CEO/Owner Nicole Snell about how to stay safe when solo hiking. While Snell’s suggestions are primarily rooted in more rural territory, they could have some utility in more residential areas as well.

For Ark Republic, David Summers took a Facebook post of his that went viral and adapted it into an essay about what it’s like to walk through a white neighborhood when you’re a Black walker. It’s not just a story about things that materiaized. It’s about the things that were missed. The things that couldn’t be savored.

For Metro, Tanyel Mustafa wrote a roundup of practices that men can adopt to make women feel safer when they’re walking alone; especially after dark. Whether it’s being mindful of spatial distancing or making some noise to announce your presence, these are things that ought to be common sense for men. Alas, they’re still not.

When I chose “Walking into a better world. Literally.” as the new tagline for Mind The Moss, I was tempted to tack on one additional word. Together. Because sharing our walking experiences with each other can yield better things to come; like a culture of having each other’s backs. On the streets, on the trails, and in the places in between.

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As some of you might have noticed, I removed the Mind The Moss subscriber paywall for the month of January to celebrate the kickoff of Mind The Moss transforming into a walking newsletter. This publication is 100% supported by readers just like you who choose to become paid subscribers. This support is what makes it possible for me to do this work, and to keep much of Mind The Moss paywall-free going forward. If you enjoy my writing and find value in it—and if you’d like to help keep the fire going—take a moment right now and become a paid subscriber yourself. It’s very appreciated, it’s the equivalent of buying a latte or a cheap draft beer once per month, and it will give you ideas for where to wander (and how to wander) through the stormy times ahead.

Also, speaking of “places in between,” I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment in this week’s newsletter to commemorate the recent passing of David Lynch. There are a few filmmakers whose movies sparked my infatuation with film, and David Lynch is most certainly on that list. Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Eraserhead, and of course Twin Peaks opened my eyes to the strange, hidden worlds that exists just beyond our field of vision. I may not have followed Lynch into film, in pursuit of those worlds, but nevertheless, he shaped my approach to writing about walking and the great outdoors in general. If I had never met David Lynch, I probably would have done something else.

To close us out, here’s a song from one of his many collaborators. A dreamlike elegy.