I have observed that the afterlife of those who have traveled much is very pathetic. True and sincere traveling is no pastime, but it is as serious as the grave, or any other part of the human journey, and it requires a long probation to be broken into it. I do not speak of those that travel sitting, the sedentary travelers whose legs hang dangling the, mere idle symbols of the fact, any more than when we speak of setting hens we mean those that sit standing, but I mean those to whom traveling is life for the legs. The traveler must be born again on the road, and earn a passport from the elements, the principal powers that be for him. You shall experience at last the old thread of his mother fulfilled, that he shall be skinned alive. His sore shoulder gradually deepened themselves that they may heal inwardly, while he gives no rest to the sole of his foot, and at night weariness must be his pillow, that so he may acquire experience against his rainy days.- Henry David Thoreau
from A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
