Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin

Of course I have similar worldview with nomadic existence with the demise of nomadic life, city life, sedentary life would come in place, meaning huge amount of human beings, technology, all of which is now probably working at the destraction of the human race. And he was quite sure that humanity was fragile, that we had maybe 100,000 years as Homo sapiens, but we may not have that much left, that we might disappear like other species have disappeared.

— Werner Herzog - Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin

Couldn’t you have experiences like that without walking? Why is walking so important to you as your mode of travel?

It’s how we are made as homo sapiens. We are biologically organized to cover distances on foot. That’s what we did for tens of thousands of years until we started to use horses, of course, until the mechanical age. And I would not call it “walking” because it’s not going out for a stroll or going out for a “power walk” or ambling in your city. It’s “traveling on foot.” You are reading the world, learning the essence of the world. Chatwin always liked my dictum: “The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.”

— Werner Herzog - The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot