Whenever I am in a new city and have some spare time at hand, I go for a walk. Usually, I don’t even look where the sights are, I step on the street and turn right or left and walk.

I look at people, lives around me, delving into the local world often without even understanding the local language. These expeditions, diversions to another world, can last for hours.

In a new city, of course, I check that the phone’s battery is charged or at least that I have a paper map. Still, in many cases, I choose the direction and don’t worry too much.

For example, strolling in Barcelona is simple - the sea is on one side and the mountains in the other. The Diagonal passes through the grid of city streets - which I have been crisscrossing over the years.

Or take Manhattan where on my first trip years ago I ended up on the wrong end of 125th Street at two o’clock at night without a map and at that time also without a phone. The solution was simple - you walk from one end to the other, and you’re there.

At a time when Nokia invested billions in mobile maps to save people from getting lost, I asked one of their directors whether this could be a sad moment. I suggested there was something beautiful about wandering and getting lost. The Finnish engineer could not understand my way of thinking at all.

The thought of wandering is in stark contrast to our capitalist world.

That makes it even nicer to bring to market a product called flâneur, a wanderer.

Flâneurism is a subject of many books, and over the last century philosophers and writers have discussed its meaning and content at length. 

French poet Charles Baudelaire identified the flâneur in his essay The Painter of Modern Life (1863) as the dilettante observer. The flâneur carried a set of rich associations: the man of leisure, the idler, the urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street.

In the year of isolation, we can often only dream of the opportunity to wander in foreign cities. I am sure we will appreciate this opportunity in the coming years even more than before. 

Fortunately, flâneurism is not limited to foreign cultures - for a true flâneur; there are massive opportunities for discovery and experience in his hometown.

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If you agree that wandering should be raised to greater glory in our fast money-centric century, share the post and your own wandering experiences!