I hiked the Appalachian Trail
Well, one mile of the Appalachian Trail.
Running from Georgia to Maine, the complete Appalachian Trail is roughly 2,190 miles.
So if I only hiked one mile of 2,190, can I really say I hiked the Appalachian Trail?
Distance, length, measurement, commitment, and time all matter when it comes to accomplishments and achievements.
But are these the best metrics to denote the spirit of travel, exploration, adventure?
Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos are set to blast themselves into space in the coming weeks.
But what exactly is the boundary of space?
Branson's Virgin Galactic is set to fly above 80 kilometers (or about 262,00 feet), which is the altitude the US recognizes as the boundary of space. In comparison, Bezos' Blue Origin flies above 100 kilometers (or about 328,000 feet), which is commonly known as the Kármán Line.
In the ultimate tin ear and failure to read the room move, Bezos's Blue Origin has dismissed Virgin Galactic's rocket-powered spacecraft as nothing more than a "high altitude airplane."
So the current status of the Branson / Bezos space race is down to, "That's not a rocket, that's an airplane."
Plus, "There's no sort of real international agreement" on the boundary of space, astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told CNBC, and his research argues that 80 kilometers is the most precise distinction.
Nevertheless, Blue Origin doubled down on its Kármán line view on the best tool for such things, Twitter.
"For 96% of the world's population, space begins 100 km up," the company said.
Okay, so let's agree that there is no agreement on where space is.
What about time?
The entire Blue Origin flight will be eleven minutes from reports, with just 30 seconds of that in space. The Virgin Galactic flight will take around 90 minutes, but I haven't found anything on the amount of time in space.
For context, the International Space Station is flying 399 kilometers above Earth.
Plus, the station has an international crew of six people who live and work while traveling at a speed of five miles per second, orbiting Earth about every 90 minutes.
So, in 24 hours, the space station makes 16 orbits of Earth, traveling through 16 sunrises and sunsets.
That seems like space to me.
However, the Travelers' Century Club (TCC) approach probably makes the most sense as a tool to best denote the spirit of travel, exploration, and adventure.
The TCC is a club for people who have visited 100 or more of the world's countries and territories.
The club has no requirements for how long the traveler must have stayed in a country to qualify. Anyone who has visited 100 or more of the world's countries and territories is eligible to join.
This seems to be the best measurement of travel, exploration, adventure. One must have presence.
Presence.
Presence is defined as the state or fact of existing, occurring, or being present in a place or thing.
In his must-read book On Trails, Robert Moor penned this about his thru-hike experience on the Appalachian Trail: "One of the chief pleasures of the trail is that it is a rigidly bounded experience. Every morning, the hiker's options are reduced to two: walk or quit."
Presence.
When Benton MacKaye envisioned the Appalachian Trail at the age of 21 while hiking the Green Mountains of Vermont, he saw a single trail connecting the entire Appalachian range from north to south across fourteen states.
MacKaye's trail had a bold vision to combat the jazz-loving and picnic-eating city dwellers.
The trial MacKaye concluded was "to organize a Barbarian mission" as a means to counter the Metropolitan invasion. The source of modern malaise, he believed, was civilized people who were no longer equipped to survive in nature. People need to get "back to the land," MacKaye wrote.
By 1971, when an interviewer asked him to state the Appalachian Trail's "ultimate purpose," MacKaye, then ninety-two and nearly blind, had whittled down his answer to Zen simplicity:
To walk
To see, and
To see what you see!
So if you have a chance to speed into whatever you think space is, visit a new country or territory, and hike one mile or 2,190 miles, the only metric that matters is presence.
-Marc
WHAT BRIGADOON IS WATCHING THIS WEEKEND
Flying cars will be a reality by 2030, says Hyundai’s Europe chief: Michael Cole says urban air mobility could free up congestion and help with emissions in cities.
Guardian
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s an electric sky taxi! The high-stakes race to provide the world’s first flying car has reached a fever pitch, but has also sparked allegations of dirty tricks.
The Times
Is ‘bleisure’ the future of business travel? Once the preserve of tech-industry freelancers, the blending of work and leisure travel is becoming increasingly mainstream.
Toby Skinner - FT
7 ways COVID has changed our world: The pandemic, and our reemergence from it, are reshaping the economy, government, and business in lasting ways. The Journal’s Heard on the Street team explores the ways the globe is transforming.
WSJ
Mbappé, culture, and the superstar curse: Why France lost on penalties – and why it may happen again.
Ben Lyttleton
Cycling is spreadsheets. Tennis is sitting down. I don’t need VAR to tell me football is the winner
Jeremy Clarkson - The Times
Naomi Osaka is talking to the media again, but on her own terms: The tennis superstar is guest-editing Racquet magazine and has written a cover essay for Time. What’s left for traditional sports journalism?
NYT
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-Marc
Curation + commentary by Marc A. Ross | Founder + Chief Curator @ Brigadoon
Brigadoon is Global Street Smarts
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