Update 2023. I tried to read this book again, but I could not finish it. Sometimes bill Bryson is brilliant in his comedy, but it other times he is too stupid for words. I just have a correction to make. Bill Bryson had actually said that if you see a bear, run. It will give you something to do during the last 7 seconds of your life. Old review was written in 2017. It follows.I read this book long ago and so don't recall much other than his comments in the beginning about bears. He had decided, if I recall correctly, "If you see a bear, run, it will be the longest five seconds of the last of your life."

After this I began reading books about the Appalachian trail and also those about people living in the mountains, well, I did that in my youth as well. I guess I have a hillbilly heart.

I am too old now to walk the trail, and I don't see well in wooden areas. Maybe if I got a miner's hat. But I am afraid of bears, and I no longer run, but that would probably be a good thing.

My husband an I went to Yellowstone but only drove through it. I was actually afraid of meeting a bear and wanted out of there. Then we parked and checked out what people were looking at and about 500 feet away there was a bear and 2 wolves fighting over an elk. I wanted to walk over to it, but I knew it was not a good idea, but I read that people do this, can't help themselves.

If I had walked the trail like Bryson did, I would want to be with a group of 20 people for safety. But, hey, my sister and niece and I drove through the Smokey Mountains during the changing of the leaves, and I saw the trail from our car. Does that count?

I admit though, there is a better book than this, but not as fun to read, AWOL on the Appalachian Trail. And I have a fe at home that I haven't begun to read, and a two volume book on the Appalachian Mountains that I haven't even cracked open.

Due amici, che non sono nemmeno tanto in confidenza tra loro, decidono di attraversare per intero il famosissimo Appalachian Trail un sentiero di 3.400 chilometri che attraversa gli Usa dalla Georgia al Maine passando per quattordici stati americani.

Quello che stupisce, considerando che questa è una storia vera, è la quasi totale incompetenza dei due escursionisti e mi ha dato anche un po’ fastidio la loro impreparazione tecnica e atletica, non è in maniera così sprovveduta che si dovrebbe affrontare la montagna.

Il libro però è carino, divertente forse proprio per la leggerezza con cui i due si muovono, poi c’è la carota dell’incontro con l’orso quello americano il temibile Grizzly e il lettore, io almeno, spera sino alla fine che questo incontro avvenga anche per movimentare un po’ il percorso dei due, ma purtroppo il faccia a faccia tanto atteso, quanto temuto, non si verifica, forse un espediente nelle mani di Bryson per tenere più desto l’interesse di chi legge.

Se si ha desiderio di evadere, di respirare un po’ di natura, il libro assolve lo scopo ma, pecca di una certa ripetitività.
Questo sentiero, sarà anche famoso, ma le montagne che si incontrano non riescono mai ad uguagliare, nemmeno lontanamente la bellezza maestosa e verticalmente rocciosa delle nostre patrie Dolomiti.

After I finished listening to this book, I was grateful I had not read it before my son went off to walk the Appalachian trail by himself. Unlike Bill Bryson, he completed the whole trail, for which I am in awe.

I enjoyed walking along with Bill and his friend. He did describe in detail all the dangers that awaited the hikers. He included lots of background information, whether it be about bears or the terrain.

I know I will never hike the AT. I don’t ever see myself roughing it like these hikers do. But, I would love to visit some of these areas- The Shenandoah for one and do day hikes to get a feel for some of the trails my son traversed.

An enjoyable listen- the narrator, Ron McLarty, was excellent!

3.5 Stars.

Published: 1998.

Well, scratch the Appalachian Trail off my bucketlist.

Bryson sets off to walk the Appalachian trail with only an extremely overpriced backpack (packed with equally ridiculously expensive gear), an old "friend" that he hadn't talked to in years and a will to find his next story. He quickly realized that the months of preparation he conducted (and the lack of months his friend prepared) were not nearly adequate. But on the plus side, he certainly found his story.

As always, I absolutely enjoyed his signature sense of humor. Despite wandering around half crazed with fatigue, he still took the time to pen his quirky musings:

n  Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old.n

Joking aside, this is a brutal trail (no matter what Cheryl from Wild may say. Her little pot-shots against The Appalachian Trail were not justified). The sheer willpower it takes to slog through ten to twenty trail miles a day simply boggles my mind.

n  Distance changes utterly when you take the world on foot. A mile becomes a long way, two miles literally considerable, ten miles whopping, fifty miles at the very limits of conception.n

I was weary just reading it - and he already most of the monotonous bits from his story. I appreciate how reading this allowed me to adventure vicariously and decide (most definitely) that I will never hike such a trail.

Even part of it.

n  I'm not touching that thing with a ten-foot polen

I'll stick to my wood-chipped half-mile paths in the local park, thank you very much.

Audiobook Comments
---Am a smidge annoyed that he did not narrate his own autobiography (well micro-autobiography of a trail adventure (are micro-autos a thing?))
---Narrator (Rob McQuay) was great though. No complaints other than it wasn't Bryson.

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Bill Bryson sees the world differently than the rest of us. His observations are by turns funny, insightful, wistful, and scathing, but mostly funny. He has a way with a turn of a phrase that makes you smile at the same time it pulls you into the scene. He will tell you about his aching legs, aching back, thirst, and exhaustion in a way that is funny and sarcastic and self-deprecating. You can feel his pain but you smile at the absurdity of the situation he has gotten himself into.

Even though he laughs at himself for being so out of shape and for his ignorance of the required hiking and camping gear, he managed to complete 800 miles of the trail, which is no laughing matter. It takes serious dedication to slog along mile after mile, day after day, through all kinds of weather. For the reader the payoff comes in his descriptions of the people he meets and the changing scenery of the Trail. He can, in a few sentences, get right to the heart the matter, whether it is describing a mountain, a campsite, or a fellow hiker.

In addition to being a great observer of people and things, Bryson has a natural curiosity for the history of his surroundings. I liked that he included sections on the making of the trail and the towns along the way. The book became more than just a memoir of a hike; it became a kind of travelogue of the parts of the country he passed through, some of which were very interesting.

The funniest person in the book is his sometimes hiking partner Katz, but I was never sure whether he was an actual person, a composite of several people, or a fictional foil made up by Bryson to show readers what not to do. If he was a real person it might have been better for Bryson to hike alone, which is never recommended. Katz was irresponsible and had fits of petulance where he got tired of carrying the heavy gear and so just threw it into the woods, including things like food and other essentials. This is not someone you would want to have to rely on if things go badly. Bryson says he looked high and low for a hiking partner, and implies that he took Katz because he could not find anyone else, but if so he should have kept looking.

My brother hiked the entire trail one year, an impressive feat. He sent us a picture of himself taken on top of Mount Katahdin, thin as a rail, fit as a fiddle, and bearded like an Old Testament prophet. He says you get into a rhythm as you go along, just one foot after another, 5,000,000 times. The image of the Trail that sticks in my mind is not of majestic vistas but of a dirt path about eighteen inches wide, with greenery packed in so close you could only see a couple of feet to either side. This is a narrow, almost claustrophobic view. Now, imagine passing through that for weeks at a time. It takes great dedication to make that hike.

Bryson is not to everyone’s taste, and sometimes the humor stretches a bit thin. Still, I have enjoyed most of his books. You are sure to learn something about offbeat places and people, and, who knows, you might even learn something about yourself in the descriptions you read.

I wanted to like Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail. Not sure what I was expecting from this—perhaps more about hiking on the actual AT and the reasons Bryson made this trek—but I was mostly disappointed. It read like a series of travel brochures: here’s the history of the region on this section of the trail, and now another…There was much more attention devoted to towns along the route than hiking the actual trail. It was also disappointing that Bryson noted the historical stereotypes of Appalachian people and casually confirmed their stupidity without any real interaction (not once but many times). The smugness of his remarks was irritating. I still would like to hike the AT, but Bryson did little to illuminate what it’s really like to hike the trail except to offer that it’s not what most people expect.

My dad and I love this book. It speaks of a real relationship a friendship with the american outdoors and a candor with its people; humorous surprising, enlightening. A great read.

3.5 stars

Let me begin this review by pointing out that this was a buddy-read with my fake-adoptive daddy-dearest, Paul. And if we had actually taken a walk in the woods together, he would have left me to the bears. Paul, this one's for you. *evil grin*


This book is about a middle-aged guy, the author, suddenly having the idea to walk the Appalachian Trail. In Germany we call that a Schnappsidee. Don't get me wrong, I myself LOVE hiking and nature, especially woods. What I hate is people, typical city dwellers, who think they can conquer the earth but balk at the very idea of a few leaves rustling. You know, people who run around screaming as if Godzilla was after them, making a little squirrel feel damn proud and self-important.

That was the author at the beginning of the book. He read all kinds of literature about bear attacks, diseases and murders in the history of the Appalachian Trail, working himself up until he had a fit and was generally panicking for no reason at all. Sure, you need to be careful but if you are being smart and reasonable, it's not that big of a deal! It was quite unnerving and annoying.
Then he went on to make the owner of an outdoor store very rich by being stupid enough to let himself be talked into buying shit nobody needs. *rolls eyes*

So we weren't off to a good start, Mr. Bryson and I.
Add to that his weird-ass travel companion, Katz, who was hopelessly out of shape. Now, for honesty's sake let me say that I wouldn't be able to hike over 2000 miles myself either (at least I wouldn't want to do it alone and would want someone with experience with me), but there is a difference between not being as fit as an Army Ranger and being as unfit as Katz obviously was. *lol* If Mr. Bryson helped the squirrel's self-confidence, then Katz helped that of a slug. At least in the beginning.

Interestingly though it was exactly Katz that made the trip so funny in my opinion. It shows in his way of dealing with certain encounters (humans mostly, but also that night-time visit of whatever comes to mind).

There were quite a few situations in which the dry humour and situational comedy were very enjoyable. Sadly, nothing laugh-out-loud funny, but still good.

Furthermore, the highlight for me personally was all the information Mr. Bryson put into this. I've learned tons about the Appalachian Trail (historically and biologically/geologically) and cannot believe the way people go about hiking in the US. I mean, I'm sure there are enough stupid Europeans too, but what the author described here, the encounters he and Katz had ... it's disconcerting (it would be immeasurably funny if it wasn't such evidence of incapacity).

Sure, without all the chapters containing actual information the book would have never gotten the required page count, but I love reading about history and geology and this was the perfect combination.

I was shocked and appalled when reading about the National Park Service causing the extinction of so many species of animals (fish, songbirds, foxes, ...) and going about their work all wrong (even today) and very saddened when reading about the extinction of the American Chestnut (to name just one tree species) due to an imported Asian fungus.
I was delighted when reading about New England having been 70% farmland and 30% woods back in the day, while now it's exactly the other way around.

I squealed with delight when the author confirmed (or was very cautious to do so) that tracks and droppings found were actually that of eastern mountain lions.
And I agreed with the author how awful it is when people go hiking but are carrying around laptops and all manner of other (most of the time useless) technology. #teamnature

Thus, this was quite a mixed bag for me. Enjoyable, sure, but not as funny as I had hoped after what other people told me about it. The most pleasing thing was how much both Mr. Bryson and Katz got into the whole hiking experience and being in nature and all. That was most notable when they had to split up for a while (you know, because of life) and the autor talked about how going everywhere by car revolted him so he started going on little hiking trips on his own.


I'd say this book gets a recommendation from me, not for the humour that supposedly made it famous, but because of the way in which the author makes you learn about a very important and beautiful part of the United States.

Going into this book, I really had no idea of what to expect from Bill Bryson. Even though I picked this book up based on Diane’s terrific review (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), I had never read the author before and let’s face it - blurbs on the cover only tell you so much. You have to read and live with an author’s prose to get a feel for it. As far as travelogues go, I don’t read many: Paul Theroux, Mark Twain and Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley are the only ones that come to mind. So I plunged in and I’m happy I did.

Finding a rich source of humor (Monty Python, Archer, S.J. Pearlman, Deadpool) is always like Christmas Day. For me, humor has always been the fuel to motor through tough times and Mr. Bryson delivers it by the tank full. This book has a score of laugh out loud moments all weaved into Bryson’s cultural and historical insights.

Bryson lived abroad for years and upon returning to the United States decided to hike the Appalachian Trail. The trail is over 2000 miles long and extends from Georgia into Maine. Along the way, Bryson discourses on subjects that range from the history of the Appalachian Trail, the neglect and incompetence of the Forestry and Park services, pre-Colonial botanists, the potential flame ball that is Centralia, PA, the temperature extremes of Mount Washington (NH), trees, the constant threat of getting eaten by bears or hogtied by hillbillies and, of course, the hike itself. The long, long hike.

My experience with hiking and outdoorsy stuff begins and ends with the Boy Scouts. For me, it was about smoking cigarettes in the woods, being able to indiscriminately pee on the local flora, fauna and the occasional fellow scout (the latter, accidently, of course) wearing the same clothes and not bathing for three days. “You packed extra underwear and socks, Ma? I hadn’t noticed.” “The tooth brush is green because I dropped it in the creek. Don’t worry, I used it anyway.”

If I were to go hiking today, I don’t think I would have picked the guy Bryson ended up with. Stephen Katz was overweight, needy, impetuous but funny. Kind of like hiking with my brother-in-law, minus the funny. The two are an unrivaled comic pair and their hiking adventures are a highly recommended read.

Follow the Appalachian Trail with Bill Bryson as he and an acquaintance from his past attempt to hike the entire 2,100 or so miles. The book is educational as well as entertaining, as Bryson cites the history and the ecology surrounding the areas that he visits. At the end of their journey (they only hike about half of the miles) Bryson has developed a life-long friendship with Stephan Kats, his hiking partner.

I've had this title on my to-be-read list for some time and finally picked it up. I have to say I was very disappointed. Especially after Bill and his walking companion get frustrated over the terrain they encounter early on and skip ahead some FOUR - HUNDRED miles to Virginia. It was very hard to push myself through after this point. The constant complaints about the trail, the forest, the locals, encounters with fellow walkers and the total lack of respect for the distance, and the woods (throwing cigarette packs and unwanted goods into the woods) left a very bad taste in my mouth. At one point, he gives reference to America's odd fascination with pristine wilderness and Europe's ability to marry the quaint countryside village with the natural beauty of the woods, which is fine, but begs the question: then why are you walking the AT? The information and history surround the AT kept me reading - although I'm almost sorry I did.

I have had 4-5 people tell me over the years that I ought to read this book, so after Jean read it I kept it around the house. And one evening when I had finished a book and wasn't all that sleepy, I picked this up.

And it made me very sleepy. Lots of sleepy nights with this selection.

Yes, and he's a good writer and this has a few nice little anecdotes.

But jeez, it's just not a very interesting or very good book, that's all. Let's see, it's by a guy who doesn't really like to hike (he'd rather be walking in England than hiking in the woods, which he basically says 10 different ways, creeps him out). Yet, he decides he wants to walk the Appalachian Trail and write a book about it. So he gets together with a fat, not-very-nice smoker, and then mostly writes about how strange other people are out on the trail.

In fact, the book mostly relies on our two heroes running into people that they find goofy -- or who they simply don't like and want to make fun of. Sorry, not all that gripping. For the record, I loved "Measure of a Mountain," by Bruce Barcott. But maybe that's because Barcott loved being in the mountains and expressed it well.