[throwanem]

Seconding long walks. It's easy! You just look around for something interesting, and let your feet carry you toward it - they know what to do, and they will if you let them. Repeat as necessary. When you start to run out of puff, look for interesting things nearer home than not.

Stay away from roads and sidewalks, if you can. Trees give shade, and shade is cool and pleasant and helps you husband your energy for finding interesting things, rather than sweating.

Keep your phone in your pocket. Keep your earbuds there, too. They put you somewhere other than where you are, and what's the point of that? Besides, you can't chat with people if your ears are blocked.

Chat with people. Say hello. Make eye contact. Exercise the social skills that help you make unplanned interactions mutually enjoyable. We don't do that any more. We should. Many fear it. Do not blame them. Give them the opportunity to overcome that fear, if they so choose. If they don't, leave them in peace. Another time, perhaps.

Pictures are okay, but be sparing. Use them when there's something you'll want to share. Don't use them so much that you forget why you want to share something. Me, I'm an amateur photographer. For me, pictures are often part of the point. Unless they are for you, too, use them as aide-memoire - not in place of it.

Cut through the woods. Go up hills. Go down hills. Go through streams, or over if they're narrow enough. Remind yourself of the simple pleasure to be had in using your body - jumping, climbing, shifting your balance to go down a 45° slope on your feet instead of your face.

Take chances. Don't shy away from decrepit buildings. Investigate them. There's always a way in, and it's amazing what's to be found there. Be aware of your environment, and be careful - not everyone you meet this way is friendly. But many are. Don't let fear hold you back, because you'll always wonder what you missed. And this life is transitory, anyway. Don't waste the opportunities that come along while you're living it.

Wear shoes, sturdy and comfortable as you like. You don't want the thing that holds you back to be that you'll tear up your feet if you go that way, either. For buildings, I recommend eight- or nine-hole logger boots - welted full-grain leather with good, arch-supporting insoles. Take care of them. They'll take care of you.

(I always wear boots like that. I may be biased in my recommendation. But they've stopped more holes than I can count from ending up in my feet. Wax polish, thinly applied, and buffed in long strokes with a damp - not wet - rag. No dress shoes ever looked so fine.)

Above all, enjoy yourself. Enjoy meeting the people and places you meet. Enjoy your environment, and the changes you make in it over the course of a day's peregrination. Enjoy the changes your environment makes in you. Enjoy not giving a fuck about email and parking. Enjoy the feeling of using your body, instead of just inhabiting it. Enjoy being where you are. Enjoy the ache of well-worked muscles and the stretch of your ribs as you breathe deeper than you can when you spend all day sitting down. Enjoy the deep sleep that comes of exhaustion honestly earned. Enjoy the fresh eyes with which you wake. Enjoy a simple pleasure no longer forgotten.

Enjoy!

[rimliu]

  > Chat with people. Say hello. Make eye contact.
  > Exercise the social skills that help you make
  > unplanned interactions mutually enjoyable.

But please, do not do it with me. I love walking and long walks (just this month I've done three ~40km walks). I fully agree with a few of your points (like keeping phone and earbuds away), but why does not concept of consent apply to chat? When I am walking it is kind of meditation for me and the last thing I want it for some random guy to start small talk. If one wants to improve social skills, why not to start by learning where small talk is appropriate and expected and where one should not do it?

"Unplanned interactions" is very annoying thing, and I guess that is true not only for me but for other introverts too.

[throwanem]

Well, one doesn't wish to be an importunate jackass, either - and avoiding that is a social skill worth having, too. You work your way up from eye contact, to a nonverbal or verbal greeting, possibly to conversation if there's a subject of sufficient interest to all parties - but probably not, unless you both happen to be walking the same way, at the same pace; you're more likely to get into a conversation at a bar or a café than while actually walking. You pay attention to your intuition for people and don't insist on yourself when you get the feeling it isn't welcome. And you don't belabor someone who's clearly not interested in playing along, save in rare exceptional circumstance such as frank physical distress.

I'm a strong introvert in my own right. I assiduously avoided unplanned interaction for years - I still do, often enough, when I've drawn heavily on my reserves and need to recover. But I no longer always avoid them, and I think I'm better off for that. I like to hope that, on balance, the people around whom I tend to turn up are better off for it, too.

(Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14889190)

[ForRealsies]

>"Unplanned interactions" is very annoying thing

Most on HN would find the most fulfillment in improving their social muscle, not their calves.

[throwanem]

Improving your calves is not nothing, though. Every day is leg day when you commute by foot!

(Now if only it were so effective for one's core and upper body...)

[magic_beans]

Do you hate unplanned interaction because it is unenjoyable for you? For most people, it's immensely pleasurable.

[magic_beans]

This was a really beautiful comment and I've favorited it to come back to. I wish I could run through the woods barefoot! If only I didn't live in city. But being able to move one's own body freely, unselfconsciously, and ensconced in nature.... one of life's greatest pleasure.

[throwanem]

That's very kind of you to say - thank you!

It depends a lot on the city in which you happen to live. Baltimore, for example, has a great deal to offer in the department of bosque, bower, glade, and verge - this, for example, was yesterday evening, halfway up a very tall hill that happened to be part of my route home du jour: http://i.imgur.com/84Q2mxu.jpg

(That said, you wouldn't catch me barefoot in any woods around here - for all that I grew up that way, the woods back home are not noted for their likelihood of putting broken glass or old masonry underfoot, while those around here are full of such things.)

Barefoot or no, it's definitely worth making the opportunity, if there's a way you can do so! On the other hand, if there are no handy woods nearby, there's a great deal to be said for making the most of the environment you find to hand. No matter where you happen to be - there are wonders all around you, just waiting to be found.