101 TRULY COMPELLING REASONS TO DO A LONG-DISTANCE HIKE

Pulled from The New Nomads blog

http://thenewnomads.com/?page_id=215

THE NEW NOMAD’S LIST OF 101 TRULY COMPELLING REASONS TO DO A LONG-DISTANCE HIKE

1. Confuse loved ones
2. Look for your purpose in life through solitude in nature.
3. Get time off work without having to feign illness
4. Puff out a flat butt
5. Lose weight
6. Gain respect and awe from others without having to really do anything other than walk around
7. Make people miss you
8. Make people worry about you
9. Bond with strangers you wouldn’t ordinarily even say hello to in passing
10. Good excuse to not bathe
11. Good excuse to talk and sing out loud to oneself
12. Let bad hair color grow out
13. Learn to value the little things in life
14. Only have little things in life
15. Learn to value and respect nature
16. Have mystical experiences
17. Easy to bluff mystical experiences to those at home
18. Easy way to disappear with secret lover
19. Meet soulmate
20. Unload soulmate
21. Wean yourself away from the poisoned nipple of modern media
22. Quality time with recently purchased $500 gadget
23. Hide from debt collectors, ex-wives, and angry roommates
24. Keep your adult children from moving back in with you
25. Put off adulthood
26. Create more empathy with the homeless
27. Learn to accept help from others
28. Learn how to balance a pack on your head
29. Develop an admirable tolerance for wet and cold legs
30. Finally get to listen to a song all the way through to the end
31. Create your own religion
32. Make yourself qualified to write a book
33. Join interesting community of people who are just as antisocial as you are
34. Interesting blog topic
35. Find Yourself
36. Find God
37. Find cool things left behind by other hikers
38. Make peace with the voices in your head
39. Avoid being constantly tempted by ice cream
40. Learn to simplify
41. Learn how complex protecting a bag of M & M’s can be
42. Be judged not by the amount of money you make, but by the weight on your back
43. People just have to take your word for it when you tell them where you are
44. Become intoxicated with beauty
45. Become intoxicated with exhaustion
46. Become intoxicated by idle thoughts of hot water
47. Create a 3rd use for the Power Ranger costume
48. No reason
49. Nothing better to do
50. Empty nesting
51. Avoiding nesting
52. Way to stretch unemployment check
53. Raise money for charity
54. Become a charity
55. Squatting is good for developing balance
56. Break Facebook addiction
57. Release from the claws of culture
58. Ample meditation time
59. Orgy of tree hugging
60. Excuse to wear nothing but tights
61. Breathe clean air
62. Create natural dreadlocks
63. “hobo” = “athlete”
64. Inspire excitement over 10 for $1 ramen noodles
65. Belong to the earth
66. Belong to nothing
67. Belong to whoever has chocolate
68. Discover yet another 10 uses for duct tape
69. Save gas
70. Pay no utilities
71. Become more in tune with a natural existence
72. Able to not look at yourself in the mirror for many months
73. Restore feeling of love for life
74. Learn how to eat wild plants without dying
75. Great opportunity to practice otherwise useless skills learned at scout camp
76. Low exposure to electromagnetic fields
77. No chance of drunk texting anyone
78. Confront and overcome fears of the dark, animals, death, storms, and loneliness
79. Fun
80. Acquire an unflattering nickname based on a stranger’s misperception of your primary qualities
81. Develop some mighty fine looking legs
82. Get that look in your eyes
83. Give your mother an actually real reason to worry about you
84. Learn to live high on convenience store fare
85. You can completely change your personality and blame it on “What happened out there”
86. Great excuse to avoid commitment in relationships
87. Learn the distinctions between fine granolas
88. Eat absolutely whatever you want with no ill effect
89. Can practice many variations on the lyrics of “Tom’s Diner”
90. Acquire stories to share for a long long time
91. Justify purchase of expensive camera
92. Take your mind off anything challenging going on in your life
93. Learn perseverance
94. Potential for pranks on other hikers are varied and numerous and almost always invite use of your Diablo voice
95. See men in kilts without going to Scotland
96. Redefine cleanliness, hunger, and entertainment for yourself
97. Gape in awe at the amount of useless things you own when you return home
98. Learn to sink into a night sky
99. Gain survival confidence
100. Get a groove in your move

BUT MOSTLY:

101. Get SANE