Editors Reads Verdict
One of the funniest travel books written in the past thirty years, and also a genuinely informative account of American wilderness, conservation history, and what it means to attempt something that is probably beyond you.
What We Loved
- Bryson's comic timing is immaculate — the double act with Katz is perfectly calibrated
- The natural history and conservation digressions are genuinely interesting and never feel like homework
- Honest about failure in a way most adventure narratives are not
- The Appalachian Trail is one of the great American places and Bryson does it full justice
Minor Drawbacks
- Bryson and Katz complete only a fraction of the trail — readers wanting a through-hike narrative should look elsewhere
- The comic voice is so consistent that the genuinely moving passages can be hard to locate
- Some of the historical digressions in the middle sections feel padded
Key Takeaways
- → The Appalachian Trail passes through fourteen states and most of America's most significant eastern wilderness
- → Bears are less dangerous than American trail culture suggests; dehydration and falls are the real threats
- → The AT's history is a story of visionary conservation that nearly didn't happen
- → Most people who attempt the full trail do not complete it — and this is neither failure nor surprise
| Author | Bill Bryson |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Broadway Books |
| Pages | 276 |
| Published | April 28, 1998 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Travel, Memoir, Humour |
| Difficulty | Beginner |
| Best For | Anyone interested in American wilderness, hiking culture, or Bill Bryson's particular brand of comic travel writing — accessible to readers with no hiking background and equally enjoyable for experienced trail walkers. |
Bill Bryson had been living in England for twenty years when he returned to the United States with his family and immediately decided to hike the Appalachian Trail — 2,200 miles of eastern American wilderness running from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mount Katahdin, Maine. He was middle-aged, not particularly fit, and had no recent hiking experience. He invited his equally unfit friend Stephen Katz, whom he had not seen for years and who had recently completed a recovery programme. They bought gear they did not fully understand and began walking north. A Walk in the Woods is the account of what happened, which was not the through-hike they had planned.
The book succeeds on two levels that Bryson manages to hold together without strain. On the first level it is a sustained comedy of incompetence: two overweight, under-prepared middle-aged men making elementary errors in one of America’s most demanding environments. Katz smuggles Snickers bars into his pack and discards half his equipment within the first days because it is too heavy. Bryson reads bear statistics at night in his tent and regrets it. A woman they meet on the trail, Mary Ellen, is one of the great comic supporting characters in travel writing. On the second level, the book is a serious account of the Appalachian Trail itself — its history, its ecology, the policy failures that have allowed American wilderness to be systematically degraded, and the extraordinary individuals who created it in the first place.
The conservation digressions are better than digressions have any right to be. Bryson’s account of how the American chestnut — which once made up a quarter of all Appalachian forest canopy — was entirely wiped out by an imported fungal blight between 1900 and 1940 is horrifying and moving. His material on the chronic underfunding of the National Forest Service and the political pressures that allow logging companies to operate within protected areas is the kind of journalism that ought to appear in major magazines. These chapters earn their place because the Trail is not separable from the ecosystems it passes through, and understanding what those ecosystems are and how they came to be makes the walk worth taking.
Bryson and Katz eventually complete about 870 miles of the Trail’s 2,200, spread across two attempts. The honesty about this — the absence of triumphalism, the straightforward acknowledgment that they gave up — is one of the book’s best qualities. Most adventure narratives require heroic completion; A Walk in the Woods is content to be a book about two people who tried something difficult and partially succeeded, and who found that the failure was as instructive as the achievement would have been.
Reading Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "A Walk in the Woods" about?
Bill Bryson returns to America after twenty years in England and decides to hike the Appalachian Trail — 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine — with his out-of-shape friend Stephen Katz. They complete a memorable portion of it.
Who should read "A Walk in the Woods"?
Anyone interested in American wilderness, hiking culture, or Bill Bryson's particular brand of comic travel writing — accessible to readers with no hiking background and equally enjoyable for experienced trail walkers.
What are the key takeaways from "A Walk in the Woods"?
The Appalachian Trail passes through fourteen states and most of America's most significant eastern wilderness Bears are less dangerous than American trail culture suggests; dehydration and falls are the real threats The AT's history is a story of visionary conservation that nearly didn't happen Most people who attempt the full trail do not complete it — and this is neither failure nor surprise
Is "A Walk in the Woods" worth reading?
One of the funniest travel books written in the past thirty years, and also a genuinely informative account of American wilderness, conservation history, and what it means to attempt something that is probably beyond you.
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