Recreational Wayfaring in the Mountains

Context Leaving home on a bike and arriving in China one year later. Walking the length of the Via Alpina with one’s family during the summer. Crossing the Moroccan Atlas Mountains in two weeks by alternately walking up and paragliding down. Getting out of one’s home to stroll around the neighbourhood for a few hours… These are some of the many practices that may be called recreational wayfaring. Wayfaring is a polysemous word that can refer, depending on the approach that is taken, either to a spatial practice, which can be recreational (Berthelot and Corneloup 2008), or to an intellectual exercise (Greisch, 2002). In both cases, at the core of its meaning, is the element of the detour – (it even appears as part of the title of the aforementioned collective work by Berthelot and Corneloup). In the case of the former (spatial detour), wayfaring refers to a trip that follows an itinerary planned out in advance, although it can change in response to unforeseen circumstances or desires, ...

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