CarpeVia can be used in so many different ways that don’t fit neatly into categories. Here are just a few examples:

 

Stories: Listen to a story that takes you for a walk with the action – sitting at the bar where the boxer drinks his beer, moving into the ally where he carves his name in the concrete. See it there?

 

Writing: One of our special ventures is a series of writing exercises you can plot along a walk.  At the first bench, describe the first sound you hear; at the second, write about a conflict from the other perspective; and so on. We’ve collected exercises from the best writing teachers of our time including Julia Cameron (of The Artists’ Way), Natalie Goldburg (Writing Down the Bones), Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird) and more. Grab a notepad and take an hour to yourself.

 

Facts: Interesting info that is brought to life within a location. This includes looking down at a city from a hill and seeing how many people are currently homeless in Sudan. Or using distance to get a sense of the timeline between the beginning of agriculture to Conventional farming to GMOs. Or use your town’s waterfront walk to plot the distance between planets in our solar system.

Learning: Using space to plot a speech you are trying to memorize. Studies show that if you can associate a fact with a place, you can more easily know it. So have a presentation coming up, take a walk around your block and plot it for yourself.