A Template for DIY Pilgrimage and Backyard Adventure: Lessons from an Urban Thru-Hike in Portland
Lessons about DIY pilgrimage, backyard adventures, and urban thru-hiking from a really long walk in Portland.
top of page
blog
I'm trying to save the world so I apologize for any typos.
Search
Tim Mathis
- 7 min
The DIY Pilgrim: A checklist for transformative travel based on age-old pilgrimage principles.
In this series of articles about the GAP Month, I’ve pulled together core concepts to help you, dear reader, organize a travel experience...
Tim Mathis
- 16 min
Go alone, but take people with you: Individual pilgrimage as a community endeavor.
Reflections from the Pacific Crest Trail about pilgrimage as both a solo endeavor and a community event.
Tim Mathis
- 13 min
Travel is my church: Using ritual to turn your trip into a pilgrimage (Go on, make it weird!)
I know "ritual" can seem creepy, but embrace it. Do odd things. Watch your trip become life-changing.
Tim Mathis
- 14 min
How to travel with intention: Deciding what your trip is going to teach you
It feels weird to talk about things like “setting intentions for your transformational journey," but such is life.
Tim Mathis
- 9 min
Why do people go on adventures? It's so simple that even a child could understand.
Adventure serves the same purpose for adults as play does for children: to learn to be human.
Tim Mathis
- 13 min
Pilgrimage means finding a place with a good story and moving your ass towards it.
We've introduced the concept of a GAP Month as a reliable framework for transformational travel. In short, it's a month of goal-directed...
Tim Mathis
- 11 min
Take a month off and it'll change your life: Messing things up enough to make a difference.
If you’re going to travel, you might as well do it right. (Right?) That's why we're here. This is part two in a series on the concept of...
Tim Mathis
- 2 min
84 of the world’s best long distance pilgrimage and adventure routes.
File under: GAP Month inspiration. We’re serving 1997 Angelfire realness around here, so I made this unwieldy in-no-particular-order...
Tim Mathis
- 8 min
The GAP Month: How do you make travel life-changing?
The GAP Month: How to design your own transformative travel experience, based on centuries of pilgrimage wisdom.
Tim Mathis
- 13 min
Taiwan Cycle Route 1: What English-speakers need to know to bike around Taiwan.
11 things you need to know to have a great time on Taiwan Cycle Route 1. This article is a “Part 2” of a series on Taiwan Cycle Route 1....
Tim Mathis
- 20 min
Why biking Taiwan Cycle Route 1 was the virtually perfect trip.
If you’re going to devote time and money to a trip, you want it to be good. Life-changing if possible. A lot of places in the world have...
Tim Mathis
- 10 min
12 Books that Define Dirtbag Culture (and a few more that should)
Books that have shaped outdoor and travel culture into what it is today.
Tim Mathis
- 14 min
Ghost sighting: Crybaby Bridge, West Alexandria, Ohio. June 22, 2022.
It seems like there’s a Crybaby Bridge in every small town in the Midwestern United States. I don’t normally go for that stuff, but I...
Tim Mathis
- 13 min
This year I decided to become a writer
A lot of tragic creative stories go something like this: “I always loved writing/painting/singing/sculpture but no one believed in me and...
Tim Mathis
- 8 min
Kurangaituku: The case to make a surreal Maori myth the next book you read.
Kuragnaituku is the best book you almost definitely haven't heard of (yet).
Tim Mathis
- 16 min
Seattle music history, by way of artists that I've behaved strangely around.
It would be hard to argue that it keeps up with the London’s and the New York’s of the world, but considered purely in terms of per...
Tim Mathis
- 10 min
The Hero’s Journey: Narrative therapy to write yourself out of a dark black hole.
How you can use the Hero's Journey to write your way through your problems.
Tim Mathis
- 14 min
The Old Dogs of Olympus
The gods may be long gone, but there's still magic on the climb to Mt Olympus
Tim Mathis
- 9 min
Everything I need to know about New Zealand’s pandemic response I learned in a bar in 2018
A story about the social fabric that made New Zealand strong enough to beat Covid.
bottom of page